▲ KU students participating in the campaign against admission fees.Photographed by Kim Seung Hyun.

Korea University (KU) is ranked first —first for having the highest admission fees of any university in Korea. The problem of the collection of this fee, which is quite different from tuition, is not new. Its history dates back as long as it can go, even before the early months of 2016, when the 48th KU Student Association (KUSA) Star:zari has stood outside the 4.18 Memorial Hall to protest against the issue. The case of the missing admission fee remains a cold case.

   
▲ Collective Action against Admission Fees protesting in front of the government building. Provided by KUTSC.
 
Admission fees are money that freshmen are required to pay, apart from tuition. The fees vary hugely from school to school—from 0 won to 10,300,000 won (in the case of KU). The collection of admission fees is not the problem. It is that the admission fees are unaccounted for. No one can say where or how the money is being used. For KU, this means that approximately 7.1 billion won (base year of calculation: 2015) was collected, for no clear purpose.

The Case of Missing Admission Fees
When the KUSA formally requested information on how the admission fees were used, the school claimed to have no information. Instead, it gave information on admission fees for the last five years and rules on exemption from the deduction of admission fees.

KU said in the 2016 Tuition Review Board meeting that since admission fees are appropriated as tuition, no information on their individual use exists. In other words, admission fees are not necessarily used solely for admission purposes. This has to stop. Either the school should require only the amount that is actually needed to process admissions or admission fees should be abolished.

“The biggest reason admission fees still remain as an ongoing problem is because they are money you forget about once you pay it,” said Lee Seung Jun (’11, Psychology), head of the KU Tuition Special Committee (KUTSC). He added that because students tend to think admission fees are not as important as tuition, the fees are more often taken for granted. 

Help Yourselves, Students!
KU students are determined to fight. Starting in August, KUTSC has been collaborating with organizations such as Cheongnyunhada (청년하다) and Participation Solidarity, Lawyers for Democratic Society (minbyun) to form a “collective action of youths, university students, parents, civil society to resolve the admission fee problem.” With KU in the center of this collective action, 30 other universities with the highest admission fees joined the campaign. 

Along with recruiting an action team for the collective action and hosting numerous meetings with minbyun lawyers to discuss specific legal strategies that students could take to fight admission fees, the campaign has held numerous press conferences. It has been emphasizing online and offline publicity and collecting signatures of people who agree that admission fees are, as currently implemented, fleecing students.

The signatures are to be used as evidence at the Assembly plenary session to show that many students desire the legislation of laws against or restricting admission fees. Such laws have been proposed before but were never passed. This time, the collaborative campaign is determined to have a law on admission fees enacted. “Our (KUTSC) ultimate goal is to have admission fees abolishment laws legislated by the end of the year,” Lee was determined.

The Strongest, Biggest, and Most Courageous Move 
The KU students did not stop there, though. They prepared to file a lawsuit against KU for collecting such admission fees. Students have teamed with and received help from the minbyun lawyers. The team has held numerous meetings to analyze and examine whether KU has broken any laws by requiring students to pay such high admission fees.

KU students reported the school for unfair trade to the Fair Trade Commission of Korea. The school can be seen as using its position as the gab to collect high admission fees from the freshmen eul, who more have little choice but to pay the required amount. This can be considered a violation of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, which states that trading with someone by taking advantage of one’s own position unjustly is illegal.  

The students are now preparing to file a return claim lawsuit against KU to get a full refund for the already paid admission fees in early October. Along with the minbyun attorneys who work for the common good and are thus working the case pro bono, the students have carefully studied the procedures of litigation and past cases of students filing lawsuits to win refunds for fees. Students of KU who wish to be one of the plaintiffs may jump on the bandwagon.

However, it is undeniable that many students are afraid that being a member of the plaintiff may cause any harm in the future. “It is natural that students worry about any potential harms that may be inflicted upon them,” remarked Lee. “That is exactly why a large number of plaintiffs are needed—to prevent the school from doing any pay-backs,” he added.

Although the litigation is intended to return already paid admission fees back to the students, it means much more than that. “The lawsuit’s true value lies in that it is a big step forward in trying to solve a chronic problem that was once out of sight,” Lee said.
 
   
▲ Lee Seung Jun, head of KUTSC. Photographed by Lee Jeong Min.

Nothing is Over, Yet
Whether universities will change their admission fee policies is yet to be decided. “One thing I felt by participating in the KUTSC for the last two years is that there is no use in trying to talk it out with the school,” Lee commented on the stance of KU. “Whenever we bring the issue of admission fees up, KU answers, ‘Go talk to the government, not us.’ We are merely abiding by the laws,” he said. That is why enacting a law restricting or abolishing admission fees is important in solving the problem.  

One thing is for sure—the students who have felt the unjustness of the school are not giving up. “Many students think, ‘I have already paid admission fees long time ago and thus it is not my problem anymore.’ However, I wish that they would change their minds into thinking ‘I paid admission fees, but I hope that the new freshmen to come would not have to go through the same absurdity,’” Lee said. “Admission fees, are you going to leave them the way they are?” the campaign asks, “We now need to change.”
 
   
▲ Students of KU signing their names to oppose admission fees. Photographed by Kim Seung Hyun
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