The purpose of this study is to analyze the changing process of Korea’s university lifelong education policies from 2008 to 2017 using Kingdon’s multiple stream framework. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, the ‘problem stream’ consisted of indicators such as population fluctuations and job status, feedback from the process of pursuing the lifelong education policy, and public conflicts surrounding the lifelong learning colleges. Second, The ‘political stream’ was analyzed as a regime change through elections and a national atmosphere emphasizing lifelong learning for economic growth, and a university reform. Third, The ‘policy stream’ changed from emphasizing links with local governments and the provision of programs to reforming the system of the entire university. And these alternatives have been analyzed to change without being accurately validated for ‘technical feasibility’ and ‘value acceptability’ criteria. Forth, The mechanism that sparked the ‘policy window’ was ‘regime change’, and the role of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ was mainly the ‘government’. However, in the case of the secondary changes, the main cause of the change was the ‘conflict between the government and stakeholders’, and the role of policy entrepreneurs was analyzed as informal groups. These findings show the importance of ‘political stream’ and the irrationality of policy-making in the process of changing university lifelong education policy. Accordingly, the importance of consensus and understanding in policy making was discussed.