This study empirically investigates the impact of household income on students’ access to quality higher education in Korea. Using the Korean Education and Employment Panel (KEEP), this study finds positive impacts of household income on the likelihood of attending top 30 Korean universities and four-year universities. Most previous studies could not adequately control for academic achievement of students before they advance to higher education. The KEEP dataset provides each student’s official SAT score, which is crucial to understanding the mechanism of how family background translates to difference in higher education quality.