By Jung Min-ho
Controversy has been rising over making a Seoul City-run college free of tuition, after Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said he is seriously considering it.
The plan, which comes four years after the city government adopted the “half tuition” policy for University of Seoul, may be good news for students who suffer because of high tuition costs. But some others criticize it as a “populist” idea from one of the strongest contenders for the 2017 presidential election.
During his social media broadcast “Won-soon’s X-File,” Thursday, Park said he will seriously consider waiving tuition fees for all students at the college from 2017.
Regarding necessary budget, he said the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) certainly can do it by saving costs in other areas.
“More of tax money needs to be invested in the future of young people,” he said.
On his Facebook page the next day, Park made it clear that what he said was not a whim, noting that it is a matter of priorities and all it takes is political will.
The comments from the political heavyweight were met with mixed reactions from students and politicians.
The audience at a Seoul private institute, from which the broadcast was aired, cheered for the idea, but the reactions from the University of Seoul students were not entirely positive.
Shin Ho-in, president of the school’s student body, said the issue of tuition fees is not the biggest concern for most students, who are more worried about their outdated educational facilities, a shortage of residential space on campus, and citizens’ reckless use of campus facilities. “Some students say all these problems came as the tuition was halved. We are confused by the mayor’s policy,” he wrote on Park’s Facebook.
He said Park should communicate more with students before adopting a new policy.
Kim Yong-suk, a city councilor of the People’s Party, also criticized the mayor for bringing up the issue without a sufficient review process.
In a media statement, Kim said, “The cost of making the college free is expected to be about 80 billion won ($72 million) for the next four years. If the policy idea was for next year, he should have reviewed it thoroughly first.”
Reducing the tuition fees for students at the University of Seoul was one of Park’s campaign pledges for the by-election in 2011. Today, according to the Ministry of Education, its tuition is 2.39 million won a year, among the lowest in not just the city but the whole country.
Since he took the wheel of the SMG that year, Park has adopted welfare policies that earned him both avid fans and relentless detractors who constantly try to paint him as a populist.
Most recently, the SMG’s policy of providing 3,000 young people with monthly subsidies of 500,000 won to help them find work drew fierce opposition from the ruling Saenuri Party. In response, Park said his policies come from “realism” rather than “populism” on his Facebook page last month.