OMONA THEY DID(N'T)!

Controversy has arisen over the University of Seoul's plan to nearly double the tuition fees paid by foreign students starting next year.

Some students and members of the general public say the sudden hike is unfair and taking advantage of a minority group at the school. However, others say the school's tuition fees are kept artificially low through subsidies from taxpayers and it is improper to provide such a benefit to foreign students who do not pay taxes.

The university held a tuition review committee meeting June 11 and decided to raise the fees for international undergraduate and graduate students entering next year by 100 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

The University of Seoul, an affiliate of Seoul Metropolitan Government, introduced "half-price tuition" in 2012 under former Mayor Park Won-soon to relieve the financial burden on students and parents amid rows over high tuition costs at colleges here.

Since then the tuition for students in the humanities and social science department has remained at 1.02 million won ($906) per semester, regardless of a student's nationality, which is less than half of most of other universities in the country.

( Read more... )






Omona, do international students in your country pay for more school? At my old college, nonresidents can pay up to double the tuition at some schools.


source: The Korea Times

Universities here are suffering from falling enrollments as the number of people at the age to enter higher education has been declining in line with the nose-diving birthrate in the country.

While the decrease in new enrollments started at colleges in remote areas about a decade ago, now schools in Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area ― relatively prestigious ones with higher competition for admissions ― are facing the same dilemma.

According to the Korea Council for University Education, Tuesday, 162 universities nationwide failed to meet their student enrollment quotas for the upcoming 2021 school year that will start in March. Usually a student applies for multiple schools, and if more than one accept the student, the student must choose between them, leaving the other schools needing to fill the vacancy.

Hence, the 162 schools are trying to select 26,129 students additionally to fill the vacancies, among those who initially failed to get admissions. This additional recruitment is nearly three times higher than the previous year's 9,830.

( Read more... )






If I were an incoming Freshman, those incentives at Daegu Haany University sound good to me. Where are you applying to, Omona?


source: The Korea Times

A transgender student has been admitted to a women-only university for the first time in Korea. Sookmyung Women's University said Friday the 22-year-old student, who undertook a sex change operation last year, passed the entrance examination for its law department and will commence studies in March.

"There are no regulations banning transsexual students from entering the school," a university official said.

( Read more... )





source: The Korea Times

The average one-year tuition for English-only kindergartens here is 11.59 million won ($9,660), nearly double the average tuition of domestic universities (6.71 million won) and even higher than that of medical schools (9.63 million won). Nevertheless their number has increased by 41 percent over the past two years on the back of unwavering demand for early English education for children among deep-pocketed families.

While many of the kindergartens are in Seoul's affluent Gangnam area, those in Incheon, Jeju Island and Busan also flourish.

( Read more... )





source: The Korea Times