Draft for my school megazine article
University Analysis
(Topic Undecided)
By Baek, Da-hyun
Cub-reporter
Item: Unique Scholarship Program
Subject: Evolving Uniqueness of Scholarships, Good or Bad?
Purpose: Along with introducing distinctive scholarship programs to ignorant students, explaining the several ineffectiveness of the system so as to enlighten students to actually get involve in revising such programs and admonishing administrative offices to consider a matter carefully when putting into practice.
Introduction
Tuitions for universities are skyrocketing. Scholarship programs have become the center of public interest as students are showing keen interests in reducing their expenses on excessive tuition fee to its maximum limitations. Indeed, the keyword, ‘2nd semester scholarship application’ reached a top search word in many portal websites during the application period. Albeit its astronomical tuition fees universities are demanding to their students, the criteria for receiving scholarship, unfortunately, are not at the mercy of the students, many of whom are suffering from paying school fees. Nonetheless, there is always a room for a wing and a prayer in every desperate situation. With growing tuition fees and rising standard of scholarship in presence, trends for scholarship programs are now evolving into more positive changes.
Body1
In parallel with this nation-wide concern, many out-of-ordinary scholarship programs have been introduced along with respectively peculiar purposes. Scholarship programs hitherto introduced were generally in regard to one’s grade or one’s family economic circumstances. So what kinds of circumstances have made the existing scholarship programs to undergo diverse transformations? There were three important social issues spotted that explain the basic ground for these changes. One explanation is a controversy over half-tuition fee policy. Throughout our government history vaguely starting from President Lee’s tenure, there were a lot of discussions pertaining to deliberating on actually carrying out this policy. Yet, no perfect measures have been made and the answer for whether to put a plan into practice is still in an ongoing process. Because of this unsettled problem, universities had sought for alternatives to share the burdens of students’ agonies and those unique scholarships programs are the results thereof.
Another explanation is the pending unemployment crisis in Korea. It is the school’s job to encourage students to develop their specialties to become more competitive in the field of job search. Using scholarship programs as a way to encourage students to study, not only by their rank in superficial grades but also by various standards such as their self-advancement or efforts they made to better one-self.
Interview with college students
> Have you ever felt the need to help the burden your parents are bearing with your college tuition fee?
> What is your opinion on half-tuition fee policy, do you think it is necessary? If so, in what way can it be implemented? Which sector do you believe should be sacrificing for the reduction in tuition fee?
> (to senior students) what is the biggest concern as for now? Do you already have job waiting for you? Are you considering alternatives besides getting a job? If so, what is it? (Ex. graduate school, studying abroad, etc,.)
> Have you ever received any assistance from school that helped you to develop yourself to be more competitive in field of job search? If so, enumerate experiences you got.
Lastly, schools’ focus on students’ welfare has also been changed lately. According to Kyung Hee University’s administrative office, ~
Interview with Kyung Hee University's administrative office
> What changes have been made in students' welfare sector throughout our university's history?
> Do you consider improvement regarding students' welfare has anything to do with the advancement in scholarship programs? If so, what sort of differences was made?
Body2
Regardless of many efforts made to help those in need, universities are still facing many drawbacks of these programs. Although there are many scholarship programs implemented for students to use, a number of students are still unaware of its presence and unable to enjoy the privileges they could have gotten if were to knowledgeable about it.
> Short questionnaire for students to ask whether they are aware of diverse scholarship programs other than basic scholarship programs that existed for years.
Further, durability problem is also feasible. If universities really want to alleviate the dissatisfaction of students, they should thoroughly tackle event-reminding scholarship programs.
> Research scholarship programs that disappeared shortly after its popularity or durability was questioned. If founded, study reasons for why such scholarship disappeared in the end.
