Sahmyook University will be offering a 300,000 KRW (approximately 250 USD) COVID-19 relief scholarship to all students who were enrolled during the first semester in order to support them in the COVID-19 crisis. The university recently made the decision after gathering input from the scholarship committee and the student council.
First, 100,000 KRW will be provided in cash in August 2020 as a cost-of-living grant to all 5,281 students who registered for the first semester. The remaining 200,000 KRW will be reduced from tuition fees of students who register for the fall semester as a tuition scholarship. Those who are planning to take the upcoming semester off can receive the same tuition waiver when they return to school.
The total budget for the COVID-19 relief scholarship is 1.43 billion KRW (approximately 1.2 million USD). The financial resources have come from the university’s academic scholarship budget. The school explained, "We did not have the midterm exam during the first semester due to COVID-19, so it was difficult to accurately evaluate academic performance as we had done before the pandemic, so we decided not to offer merit-based scholarships to students this semester.”
Faculty members of Sahmyook University also made a contribution to the scholarship fund. A total of 236 people, including 138 professors and 98 employees, participated in the COVID-19 relief scholarship fund, raising about 63,000 dollars.
“We hope this special scholarship will help ease the financial burden for students,” said Kim IlMok, president of Sahmyook University. He continued, “I appreciate all the members who participated in the scholarship fund, professors who have been doing their best to provide education for their students by holding classes online, and students who do not lose hope and pursue their studies. I hope that all of us will continue to pull together to overcome difficult times.”