hankyoreh

Students collect their lunch trays at a cafeteria at Kyung Hee University in Seoul’s Dongdaemun District in March 2023. (Yonhap)

As of 2023, the total cost of university education from admission to graduation, including not only tuition but also housing costs and other living expenses, was 97.4 million won (US$72,200) for students at private four-year universities in Seoul. It would take the average household one year and eight months to save up that much money, assuming they didn’t spend a single cent on anything else. And given recent signs that university tuition will be rising, the burden of a university education is expected to grow even heavier.

Yoo Ki-hong, a lawmaker with the Democratic Party on the National Assembly’s Education Committee, published the second edition of “The Cost of Life as a University Student” on Tuesday in collaboration with the Korea Higher Education Research Institute. The updated report estimates the cost of studying and living for a student living alone at a private four-year university in Seoul, with costs divided into five categories: university admission fees, tuition, housing costs, living expenses and job search expenses.

The expense calculations assume that a student spends five years in university, including a one-year hiatus from studies or delayed graduation. The conclusions were based on data from a parliamentary audit whose findings were solicited from the Ministry of Education, Statistics Korea’s “Economically Active Population Survey,” and the Seoul Institute’s “2021 Seoul Youth Panel Study.”

The Hankyoreh summarizes the findings of the report using a hypothetical individual whom we will name “Na Seoul-bound” who finds herself in the circumstances described in the report.

This year, 19-year-old Na enrolls in a humanities department at a private four-year university in Seoul. The joy of having survived the fierce competition to get into college soon gives way to worries about how to cover her tuition and living expenses.

The first expenses Na faces on her path to a university education fall into the category of university admission fees. University hopefuls are allowed to apply to six universities based on their school records and three universities based on their scores on the university entrance exam; Na uses all nine of those chances.

The application process alone costs a total of 480,000 won (assuming 47,000 won for taking the university entrance exam and an average of 54,000 won for school record-based admissions and 36,000 won for entrance exam-based admissions at private universities in the 2023 academic year).

That’s when the costs really begin to pile up. Na pays 7.7 million won for two semesters of schooling this year (the average yearly tuition at private universities in 2023). Even assuming that tuition remains constant until her graduation, Na will still have to cover a total of 30.8 million won over her four years in university.

Since Na’s family lives in the provinces, she also has to cover the considerable costs of living in the capital. She has the good fortune to get a spot at a university dorm, which costs 236,000 won per month (the average dormitory fee for private universities in 2022), but she’s not sure how long she can maintain her spot in the dorm. Given the shortage of dorm rooms, many students are forced out in their junior year.

In her junior year, Na plans to find a studio apartment that will cost 500,000 won a month. (The average monthly rent for university students in the Seoul area was 490,000 won a month in 2021.) Setting aside housing deposits, which can be very high in Korea, Na’s housing expenses during her time in university will amount to 21.78 million won.

Eating a few meals a day and lining up one’s preferred job while attending school require money, too. Even assuming a very frugal lifestyle, Na will still need 680,000 won for a month’s living expenses (the monthly living expenses for university students in the Seoul region in 2021). Sticking to that lifestyle for her entire time in university adds up to 42 million won altogether.

After completing her studies, Na will need around 2.4 million won for her job search, assuming that takes a year. (This amount assumes the mean of the 100,000-300,000 won monthly range selected by most respondents in a survey about job search expenses conducted by Catch, a Korean staffing agency.)

Adding up all these expenses, we find that Na needs to spend a total of 97.4 million won from the beginning of university admission to graduation.

According to Statistics Korea, the average household’s monthly income in the second quarter of 2023 was 4.79 million won. In short, paying for one child’s university education eats up a year and eight months of income for the average family.

The path to graduating from a university in Seoul becomes even tougher when families have multiple children to educate, when it takes longer for students to find a job, and when the cost of living shoots up.

According to the first edition of “The Cost of Life as a University Student,” which was published by Yoo Ki-hong and the Korea Higher Education Research Institute back in 2015, the total cost of education (including the five categories mentioned above) was 85.1 million won. That suggests that the educational burden shouldered by university students has risen by around 12 million won over the past eight years.

Even worse, these calculations make the assumption that tuition will remain at its current level over the next four years. But in a survey of 86 four-year university presidents around Korea who attended the summer seminar of the Korean Council for University Education in June, 41.7% of the presidents said they plan to raise tuition in the 2024 academic year. So tuition is likely to go up.

When the tuition hike is calculated according to the average rate of inflation (2.4%) assumed by the report over the next five years, the cost of tuition rises by 2.58 million won, from a total of 30.8 million won to 33.38 million won. A tuition hike of that level pushes the total cost of university education over five years above 100 million won, even assuming that housing costs and living expenses remain constant.

“The cost of university education for students and parents is so high that university students are forced to take out student loans and take on part-time jobs. Even as housing costs and living expenses soar because of inflation and rising rent, ongoing rumors about tuition hikes are raising concerns about the burden of university education. The government needs to take measures to ensure that university education does not place an excessive financial burden on households,” said Yoo, the lawmaker.

By Kim Min-je, staff reporter

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