Gyeongsang National University Freezes Undergraduate Tuition Fees for 2025 Academic Year

Decision to Share the Burden in Consideration of Difficult Economic Conditions
Caused by High Exchange Rates and High Inflation

Nine national flagship universities consisting of Gyeongsang National University, Chungbuk National University, Kangwon National University, Kyungpook National University, Pusan National University, Chonnam National University, Jeonbuk National University, Jeju National University, and Chungnam National University have decided to freeze undergraduate tuition fees for the 2025 academic year.

The Council of Presidents of National Flagship Universities held a regular video conference on the 10th and discussed tuition fee increases, reaching this conclusion.

Gyeongsang National University Gajwa Campus.

Currently, national flagship universities and other national universities have had tuition fees frozen for 16 years, resulting in significant financial difficulties in education and research, leading to this difficult decision to freeze tuition fees.

This tuition freeze decision is a magnanimous resolution to share the burdens of citizens and students suffering from the current high exchange rates and high inflation.

Even with the tuition freeze, universities have agreed to make strenuous efforts to reduce budgets to prevent any qualitative decline in education and research.

In particular, the presidents of the national flagship universities have decided to request government policy and financial support to realize the per-student education cost at the level of Seoul National University, so that regional universities can contribute to balanced regional development and secure global competitiveness. They also expressed the opinion that if such support is not provided in the future, tuition increases will be inevitable starting next year.

Additionally, there have been complaints that the 'amount of scholarships awarded,' which is used as an indicator in university evaluations announced by the media, only considers scholarships paid within the tuition range. National universities, whose tuition is only about half that of private universities, are receiving unfavorable evaluation results because their scholarship amounts are lower compared to private universities.

The presidents of the national flagship universities stated, “Considering the difficult economic situation of the government and the public, we have made this difficult decision after in-depth consultations,” and added, “We ask for the government’s active financial support so that national universities can maintain the public nature of higher education, contribute to regional development, and secure global-level competitiveness.”