Korea National Open University(KNOU) has a successful history as the first and the largest distance education center in Korea since its foundation in 1972. However, KNOU is faced with several difficulties recently. One of the major difficulties is the sharp downward trend in the registration rate of the newly enrolled students. In this paper we analysed the contribution of orientation, study group, the lecturer, tutoring and professor’s email to the registration rate in the fall semester. The results showed that the study group, the lecturer, tutoring, and professor’s email contributed to the registration rate significantly. However, there were differences between the freshmen and the transfer students and also between the students at Seoul regional campuses and one of the local regional campuses and also between the students in the department of early childhood education and the students in the department of economics. Based on the results we recommended a couple of suggestions to help the new students to continue their studies in a distance education system.

registration, study group, email, tutoring, orientation, lecture by attendance