With the announcement that the amount of accumulated money of private universities surpassed 10.3 trillion won, attention was drawn toward Ewha as it was ranked at the top of the list.
According to the results in the analysis of accumulated money and educational expenditures for schools presented by a member of the National Assembly under the Education, Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee on Aug. 29, Ewha has the highest amount of accumulated money, recording over 758.7 billion won.
The Office of Financial Affairs (OFA) states that the accumulated money has its own use for distinct categories. The 758.7 billion won possessed by the school can be seen as money reserved to be invested for different development purposes.
Particularly, the accumulated money will be used for building and reconstructing architectures on campus, student scholarships, research, university employees’ retirement fund, and other school management purposes.
The greatest amount is placed under scholarship funds with 212.8 billion won; approximately 200 billion won is placed under building funds, which will most likely be used to build the Ewha Residential College dormitory; 61 billion won is placed under research funds, followed by 6.3 billion won for university employees’ retirement funds. The remaining amount of approximately 200 billion won is categorized as other funds.
“It looks as if there is more than enough, but each category of fund has its distinct purpose, and the money cannot be shifted from one division to another,” said Kim Sei-wan, the assistant head of the OFA.
Along with the greatest amount of accumulated money, the drastic increase of 73.8 billion won from the year before has caught the attention of the public. About this, the OFA responds that 2012 was an unusual year.
“The educational foundation of Ewha sold a property it had owned and offered the money to our university,” Kim said. “65.7 billion won out of the increased 73.8 billion won came from the sales of real estate.”
The 758.7 billion won is money that has slowly amounted for 30 to 40 years. As the OFA puts it, the accumulated money is the result of sparing use of money by the seniors – it is the school’s savings.
Though the amount of accumulated money of Ewha is quite high, the OFA states that the savings are necessary.
“We acknowledge that Ewha has a comparatively greater amount of accumulated money compared to other universities, but taking into consideration the school budget and number of students, it is not a preposterous amount,” Kim said. “It is money that is needed for the development of Ewha and improved welfare of Ewha students.”
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