Tag: tuition

If you are an international student in South Korea you will once again be paying more for tuition this year:

Amid what they say are financial struggles, local universities are relying on international students in their decision to raise international student tuition. 

This year’s hikes for international students are in sharp contrast to tuition for domestic students, which has been frozen for the last 15 years. 

Major universities in Seoul, including Chung-Ang University, Hanyang University, Sogang University, Sungkyunkwan University, the University of Seoul and Yonsei University, will raise tuition for international students by up to five percent this year, according to those in the education circle.

The main reason for the tuition hikes for international students is government restrictions on raising tuition for domestic students, they say. According to Korea’s Higher Education Act, tuition increases cannot be more than 1.5 times the average increase in consumer prices during the three preceding years, meaning that tuition for domestic students can only rise by up to 4.05 percent this year. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

If you are an international student at the University of Seoul expect to pay double the current tuition rate:

Controversy has arisen over the University of Seoul’s plan to nearly double the tuition fees paid by foreign students starting next year. 

Some students and members of the general public say the sudden hike is unfair and taking advantage of a minority group at the school. However, others say the school’s tuition fees are kept artificially low through subsidies from taxpayers and it is improper to provide such a benefit to foreign students who do not pay taxes.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but according to the article students at the University of Seoul have their tuition cut in half with the subsidy from taxpayers. Tuition is roughly $906 a semester with the subsidy meaning international students will pay twice that rate which is still extremely affordable compared to tuition rates in many U.S. universities.

Another example of the expansion of the entitlement culture.  Fortunately the ROK Supreme Court shot down this attempt to make parents responsible for paying for the tuition of their adult children:

Parents do not have custodial duties for adult child, the top court has ruled.

The Supreme Court set the rule with a case in which an adult son filed a suit against his divorced father, demanding he cover the cost of studying in the United States.

The court rejected the claim, stating that the father was not obliged to look after his adult child.

The father-son dispute dates back to 2010 when the father’s second son fled to the U.S. at age 15 for study, without his father’s consent. The father refused to support the son there, including school tuition and other living costs.

The parents divorced shortly afterward, with the mother given custody and the father obliged to support their basic life.

In 2016, the son filed a suit against the father, demanding that he pay 140 million won ($123,000) to cover tuition and living costs at a prestigious university to which he was admitted in 2014.

The son claimed his father was obliged to support him financially because “an increasing number of children make their living with money from their parents.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.