Blame it on the economy or blame it on the Korean increase in homeland English education, the facts are in, Korea is spending less on foreign education.  The English Chosun newspaper reports:

In the first half of 2008, Korean expenditures on education and language training abroad fell by the biggest margin since the 1997 financial crisis. According to a Bank of Korea report on the balance of international payments released Sunday, Koreans spent US$2.256 billion on overseas training in the first half of 2008, down 5.8 percent, or $138 million year on year. This is the biggest drop since the first half of 1998, when comparable spending posted a 35 percent fall.

Spending on overseas training has risen by 30 to 40 percent on average, every year since 2002, when the Korean economy began recovering from the crisis. But the upward trend slowed for the first time, hovering at 16.3 percent during the first half of 2007. The rate then turned downward in the first half of this year. - Chosun

This year Korea has implemented many new educational features that may play in the decrease in the educational migration: more foreign teachers in the public schools through programs like TaLK, and promises of increased English education time.  Other educational promises include foreign teachers in every public school, and the opening of an English education complex on Jeju Island. 

However, if you examine the Korean Won with the Euro over the past year and a half, you can see that there is over a 20% drop in the Won’s value.  This drop makes tuition and living expenses that much more difficult in foreign countries.  Further, like most Asian countries the past year, has been hard hit by inflation.  BBC News reports in May:

Consumer prices in May were up 4.9% from a year earlier - the strongest growth since June 2001.
Economists had expected the annual rate of inflation to hit 4.3% in May, up from April's level of 4.1%. - BBC News

The combination of inflation and the decrease in the Korean Won’s value has had serious impact on the Korean households.  The Korean education reform may be the preferred alternative for most middle class homes.