 Job seekers line up for their turn to receive consultations from job placement officers at a Seoul employment promotion center in December last year when the financial crisis was peaking. / Korea Times |
Tight Job Market Drives Graduating Students Into Harsh Reality
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
A 23-year-old junior at Sung Kyun Kwan University, Lee ― he requested that only his family name be used ― , is struggling to chart his way through college and plan for life after graduation.
Like 40 percent of college students, he has relied on student loans to pay tuition, set north of 3 million won (about $2,100) per semester, and his experience with higher education has so far resulted in a debt pushing near the 10 million won mark.
Also weighing down on his heart are recent statistics showing that the jobless rate among college graduates is in bad shape.
So he has chosen to apply for the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), the military's college-based officer commissioning program.
``Now, I know that I am getting paid after graduation, which will help me repay my loan more quickly,'' Lee said.
``I don't know if the military is a long-term option for me, but at the same time, I don't want to run around looking for jobs with debt on my back. It's getting harder to earn money, with quality part-time jobs becoming scarce, and private tutoring jobs a lot less available as parents reel in their spending.''
If Lee is frustrated that money problems are sucking much of the fun out of college life, he should get in line ― and it's a very long one at that.
According to a survey of 976 college students by job-search Web site Incruit (www.incruit.com), more than 41 percent of respondents said they rely on student loans, overdraft protection and other types of lending to cover their tuition costs.
About 30 of the students said they support themselves by taking jobs between classes and asking for help from their parents, while nearly 23 percent of them said their parents pay their entire tuition.
Nearly 80 percent of the students said they experienced varying levels of stress to come up with tuition, with 9 percent of them even suffering stress-related illnesses.
Although most of the universities in Seoul decided to freeze tuition for the year, pressed by the government to help reduce household spending on education, students are still claiming that they are paying too much for their classes.
And schools producing bands of debt-ridden graduates doesn't bode well for a country that is expected to lose more than 500,000 jobs this year alone. The National Statistical Office (NSO) said Tuesday that as many as 257,000 jobs have disappeared through the first two months of 2009.
According to figures by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, tuition at the country's private-owned four-year colleges and universities rose from an average of 5.77 million won in 2004 to 7.38 million won in 2008, which represents growth of more than 27 percent.
The schools have been raising tuition by 5 to 7 percent each year, compared to the growth in overall consumer prices, which rose between 2 to 4 percent during the period.
Students also complain about the 7.3 percent interest rate for student loans is significantly higher than the interest rates of conventional bank loans, which now fall in the 4 percent range.
With more and more students experiencing financial trouble, schools like Yonsei University are allowing students to pay tuition by credit card.
However, with the schools' partner banks charging commissions of 8 to 20 percent on the credit card payments, based on payment plans, students are hardly impressed.
``It's just a matter of picking your poison ― the schools are acting like loan sharks and making business out of poverty,'' said Lee Ho-yeon, a Yonsei University student.
The high tuition costs are becoming an increasing social problem in a country where around 80 percent of high school graduates go to college or university.
And the suicides of financially crippled students and parents are becoming something of an early-year ritual.
Last month, police found the body of a 29-year-old former Korea University student on an embankment of the Han River. According to family members, the man, identified only as Jeong, quit school in 2006 after failing to pay tuition fees and had been struggling to get a job since.
Jeong's death followed last month's suicide of a 20-year-old college student in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, who hanged herself due to similar tuition troubles.
thkim@koreatimes.co.kr
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