SEOUL—Lee In-ji, a 21-year-old college student, found herself flirting with a young man recently.

“You have nice skin,” she told him, despite a reddish complexion suggesting otherwise. The young man cracked a wide grin. “I’ve never been told that before,” he said.

Ms. Lee wasn’t hoping for a date—she was gunning for grades at Dongguk University’s “An Introduction to Dating.” The course, one of several dozen now offered at South Korean universities, teaches the basics of love in a country that’s convinced more schooling can solve many of life’s problems.

What she told her classmate “was a total lie, but no big deal,” Ms. Lee says. “It worked!”

The world isn’t lacking in romantic advice, judging by the covers of magazines, online matchmaking services and “pick-up artist” boot camps taught by self-proclaimed experts. Grades-obsessed South Korea has added a new twist by making the exercise literally academic, down to professors, grades, college credits—and, yes, the risk of flunking.