To illustrate programs that has ambiguous criterion, which has imprecise selection of whom to distribute the scholarship, several scholarship programs can be accountable for it. One instance can be ‘Green Scholarship’ established by Sang Myeong University. The purpose of this program was to seek after better environment and sublate environmental damages. By converting cost the students have economized or helped to eliminate factors of those damages, the university pays back the converted cost to scholarship. To indicate problems likely to arise is that it is difficult and awfully vague to point out the exact cost the student has saved. Other examples are ‘Good Morning Scholarship’ in Gang Won University, ‘Smoking Abstention Scholarship’ in Sae Myeong University and ‘Good Health Care Scholarship’ in Boo Gyeong University. Former scholarship’s intention was to help students to become more of a ‘morning person’ by confirming their participation in required special lectures for eight consecutive times and checking e-mails the school sends to students everyday within 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. A credible defect with this program is that it overlooks the harder efforts the students who commute to school have to put to gain perfect participation record. It also includes the risk of students’ usage of substitute attendance. Two latter scholarships were established to help students who have unhealthy life styles to pursue healthy life. These programs also cannot fully cover students’ actual abstinence, since students can always re-smoke or restart bad things for their health after they receive scholarship. Plus, those students can always ask their non-smoking, healthy friend to have health checkups instead of them. Granted, such defects cannot be measured precisely given that there are always loopholes to confirming students’ integrity.
> Ask results of respective scholarship programs in each university and see whether it really changed students' lifetime habit.
> Interview with students who received scholarship programs and get opinion on whether the program was fair enough for everyone.
> Few more interviews with other students who failed to receive it or did not even attempt to participate in it. Get opinions from them concerning fairness issue and whether there are any students who were reversely discriminated by such programs because of their already-pursuing-good-life.
> If possible, look for any chances existing for worse-off students in dead ground who might have involuntarily averted from opportunities to get scholarship due to such unnecessary programs.
Contact Info.
상명대 02-2287-5114/ 강원대 033-250-6114/ 세명대 043-645-1125~9/ 부경대 051-629-4114/
Overall, the negative factors existing in these scholarship programs, despite their ingenious and purposeful intentions, are; first, the standard of criterion is equivocal. It is likely to raise risk of letting students to exercise certain acts only temporarily just to receive scholarship, or disgrace themselves by achieving it with devious means. Second, reverse-discrimination might occur due to prioritizing students who failed to maintain ‘good life’ at one’s own disposal. Lastly, it deviates from the original purpose of scholarship, which mostly includes merit-based, need-based method of distribution. By giving scholarships to students who are not in desperation, naturally snatch a chance away from those who are.
Body3
Before we move on to the ways to solve problems previously mentioned, let’s look into other scholarship programs that might give us an overview of what can be the good examples of accurate and transparent scholarship programs. ‘Point Scholarship’ in Han Shin University, ‘Dong Myeong Mileage Scholarship System’ in Dong Myeong University, and ‘Magnolia Scholarship Program’ in Kyung Hee University can be the examples for what can be inferred as precise standard-retained scholarship programs.
> Interview with students who received scholarships through these programs and get their opinions on advantages and disadvantages of the system.
> Get more information on each school system after contacting each of them.
Contact Info.
한신대 031-379-0114/ 동명대 051-629-1000/ 경희대 02-961-0114
A common denominator of such scholarship programs in these universities is that they require students to give specific results and achievements they gained throughout their self-enlightening efforts. By distributing points according to their valid outcomes, it lowers the risk of improper usage and raises more possibility of appointing appropriate candidate for the scholarship.
Conclusion
It is imperative for universities with scholarship programs that needs further revision to strengthen the strong points and make up for the weaknesses. Moreover, they should listen more carefully on listening to opinions of scholarship recipients and policy makers and amend programs with deliberation. There is nothing wrong with drawing students’ attention. Nonetheless, developing scholarships programs for better cause, such as aiming for students who have ardent passions over it, should be the prioritization for any existing universities. University students have accountability to resolve problems of their own by themselves. Universities meddling in everything students’ face would not solve the any fundamental problem of anything. By substituting poking their nose into students’ affair with scholarship is too narrow-minded perspective and thus should be promptly tackled. Those days are way passed; leave meddlers of your life in your past, your high school days, and your elementary days. In lieu of those naïve short-term measures, seeking for long-term plan benefiting both students and schools is rendered indispensably necessary. Again, sustainable as well as distinctive scholarship system should be established for the sake of everyone.