The average employment rate for college graduates has dropped slightly, according to survey results released by the Ministry of Education on Thursday.

Of 555,142 students who completed college and graduate school in August 2012 and in February this year, 59.3 percent landed a job immediately after graduation, slightly less than 59.5 percent a year ago.

Sungkyunkwan University posted the highest employment rate with 69.3 percent among four-year colleges with more than 3,000 graduates. Korea University was ranked second at 69.1 percent, followed by Seoul National University of Science and Technology with 67.2 percent.

The ministry on Thursday also disclosed the list of 35 underperforming colleges that will not receive financial support from the government next year.

The selected schools ranked in the bottom 15 percent of the ministry’s annual assessment of the nation’s 337 tertiary educational institutions.

The ministry collected the data from 172 four-year colleges across the nation and posted 46 detailed evaluation scores of the schools at www.academyinfo.go.kr.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)