By Kim Se-jeong
More and more universities are planning to offer scholarships to needy students rather than those with a high academic performance.
While some say the new standard will help underprivileged students, others argue it is reverse discrimination against hard-working students.
The change from a merit-based scholarship to a need-based one is driven by universities, which say it is important to help students’ with financially difficulties and it is also the schools’ role.
On Oct. 14, Korea University President Yeom Jae-ho announced a plan to abolish all performance-based scholarships from 2017.
“The purpose of giving scholarships is more than rewarding students with good scores,” Yeom said. “As an educator, I believe the goal of education is to find ways to nurture all talented students, especially those in need of help.
“In the long run, awarding a scholarship to those with good scores will disappear, and we view that as the right thing to do.”
Under the same goal, the school also plans to provide impoverished students with monthly living expenses.
Other schools are making similar moves. Ewha Womans’ University began abolishing some of its performance-based scholarships last year. Sogang University has been doing so for years. The Korea Student Aid Foundation, the government-led scholarship program, is also awarding poor students more than smart ones.
However, students who have received performance-based scholarships are upset.
“I am sad because it sounds like those who can pay tuition have no access to any form of scholarship at all,” one said on the Internet. “It will discourage students from studying harder.”
Opponents also argue that those in need already receive assistance from the schools, foundations and government. The government-led scholarship program selects 2,000 students in the low-income bracket every year and pays their tuition. And almost all universities have a financial aid program for such people.
Those in favor of the new measure argue that it should have come earlier.
“I think those who can win the performance-based scholarships are relatively well-off than those who have to earn the tuition by themselves and thus have less time to study due to working part-time jobs,” A Korea University student surnamed Kang said. “The former can continue studying without a scholarship, while the latter can’t continue education without it.”
To adopt the need-based scholarship programs, some say schools need to guarantee fairness of their poverty assessment ― in other words, how to precisely measure household incomes.
There have been reports of people who are not financially struggling receiving need-based scholarships.
The debate on this also added to the discussion of affordable university fees. Many argue that these are excessively high, and this has led to students’ calls for financial support from either the government or the schools.