Li Han
School of Business' 09

 

 Recently, Korean students who attend private colleges made a strong demand for reducing the cost of college tuition by half. Because I attend Chungbuk National University, I thought that I’m lucky to pay the relatively cheaper college tuition than those students. When I looked at the colleges, which are located in China, I found that China’s college tuitions are cheaper than Korea’s. For example, one of my friends who is a student at a Chinese private university has annually paid 3,400,000 won as college tuition. You can guess that she has paid 1,700,000 won as college tuition each semester. When I consider that the average tuitions of Korea’s private universities touch the level of 3,000,000 won, I think that the tuitions of China’s private universities are relatively cheaper than Korea’s. Similar to China’s private universities, China’s national university tuitions are also cheaper than Korea’s . The average tuitions of China’s national universities are 500,000 won.

 

 

 

 However, what I want to say to you is that Chinese students have difficulty working part-time to pay for the college tuition. Korean students also work part-time while they are in school to pay for their tuition. I could often witness that they dozed off in class. I even heard that some students who are in private school apply for a leave of absence from school because they were not able to pay the expensive tuition. In addition, Korea’s minimum hourly wage is 4,350 won, and I think that the wage is too low if students try to pay for the college tuition. Similar to Korea’s part-time hourly wage, China’s part-time hourly wage is very low. Suppose that a Chinese student in a private university works part-time in a restaurant for 5 hours every day. He(or she) will receive 180,000 won monthly and if he(or she) works for 3 months, he(or she) will receive 540,000 won. This wage is far from enough to pay the college tuition of 1,700,000 won.

 

 Meanwhile, I heard that the Korean government enforced the system of scholarships to reduce the student’s tuition burden. China’s government also enforced the system of scholarships to help students financially. The government selected almost 45,000 students all over the nation and provided the students with the scholarships. Moreover, the government additionally provided the high-performing students with almost 1,800,000 won for each person.

 

 Also, recently, the Chinese central government and local government jointly made different scholarships. Those scholarships target students who are poor but excellent in their studies. The governments provide the students with 900,000 won for each person every year, and they are expected to increase the sum of money to 1,440,000 won.
 
 I hope that Korea’s university students and Chinese university students all can study without the burden of high college tuition

 

Lee Ha-na l hn32@cbnu.ac.kr