Korea expands college tuition subsidies

The government and the ruling party agreed Thursday to set aside 1.5 trillion won ($1.3 billion) in next year’s budget to help ease the heavy college tuition burden.

The agreement came at a meeting among the Grand National Party and the finance and education ministries.

The money will be used to set up national scholarships for students from low-income families.

Ministry officials said that the assistance is expected to decrease the nominal college tuition by five percent for all students and by 22 percent for the bottom 70 percent income group whose annual income is under 51 million won.

Under the plan, half of the fund will be made available to students from families in the bottom 30 percent income group and the other half as subsidies for students in the bottom 70 percent.

Students from households belonging to the lowest income bracket are expected to receive 4.5 million won per pupil annually. Half the amount will be offered to those from the bottom 10 percent with an annual income of 8.2 million won.

“The government will continue its efforts to reduce the tuition fee burden for college students and also consult with lawmakers as the tuition assistance plan will not become a one-time measure. At the same time, we will urge universities to come up with their own ways to lower the high tuition,” said Education Minister Lee Ju-ho.

“The universities that do not make their own efforts will not be able to receive scholarship support for students in the bottom 70 percent income group,” said Lee Ju-young, chief policy maker of the GNP who attended the Thursday meeting.

But the benefit will not be applied to the 43 universities recently blacklisted for poor management and the schools that voluntarily didn’t participate in the national inquiry, most of them religious schools. Students from the poorest 30 percent of households still can receive state-aided national scholarships regardless of school evaluation.

College tuition fees have increased at almost double the inflation rate over the last five years. In 2010, the average college tuition was 7.5 million won for private schools and 5 million won for public schools.

With the skyrocketing college tuition fees, students have called for measures to halve tuition fees, holding rallies nationwide.

Political parties have proposed plans to increase the government’s expenditure to reduce tuition fees since June this year, but securing the source of government funding has been a source of contention.

With the effort to reduce tuition burden, university restructuring efforts have been underway since July. The Education Ministry blacklisted 43 universities with poor management on Monday and applied some restrictions in providing government subsidies and student loans.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)