National Universities Raise Less Money Than Private Universities

Among the 200 four-year universities, Yonsei University was found to have received the largest amount of donations for the last 10 years. Seoul National University ranked first in terms of donations among national universities, but it received less than the top private universities. Private universities received donations twice as much as national universities for the last five years. 166 Private universities have received about 7.887 trillion won over the past 10 years, while 34 national universities received about 254.9 billion won over the last five years.

Dong-A Ilbo analyzed the accounts of donations to private universities from 1995 to 2003 and to national universities form 2000 to 2004 after receiving data from Grand National Party lawmaker Lee Goon-hyun recently.

Dong-A Ilbo also analyzed the settlement of the account for the year 2004 and the 400 reports by an industry-academia cooperation team that universities reported to the Korea Foundation for Promotion of Private Schools last year.

According the result, as a private university, Yonsei University has received the largest amount of donations, approximately 796.2 billion won for the last 10 years.

Yonsei University has received the largest amount every year except for 1995 when Korea University received more.

Korea University was the second with about 596.6 billion won, 199.7 billion won less than Yonsei. Pohang University of Science and Technology was the third with about 512.9 billion won, Hanyang University was fourth with about 417.6 billion won, followed by Sungkyunkwan University with about 362 billion won. Kyunghee University (sixth), Ulsan University (seventh), Inha University (eighth), Yeongnam University (ninth), and Ehwa Women’s University (10th) were also in the top 10.

Sungkyunkwan University exhibited the highest growth with its donations increasing 33 times in 10 years.

In 2004, the top 10 universities accounted for 47.6 percent of the total donations to private universities, a fact which has changed little in the last 10 years.

Meanwhile, among national universities, Seoul National University (SNU) received the largest amount of outside donations, about 119.7 billion won worth, over the past five years, followed by Pusan University, Kangwon University, Cheju University, and Chungnam University.

In 2004, SNU was the sixth largest receiver among all universities, collecting about 57.8 billion won.

National universities raised about two billion won on average, only 55.9 percent of private universities’ in 2000(3.56 billion won), and about 3.9 billion won on average, 52.1 percent of about 7.5 billion won raised by private universities in 2004.

Hye-Jin Kwon needjung@donga.com hjkwon@donga.com