On August 11th, a notice was uploaded on the official website of Chung-Ang University’s (CAU), College of Social Sciences, titled "Guidance on Revision of Enforcement Rules on Scholarship Payment." According to the notice, CAU will reduce the amount of scholarship payments when selecting the grade scholarship quota from the first semester of 2022. Scholarship payments for the top scoring students of each major were reduced from full tuition to 30% of tuition, while for the top scoring students of each grade and for the students who got their grades within 10 percent were reduced from 65% to 17% and from 35% to 15%, respectively. CAU stated that the enforcement rules on scholarship payments were revised to strengthen financial support for low-income people and to reflect social trends and periodic demands. It also said it was the result of reflecting the collection of students’ opinions. However, were the reasons for the revision truly reasonable and did it really reflect the students' opinions? In Everytime, a university community app, students also expressed complaints about the survey conducted for the revision. In the situation where the notice was not made properly, questions about the revision are inevitably raised. Let's find out more about the revision of this grade scholarship.
Problems of the Survey
From June 11th to 18th, the Student Support Team of the Office of Student Services and the Office of Academic and Student Affairs, the Student Council of Seoul Campus and Anseong Campus conducted a "Student Survey on the Improvement of the Scholarship System" for enrolled students at CAU. The survey said, "The student support team and the student council are conducting the survey as follows to provide equal and continuous educational opportunities for students and to gather opinions from students to create a better scholarship system reflecting their needs." However, the problem was in the responses to the questions in the survey. Question 1, which was at the core of the revision of the grade scholarship, asked students to choose "How to select grade scholarships in the future." However, the options that students could choose were as follows:
1. Maintaining the existing number of students to select, reducing the scholarship amount (selecting 10% of enrolled students, 30% of tuition for the top scoring students of each major, 10% of tuition for the top scoring students of each grade, 10% of tuition for the students who got their grades within 10 percent)
2. Reducing the number of students selected, maintaining the scholarship amount as much as possible (selecting 3% of the enrolled students, 100% of tuition for the top scoring students of each major, 40% of tuition for the top scoring students of each grade, 10% of tuition for the students who got their grades within 3 percent)
3. Reducing the number of students selected, reducing the scholarship amount (selecting 7% of the enrolled students, 30% of tuition for the top scoring students of each major, 20% of tuition for the top scoring students of each grade, 10% of tuition for the students who got their grades within 7 percent)
4. Others
All the responses that students could choose eventually resulted in a reduction in grade scholarships. Although the survey was conducted to collect students' opinions, the options available make it clear that it had already been decided to reduce the scholarship regardless of whether it was the reduction of "the number of people selected" or "the amount of the scholarships." Consequently, the survey had a major problem in that it has already decided on the most important issue and has only been conducted on that detail.
Where Did the Notice Go?
What many students were angry about was an inaccurate notice about the grade scholarship revision. As mentioned earlier, the student support team and the student council conducted a survey on the revision of the grade scholarship. However, the announcement of participation in the survey was made only in each major's group chat room, and the student council's Instagram and Facebook profiles. Students could not participate in the survey if they did not access the student council's Instagram and Facebook pages or missed the Kakao Talk messages. Also, there was no notice of the survey results. The survey, which was conducted to "reflect students' needs" and "collect students' opinions," did not release the collected opinions of students at all. Eventually, without releasing the results of the survey, the grade scholarship payments were reduced, and it was posted only on the official website of the College of Social Sciences. As a result, it was noticed by a small number of students who checked the website of the College of Social Sciences that grade scholarship payments will be reduced from the first semester of 2022. In addition, the survey stated that the secured financial resources by reducing grade scholarships will be used for household difficulties scholarships, welfare, and other new scholarships, but no accurate notice has been made about this since the revision. So, it is also not known whether the total amount of scholarships given out by the university has decreased or not. Eventually, the university did not announce anything about the results of the survey, the fact that the scholarships are going to be reduced, nor how the secured financial resources will be utilized. There are still many students who are not aware of this fact.
Absurd Reasons of Amendment
Several reasons for the revision of the Enforcement Rules on Scholarship Payment were stated in the notice. The first reason mentioned was "strengthening financial support for low-income people in preparation for deepening income polarization during the Post-COVID era." Some students raised doubts about this. The revision of the scholarship will continue to take effect starting with the first semester of 2022. This means that even if COVID-19 ends, it will continue to apply unless there is another revision. This is a situation where it’s unknown whether the university will revert to the existing grade scholarship method when COVID-19 ends, and income polarization is eased again. So, critics ask whether "deepening income polarization during the Post-COVID era" is reasonable enough for the revision of grade scholarships. Some students also pointed out that low-income people are already fully supported by state scholarships and Chung-Ang Love scholarships provided by CAU. In contrast, as most outside scholarships have income-level conditions, the revision deprives the opportunities of students in the top 20% of income who rarely receive scholarships besides grade scholarships. The next reason mentioned was the “establishment of a scholarship system that reflects social trends and periodic demands. Many students also questioned this. What do "social trends" and "periodic demands" mean? The notice did not include any specific explanation. Eventually, the school offered ridiculous and ambiguous reasons for the revision, even though it is an important issue for all students of CAU.
The revision, which will be applied by reducing the amount of grade scholarship payments from the first semester of 2022, showed many deficiencies in the process and contents. The results of the survey, which was conducted with the aim of collecting students' opinions, were not released to students, and the revision of the grade scholarship was conducted without accurate notice and without many students even being aware that it was being done. It is also questionable whether the reason for the revision posted on the official website of the College of Social Sciences is reasonable. Since there is still enough time until the end of the first semester of 2022, which is the actual application of the revised scholarship payment rules, the student support team and the student council need to publish the results of the survey, and the university headquarters needs to make clear announcements about it. In addition, if certain changes are to be made in the future, clear and prompt information notices should be made using various means, such as "portal push" and "portal announcements," in addition to social media, so that as many students as possible can participate in presenting their opinions and view the results. CAH hopes that the university will be able to properly supplement the revision before it takes effect.