Students listen to an online lecture at a library of Gwangju University in Gwangju, 329 kilometers south of Seoul, on March 16, 2020, when the school belatedly opened its spring semester due to the new coronavirus. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — Students are borrowing less to pay for school tuition as universities have been holding lectures online since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
A study conducted by the Ministry of Education and the Korean Council for University Education of 195 universities and colleges of education showed that 419,942 students borrowed from the Korea Student Aid Foundation to pay for school tuition in the fall and spring semester 2020-2021, which was 8.7 percent lower (39,930 students) than the same period in 2019-2020.
The rate of borrowing for school tuition, which divides the number of borrowing students by the total number of university students enrolled, stood at 12.8 percent, which was also 1.1 percentage point lower than last year.
“The growing prevalence of online classes led students to borrow less since many of them were borrowing money to cover living expenses,” a ministry official said.
The cost of education for a single student reached 16.1 million won (US$13,920), which was about 270,000 won higher than last year.
Donations to private universities dropped drastically following the pandemic. The total amount of donations among 156 private universities last year stood at 561.9 billion won, which was 10.9 percent less than the previous year (630.7 billion won).
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
