Universities are desperate for money but still won't raise tuition

Some universities are freezing tuition for domestic undergraduates, despite struggling financially, for fear of losing government funding.

A university's tuition bill [YONHAP]

University students have become a bit more understanding of tuition increases as universities struggle financially, but schools are reluctant to hike tuition for domestic undergraduates for fear of losing government funding.

“We do understand the need to raise tuition,” a student representative of Sogang University said during a tuition review committee meeting on Dec. 28, according to the minutes. “Students want to learn from talented professors in a nice educational environment.”

The university did freeze tuition for domestic undergraduate students for the 2024 academic year, a decision agreed upon by six out of the nine tuition review committee members. The student representative was one of the three that disagreed with the freeze.

Tuition for international undergraduates and both domestic and international graduate students was raised by 4 percent.

“The current graduate school tuition isn't expensive, and a 4 percent rise isn't high considering the inflation rate,” another student representative said during the meeting.

During Seoul National University's tuition review meeting on Dec. 27, the student representative did ask for a freeze. However, the student added that they understood that securing a new source of funding would be necessary to keep tuition the same.

“As a student representative, you can't really be the one asking for a tuition raise,” said a member of a student council at a private university in Seoul who is part of the tuition review committee. “But if the school really needs to raise tuition, they can persuade us on how the additional revenue will be used for students.”

Students have become more accepting of price hikes as tuition for domestic undergraduates has remained same for a long period of time.

Tuition for domestic undergrads is the only type that is regulated by the Higher Education Act, which states that the tuition can't be raised by more than 1.5 times the average increase in consumer prices over the three previous years.

Although universities can implement a rise within the cap for domestic undergrads, the government has been trying to keep such hikes minimal. Since 2012, it has been offering funding for the Type II National Scholarship only to universities that freeze tuition for domestic undergraduates.

Tuition for international undergrads and both domestic and international graduate students isn't part of the funding scheme, which is one of the reasons why some universities hike rates for those students only.

“When the funding for universities that froze domestic undergraduate tuition was first implemented, student representatives would literally storm out the room when the tuition review committee even tried to mention raising tuition,” a vice president at a private university in Seoul said. “Now, student representatives know that universities are financially troubled and hesitate to refuse when a tuition increase is suggested.”

Dong-A University froze undergraduate tuition for domestic students for 13 years. But it implemented a rise in the 2023 academic year, as it needed to upgrade facilities.

“Some of the students were telling us to raise tuition so the bathrooms could get fixed,” said Lee Hae-woo, president of Dong-A University. “The projectors in our classrooms had bad resolution because we could only keep on repairing them [rather than buying new ones] and we couldn't buy new lab equipment used at the college of engineering even if they were very old.”

Dong-A University got additional tuition revenue of 5 billion won ($3.7 million) in 2023 by hiking tuition by 3.95 percent for undergraduate students and 3.86 percent for graduate students, both international and domestic.

It lost just 2 billion won of government funding by doing so, netting a profit overall.

The Education Ministry set its tuition increase cap for domestic undergraduate students at 5.64 percent for the 2024 academic year, which is the highest in 13 years. But despite room for a big increase, universities are still hesitant to raise tuition.

Seven out of the 10 national flagship universities still decided to freeze undergraduate tuition for domestic students for the 2024 academic year. The remaining three are discussing freezes.

One factor is that universities fear the Type II National Scholarship isn't the only type of funding they might lose.

“There are concerns that we might be penalized in other government-funded projects such as the Glocal University 30 project if we raise tuition [for domestic undergraduate students],” said the head of planning at a university in the Yeongnam region that was not selected for the Glocal University 30 project. “At the end, raising tuition could make us struggle even more.”

The Yeongnam region refers to Busan, Daegu, and North and South Gyeongsang provinces.

A private university in Seoul discussed raising undergraduate tuition for domestic students by 2 percent in its first tuition review committee meeting but chose to freeze it in a second meeting.

“We did take the Education Ministry's request [to freeze tuition] into consideration,” an official at the university said. “But we did make the final decision by also considering the needs of our students.”

Although universities feel pressured, the Education Ministry says it will not levy additional penalties.

“The only government-funded project that is affected by universities' decision to freeze tuition or not is the funding for the Type II National Scholarship Program, and anything other than that has no connections at all,” a spokesperson for the Education Ministry said. “The Education Ministry is trying to help universities' financial situations by increasing the budget that can be used to fund higher education institutions and giving them more autonomy.”

BY CHOI MIN-JEE, LEE GARAM, LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]