The income of Pusan National University (PNU) is decreasing, but labor costs and public utility bills are soaring every year, making it challenging to manage the budget for next year. 

As a result of Channel PNU's analysis of the accounting closing of PNU, it was confirmed that the decrease in tuition (tuition and admission fees) over the past five years was 20.5 billion won. According to the PNU's accounting closing for the 2017-2021 academic year, the amount of "income from educational activities," including tuition, decreased from 130,222,692,000 won to 109,739,616,795 won. In other words, the tuition income of PNU has decreased by 15.7% over the past five years.

Income from educational activities accounts for more than half (55.6%, as of the 2021 academic year) of the national university's budget, "University's Own Proceed." The university's income also includes usage fees and commissions, application and thesis review fees, and interest income. These incomes are challenging to increase significantly.

On the other hand, ordinary expenses such as labor and utility bills, which must be spent on a fixed basis, are increasing yearly. Personnel expenses increased by 23.5% in 2021 compared to 2017 (146,010,039,570 won → 180,256,932,477 won), and public utility bills and tax expenditures increased by 12.3% (11,253,662,450 won → 12,635,769,080 won). Personnel expenses, public charges, and tax expenditures account for 47% of our university's annual expenditures (410,450,562,159 won) as of the 2021 academic year.

This is because the number of students paying tuition is decreasing, but the number of faculty members is increasing slightly. According to the PNU statistical yearbook, the number of students enrolled in 2017 decreased from 28,854 to 27,386 in 2021, while the number of professors, staff, and assistants increased from 1,934 to 1,949. According to academy information (대학알리미), the number of students who dropped out, including non-registration, non-return, dropout, and academic warning, was recorded in the four digits for the first time last year at 1,098 (Channel PNU reported on September 29th).

In the end, PNU is in a situation where it has to cut expenses to cope with the decreasing income from educational activities and the increase in tax expenditures. It is possible to receive government support through subsidies from the central government and local governments, but it is an unstable method because it must compete with other universities to be selected for the project. An official from the Finance Department at PNU said, “As in SaeByeokBeol Library, purposeful expenses are invested only when the results can be proven by winning a specific project, and basic operations and conditions can be improved only when general finances increase. Since it is impossible to make negatives or issue government bonds like the national finance, the frozen budget has to be reduced and organized."

The university headquarters recently revised the organization method in advance of next year's budget organization. The university headquarters decided to organize the financial support project first, unlike the previous method of reflecting the “financial support project” after organizing the “college accounting budget." PNU decided to abolish the “Special Requirement Project Expenses,” which were subsidized when colleges ran out of budget. Departments whose budgets have been reduced due to the abolition of special requirement project expenses have no choice but to cut spending or cling to financial support projects such as national university fostering projects and university innovation support projects. Next year, the total amount of "policy business expenses" and "department operation expenses" distributed to all institutions will be reduced by 5% compared to the previous year and will be used to pay utility bills. PNU is ahead of next year in a state where the conditions for investing in universities are significantly limited.

Reporter Kim Min-Sung

Translated by Seo Hae-Seong