Gov't urged to support colleges to refund tuition

University students from Gyeongsan in North Gyeongsang Province hold a press conference at Gyeongsan City Hall, calling for tuition refunds, in this June 2 photo. Yonhap

By Bahk Eun-ji

The government should consider taking steps to make it easier for universities to refund tuition fees, after classes were disrupted by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the National Assembly Research Service (NARS) said Tuesday.

It also suggested that the Ministry of Education and other related agencies change their method of calculation, including levying tuition fees according to the cost of education so that they can be refunded easily ― over the long term ― in preparation for other potential infectious disease outbreaks.

“Most professors do not have enough experience in remote classes, so they were conducted with students watching existing video material or submitting assignments,” said Cho In-sik, a researcher at NARS.

Cho pointed out that students' satisfaction with the current online university classes was low, and the infrastructure for online classes was insufficient.

“The learning management system (LMS) that elementary, middle and high school students used for online classes was not sufficiently built, and there were no teachers or tutors to provide feedback on discussions and tasks,” he said.

According to data submitted to NARS by the Ministry of Education, the average annual tuition per person for a four-year national university is 4.18 million won ($3,461), more than five times that of national cyber universities' 756,000 won. Meanwhile private university tuition, at 7.48 million won annually is about three times more expensive than private cyber university tuition at 2.55 million won.

The current University Tuition Regulations also provide the basis for university students' tuition refund demands as there is a clause that says, “If it is deemed difficult to pay tuition due to natural disaster, tuition fees can be exempted or reduced.”

Cho pointed out that the government needs to review ways to support students through consultations with universities, students, related experts, organizations and relevant ministries regarding the demand for refunds by students who have been receiving online classes.

“There are differences in the financial condition of each university, so it could be difficult for all universities to uniformly refund the tuition paid by students. In a sense, it is necessary to review the support for students to the extent that the university can afford, and the government also needs to consider how to secure the budget to support the students,” he said.

Due to the continued COVID-19 outbreak, most universities here postponed the start of the spring semester by one or two weeks and even though they resumed classes, many have been replacing on-campus classes with online ones. However, the comparatively lower quality of online classes has led more students to demand tuition refunds, while universities have claimed that they cannot afford to return tuition fees due to a deterioration in their finances because of the decreasing number of international students, the cost of quarantine work on campus, the establishment of a remote class infrastructure and the operation of facilities such as dormitories and restaurants.