Bad Economy Forces College Students into Leave of Absence
By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
Kim Hye-mi, an engineering student, has been in college for six years. She has taken a leave of absence for a semester various times, in order to save money for tuition fees.
Kim is one of many college students here suffering from the economic recession. According to Incruit, a job market information provider, four out of 10 college students are considering temporarily leaving school due to tough job market conditions and the heavy burden of tuition fees.
According to the survey of 561 college students, 40.3 percent, or 226, said they plan a leave of absence from school this year. Among them, 61.1 percent had left school for a spell in the past.
One out of four said they are considering leaving school because of the tough job market. Those who are forced to temporarily leave school due to the tuition burden totaled 11.6 percent.
Nearly 60 percent said they will leave school for a year, while around 35 percent chose to leave school for a semester, or six months. They responded that they would find an internship, study a foreign language or prepare to get a professional license to build up a competitive edge in the job market.
The country experienced a similar phenomenon when the country was hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Students quit school and many others chose to fulfill their military service.
The number of students going abroad for foreign language training, meanwhile, plunged, as a weakening of the won added to the financial burden. The Bank of Korea reported Monday that spending on studies or training abroad totaled $167.7 million in November, down 51.1 percent from a year ago. The drop is the biggest since January 1998, when the Asian financial crisis saw it drop by 61.7 percent.