Colleges should share responsibility for pandemic-caused damage
Amid mounting calls from college students to refund their tuition fees to make up for “lowered” educational quality because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Konkuk University has decided to cut fees for the fall semester.
Korean university students have demanded their schools pay back at least part of their tuition fees for the spring semester, during which they had to take online classes and could not use essential facilities.
However, schools rejected such calls, citing a lack of financial resources as reasons. The education ministry also backed off, leaving the decision to schools. All this shows why Konkuk's decision is noteworthy.
It was also significant that the school authorities reached the conclusion after lengthy discussions with the student council. University officials and student representatives have had eight meetings since April and agreed on the partial refund of the spring semester fees by cutting fees for the fall semester.
The two sides reportedly plan to fix the amount of refunds by the end of the week. If so, it will mark the first case of a tuition refund to compensate for students' loss of the right to receive a quality education.
However, most other universities still maintain that it is all but impossible to cough up tuition fees because of pandemic-related costs of setting up online classes and running disinfection and quarantine programs on campus.
It may be unreasonable to force universities to take all the responsibility for the pandemic-caused loss. Nevertheless, the schools can hardly say they have tried sincerely to reduce the “damage” students have suffered. More disappointing is that the educational authority has just sat and watched the development with arms crossed.
The ministry has even turned a deaf ear to the Korean Council for University Education request to use the government's support fund in a more flexible way to use its financial resources for tuition refunds. Other universities should follow Konkuk's example, and the ministry should accept the council's request.
It is clearly beyond the pale for the government and schools to pass losses for damages resulting from the novel coronavirus pandemic on to students and their parents.