Medical School Tuition Nears W10 Mil.
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
The average annual tuition for private medical colleges has come close to 10 million won (about $10,900).
Tuition for private medical school students averaged 9.4 million won this year, up 7 percent from 8.8 million won in 2006, according to a report Sunday by Rep. Choi Soon-young of the Democratic Labor Party.
The College of Medicine at Korea University took first place with 10.8 million won, followed by Gachon University of Medicine and Science with 10.7 million won and Yonsei University's medical school with 10.6 million won.
A total of nine private medical schools nationwide charged more than 10 million won.
The amount is significantly higher than those of other departments.
For private college departments, other than medical schools, students paid an average of 6.9 million won.
Among state-run universities, the College of Medicine at Seoul National University charged the highest at 8.3 million won, much higher than the national universities' medical colleges average of six million won.
Choi claimed that fresh measures would be introduced to ease the financial burden of medical students and provide better education services.
``It is time to consider introducing measures in which annual tuition fees do not surpass eight percent of a household income,'' the lawmaker said. ``The government should increase financial support for private universities so that the ration of tuition in the school's budget can be lowered to under 30 percent.''
Currently more than 77 percent of the private schools' budget is generated from tuition fees and 89.4 percent for community colleges.