University tuition payment in Korea is quite different than it’s in Saudi Arabia, in the term where not all of university students have to pay for studying. Students are between regular students (full-time study) or part time students. For regular student the college gives each one a monthly allowance to cover one’s need like accommodation, transportation, meal or books cost. To receive money from the government during your university attending period is not always a positive thing. It has some advantage and disadvantage upon students.
When my Korean friend heard of this, the wish if the were like us but I don’t think they realize the negative impact. Being studied at a college in Saudi Arabia, I would say that if all of your fees are paid by the government then you will not be as hard studying person as you should be, I mean when a person pays from his/her packet, we see them always trying to have the most of benefit or education they can get from school. In other words “no gain without pain”. Add to this, one a student do a part time job, he/she will get a good experience that in some case make that person better in his/ her filed. No deny that by doing a part time job you will get exhausted and tired but this pressure makes you make strong and responsible for tomorrows life. As I heard from my friends who graduated and being working in some companies that the school life is less stressing than job.
But what I think stress the Korean students the most is that they actually need to spend more time to study in order to challenge others who don’t do part time job. Studying in Korea is very tough specially when most of the students if not all fighting to get the best grades. So when a student got a chance to study more and spend more time in library preparing for exams while the other one is working to save money for the semester’s fees its not fair and it resulted people to protest and demonstrate against this issue.
I have just read this news that I would like to share with my Korean friend. It says that the government said it would budget a total of 2 trillion won (US$1.8 billion) next year to lower fees by just over 15%. Further cuts will be made in 2013 and 2014 after pressure from opposition parties announcing they would introduce legislation to halve fees, support low-income students and reform private college foundations which back the majority of the country's higher education institutions.
I hope government would really make some solution for this time. It has said to cut down the tuition fee for many years already. The story of Saudi Arabia is interesting..:)
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