Recently, some students of national universities in Korea filed a collective lawsuit related to tuition fees. The lawsuit broke out because the students felt it was unfair to have “school-support fees” in addition to their standard class fees. As a result of this lawsuit, in which the students were victorious, all national universities were ordered to cut their budgets by 25 percent in order to compensate for the loss of extra school-support fees.

The Islander interviewed So-Ara, Jeju-NU student council to learn more about the situation.

Q The Islander: What is So-Ara up to these days? Where can we find out about pledges?

So-Ara: You can always check up on us at our homepage: http://forstudent.jejunu.ac.kr. We will always be uploading news on our fulfilled pledges. Also, do not hesitate to contact us through KakaoTalk. Our ID is 제대총학. Questions can be asked in Korean, English and Chinese.

Q The Islander: The school budget has been reduced as a result of the national universities lawsuit. Can you explain to us more about our current student budget?

So-Ara: Since students from national universities eventually won the lawsuit, around 85 national universities had to lay off the association that managed the school-support fees. The problem is that all the laid off workers are entitled to severance pay—yet, in Jeju-NU’s case, the compensation money apparently was not used efficiently and thus the school had no choice but to cut their annual budget for this year to pay off the school supporting association staff.

Q The Islander: You mentioned that So-Ara’s pledges were set to fit the budget of 100 percent during last election season. So, will some pledges have to be altered or removed?

So-Ara:   So-Ara is fighting for the full restoration of the school budget. We feel it is our right as students to have the best college experience as possible. Although we are still not sure what might happen with the budget, there is some good news!

Before the lawsuit, students had no means of finding out about where their tuition was being spent. Now, however, all public universities must create financial committees with two student-body representatives, so that all students may know about where their tuition and student fees are going to be distributed.