Heavier Burden for Educational Costs

It has turned out that the burden for education expenses is becoming heavier with last year’s education expenses for public and private education increasing by more than 10 percent compared to the year before.

Due to the recession, budgets are becoming tighter but parents are cutting down transportation and communication expenses to increase education expenses. Last year’s expenditure for education expense per capita surpassed 460,000 won.

According to the Bank of Korea (BOK) yesterday, 22.1607 trillion won was spent on education expenses last year, increasing by 11.2 percent over the 18.9222 trillion in 2002.

The total expenditure for household expenses was 380.2277 trillion won, increasing by a mere 1.8 percent from the year before amount of 373.4283 trillion won. Following, education expenses, which took up 5.3 percent of the total household expense in 2002, increased to 5.8 percent last year.

Furthermore, the per capita education expense when dividing the total population with last year’s total education cost was 462,000 won, increasing by 10.5 percent compared to the year before. This is 1.848 million won when converting the figure for a family of four, and 1.449 million won per household when dividing the nation’s entire education cost by the total number of households including those without children. BOK analyzed that parents with children attending schools spend even more than the above figure.

The per capita education expense which was 315,000 won in 1997 fell to 302,000 won in 1998 with the foreign exchange crisis. This figure is continuously rising with 318,000 won (5.3 percent rise) in 1999, 338,000 won (6.3 percent) in 2000, 384,000 won (13.6 percent) in 2001, and 418,000 won (8.9 percent) in 2002.

Meanwhile, the total household expense spent for medical and health care was 16.9249 trillion won, a 6.6 percent rise from 15.8986 trillion won in 2000. The per capita medical and health expense expanded by 6.0 percent from 334,000 won to 354,000 won. Last year’s medical and health expense per household was 1.108 million won.

However, with the decreasing cellular phone rates, communication expense spent per person was 429,000 won, falling by 6.1 percent from 457,000 won in 2002. The transportation expense was 875,000 won per person, which decreased by 2.5 percent from 897,000 won in 2002.

Cho Seong-jong, director of BOK’s Economic Statistics Department, said, “While households are cutting back their spending, the burden for education and medical care expenses is becoming heavier and declining consumption in other areas.”

Joong-Hyun Park sanjuck@donga.com