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Konkuk University. (Yonhap News)

Amid increasing calls for South Korean universities to refund student tuition because of the COVID-19 crisis, Konkuk University has essentially agreed to reimburse a portion of tuition fees, following three months of negotiations with students. As the first example of a pandemic-related tuition refund, the next question is how this will impact other universities.

“The university administration and the student council convened a tuition review subcommittee to discuss the demand for tuition refunds. The two sides have agreed to apply part of the tuition paid for the spring semester to the cost of the fall semester,” Konkuk University said on June 15. Under the final agreement, students who attended the spring semester will be given an academic scholarship for use in the fall.

The two sides haven’t reached an agreement on what percentage of tuition will be covered by the scholarship, though a university official suggested that the decision would be made this week. The university is also expected to draw up a separate refund plan for students who won’t be returning after the spring semester.

The COVID-19 crisis has driven university classes online and blocked students from enjoying typical educational services, including the use of campus spaces. Students have argued that this infringes on their right to study and called for a partial refund of their tuition.

But universities and the government haven’t come up with an acceptable solution, insisting that universities aren’t in a financial situation to refund tuition and that there are no legal grounds for providing such a refund. The Korean Council for University Education went so far as to suggest that, if the government eased the restrictions on the use of its university innovation support fund, that money could help cash-strapped universities give students special scholarships. The government said such a plan had nothing to do with a tuition refund, but has apparently been pushing to ease the use restrictions.

Given this situation, the agreement at Konkuk University is significant in the sense that university administrators and students managed to work out a tuition refund through direct dialogue, irrespective of the government’s decision. The student council proposed to the university administration in April that they discuss the issue in the tuition review subcommittee, which led to eight rounds of deliberations. When the students called for a budget expansion, administrators agreed to marshal all funding that hadn’t been spent because of the coronavirus. That means that funds allocated for academic scholarships but not disbursed when the university stopped grading on a curve in the first semester are available for tuition refunds.

A student advocacy group called Coronavirus University Students 119 issued a statement on Monday urging university students to take action. “This will set a precedent about the possibility of tuition refund — something that numerous universities have said is impossible,” the group said in its statement.

But aside from Konkuk University, it seems that hardly any universities have taken up the tuition refund issue in an official capacity.

“Universities need to move proactively to resolve this issue through a temporary tuition review committee or other official channels, as Konkuk University has done,” said Lim Eun-hui, a researcher at the Korea Higher Education Research Institute (KHEI).

“Setting aside the COVID-19 crisis, this conflict is rooted in a lack of transparency in university operations and in the ‘beneficiary pays principle,’ under which education is regarded as a service, universities as providers, and students as consumers,” KHEI said in a statement on June 12.

The National University Student Council Network plans to hold a relay march from the Ministry of Education to the National Assembly. The six-day march, which was scheduled to start on Monday, is aimed at calling for government action on tuition refunds.

By Choi Won-hyung, staff reporter

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