From February 14^th to 16^th, spring 2023 course registration of Chung-Ang University (CAU) was conducted. Students can add lectures they want to their wish list three days before course registration. Lectures with sufficient remaining spots are automatically transferred to each timetable, but lectures with too many applicants are given by selection order. Many students cannot take lectures they want due to the fixed remaining spots per lecture. So, each semester some students try to buy and sell lecture spaces. However, is it a proper way? Let’s look into the “Buying and Selling Lectures” including its problems and solutions with CAH!

What Is Buying and Selling Lectures, and Why Is It Existent?

Buying and selling lectures means, paying for the space to join a particular lecture to take during the semester. There are two ways to do this: a seller writes that he or she wants to sell a class on the Internet (usually on the Everytime application) or a potential buyer writes that he or she wants to buy a class. Then, each potential buyer or seller replies to those postings, and the trade is conducted after price negotiation. Finally, the trade completes when the buyer adds the course as soon as the seller withdraws that course by setting the specific date and time for the trade. The background of buying and selling lectures is due to the limited number of courses and spots in those courses. Also, the presence of preferred classes can be the cause of the trade. For example, this semester, more than 100 students wanted to take Korean History, a required course at CAU, though the maximum number of students allowed was about 60. Nevertheless, fewer than 50 students added an unpopular Korean History class to their wish list, when the number of people adding the popular Korean history class to their wish list went over 120. However, universities are unable to open enough courses that fulfill all students’ demands due to the limited budget in this situation.

Why Is It Problematic?

Making Course Registration Meaningless

The remarkable feature of the course registration is “importance of luck.” Transferring of lectures to each timetable, before the course registration, is up to the remaining spots, the number of people who’ve added it to their wishlist, and luck. Moreover, course registration depends on the conditions of computers and networks that students use, the server of CAU’s system, and the timing for clicking the button. Some students can feel frustrated with this system as they pay expensive tuition to school, but it seems to be fair as everyone faces the same situation regardless of personal economic capacity, parents’ capacities, etc. However, this fairness flies away when the buying and selling of lectures occurs. In February 2022, an anonymous student asked about the price of buying and selling the “ACT” lecture on the Everytime application. There were many comments on this question, and a student answered, “It is known to sell at about 300,000 won. I gave up buying it as they were asking 300,000 won for ACT.” In addition, another student tried to stop the questioner, adding a comment, “Someone even sold ACT for about millions of won.” The situation will become so unfair that only students who can afford the price can take classes they want if this buying and selling of lectures continues.

Absence of Solutions

According to the current school regulations of CAU, there is no separate disciplinary article against buying and selling lectures. Students who break article 5 of rules for operations about students’ reward and punishment, “Students disgrace CAU’s honor by getting out of a student’s status: […] doing a deed going against a student’s duty” can be punished. According to the interview with Sang June Hahn from the Department of Physics in February 2016 by the CAU Newspaper, the reason of the particular disciplinary article’s absence is concern about CAU’s reputation falling. Specifically, it means that CAU publicly admits buying and selling lectures occurs when creating new school regulations that other universities do not have. Furthermore, according to the Vol. 1985 of the CAU Newspaper in 2021, although the Academic Affairs Team of CAU unofficially requested cooperation to Everytime for buying and selling courses, the application rejected their proposal since universities without investigation right cannot correspond to the problem by detecting students’ information. In addition, an anonymous student revealed on Everytime last May that he or she had called to CAU to report the trading of ACT. However, the student seemed to be resigned about the situation adding that CAU answered that the school cannot solve this problem despite the report. Thus, CAH conducted an interview with the Academic Affairs Team to check the accurate facts and circumstances.

First of all, the Academic Affairs Team said that they have already recognized the continuation of buying and selling of lectures, and have discussed it before. Specifically, they explained that there are enough disciplinary and punishing steps for stopping the problem. However, they added that it is hard to take actions due to the difficulty of directly witnessing the trade, as the discipline is based on clear evidence. Also, they answered the question about the possibility about improvement of the course registration system by saying that it is not easy to change the system due to the relationship with relevant other teams though many improvements are necessary. Lastly, they finished the interview by explaining that demand for system reforming like other universities was not really active, although CAU students are still discussing improving the system.

Reactions of Students and Solutions

CAH also conducted the interview with a second-year student, H, from the School of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, who has not experienced buying and selling lectures, and a third-year student, A, from the School of Business Administration, who has experienced buying and selling lectures. H said that buying and selling lectures is unfair since all students already pay a fixed tuition and have the same rights to take classes. Then, she added that we should solve this problem as soon as possible because some students can fail to take classes they need due to money issues. She also made her position clear by showing no plan to buy or sell courses in the future, although she understands the situation such as during the period when trying to get jobs before graduation. Then, she explained that the presence of trade courses is from prerequisite subjects & core courses. Finally, she suggested banning the posting of particular keywords such as “buying & selling,” on Everytime and strengthening the punishment by CAU to stamp out this problem. In addition, she came up with some structural improvements such as increasing the remaining spots after reflecting the number of people who add it to their wish list from the previous semester, and a “Waiting Number System.”[1]

In the case of A, he bought ACT for 100 thousand won after failing to take ACT during the summer 2022 semester. He conducted the trade by clicking the button for the course registration as soon as the seller withdrew the course after setting the time. Also, he left room for buying other courses by saying he would try this way again if he needs a preferred class. Lastly, he ended the interview, showing his opinion that he thought it can be all right to buy or sell courses depending on the situation, despite its inappropriateness. This way, CAH could realize CAU students’ various ideas about buying and selling courses. However, every student must make effort to solve this problem, and recognize the seriousness of it since this kind of course trade should ultimately be eliminated.

Then, which solutions do other universities have for solving this problem? First of all, in fall 2020, Korea University introduced a “Delaying to Register” system. With this system, every student can try to register for a course after a certain time when a student withdraws the course registration that is full of students. The time is randomly set from 30 minutes to 1 hour. At dawn, the random time is extended from 2 hours to 3 hours to prevent buying and selling of courses.[2] In addition, Korea University prepared “Course Registration Based on Priorities.” Moreover, Pusan National University introduced Waiting Number System since winter 2022, reflecting students’ demand.

Buying and selling courses is very shameful behavior, as it can deprive other students’ right to study. It can be hard to solve this problem at once, since it has continued for a long time. Also, it is tricky to resolve, as we have to consider the economic aspects for preparing additional courses. However, CAU should make more effort like other universities by reflecting students’ ideas such as increasing the remaining spots after reflecting on the number of students who add a course to their wish list the previous semester or introducing other’s systems.