SOUTH KOREA: Universities will be asked to cut fees

South Korean universities are autonomous bodies that set their own tuition fees and the government will "request" them to lower fees that have become among the world's highest, sparking major student protests in May and June, a vice-minister has said.

The ruling Grand National party announced in late June that it would cut tuition fees by 30% by 2014, beginning with a 15% reduction next year. This is well below the 50% drop demanded by protesting students.

But Korean Vice-minister for Education Seol Dong-Geun indicated that the government might not be able to impose the reductions it promised last month without the cooperation of the universities.

"We will ask them [the universities] to reduce fees. The problem is that tuition fees went up without taking into consideration inflation rates or the quality of education. It was more of an autonomous act by the institutions which resulted in one of the highest tuition costs in the world."

Some universities have shown signs of movement on the issue.

Seoul National University is reportedly considering a plan to waive fees for low-income students from September. Of 16,325 undergraduates at the institution, up to 2,000 could benefit, according to university officials.

Yonsei University also plans to boost scholarships from 31% of total tuition fee income to 40% within five years, while Gangwon Provincial College said it would abolish tuition fees by 2014, surviving only on subsidies from the provincial government.

But this is far from the countrywide action required.

Seol pointed out that there were other major areas where the government could play a more direct role. "We should give more support to students who don't have the opportunity to learn, who are from low-income classes," Seol told University World News while attending a meeting of ministers and high-level officials as part of the International Education Forum and Expo in Hong Kong on 14 July.

Education ministry statistics show that government scholarships accounted for just 4.4% of total public education costs, compared with the average for OECD countries of 11.4%,

"Maybe we can incrementally start by funding these [low-income] students and then ultimately lower the costs," he said, shedding light on the government's strategy which effectively pushes the across-the-board lowering of tuition fees to a later stage of its higher education restructuring plans.

Another reason for rising dissatisfaction among students is high graduate unemployment, indicating that degree courses no longer appear to 'deliver' well-paying jobs to justify the huge expense. Graduate unemployment is officially 10% to 20% but some professors say it could be as high as 50% for the newest graduates.

The number of university students rose from 1.59 million in 1999 to 2.03 million in 2010.

"Korea has a high rate of university access of 80% and we have a high number of universities, and this has led to unemployment among highly educated people, so we have to also look into restructuring universities. That is one of the core things we are looking into, and making sure that they are effective in how they manage their finances," Seol said.

He was referring to large amounts spent by universities on new buildings rather than on delivering quality education or keeping tuition costs down.

"We are looking at whether tuition fees are being used for education at the universities or for scholarships or financial grants for low-income families. The problem is that universities have instead been reserving those funds to spend on construction and new buildings and so forth, and so effectiveness in how they manage the financial resources is important.

"Because they depend too much on tuition [fees] to operate the universities there is a need to diversify financial resources, for example providing tax benefits for companies that donate money to universities," he added.

The education ministry said recently that it would carry out a fully-fledged university restructuring in the second half of the year, which could include mergers and shutdowns of poorly-performing private colleges, and student reductions in public institutions.

Few details have emerged on how any fees reduction will be financed or implemented. "First of all, we have yet to have the final bill passed by congress to have any powers to look into it," said Seol, who spoke to University World News through an interpreter.

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yojana.sharma@uw-news.com