Higher education can be viewed as a personal choice as it benefits an individual, or a public service as it has a public importance critical to improving the competitiveness of a nation. Such views may dictate whether a government or students bear the burden of higher education.
Private educational institutions have been running mainly on tuitions in the U.S. and Japan based on the personal benefits principle whereas European governments have subsidized the management of higher educational institutions on the view that it is a public service. Similar to the U.S. and Japan, private educational institutions have provided most of higher education without much support from the government in Korea. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the adequacy of deduction policy for college tuitions in Korea by comparing tax policies of Korea, the U.S. and Japan, identify problems and make recommendations.
Problems identified in this paper are as follow: first, the tax effect of tuition deductions is regressive. Due to progressive tax rates, low income families end up paying higher after tax tuitions. Second, although taxpayers claiming tuition deductions comprised 19.75% of the entire taxpayer in 2009, top 10% income earners consist of 65.2% of the total number of tuition deduction claims, indicating that the tuition deduction policy is more advantageous to high income earners. Third, taxpayers with no or low income who have to finance their tuition and repay it when they actually start working after graduation can take neither tuition deductions nor deductions for interests on their loans.
It would be necessary to introduce measures to mitigate the regressive nature of the tuition deduction policy in order to achieve fairness to low income taxpayers. To minimize an unintended drastic impact from abolishing the tuition deduction policy at once, the following interim measures are recommended: first, the deduction ceiling for tuition deductions should be lowered and also adjusted reversely according to taxpayers’ income levels. Second, tuition deductions unclaimed due to no or low income levels should be allowed to be carried over to later years. Third, interests on the student loan should be allowed to be deducted when paid.
Increased tax revenues from lowering tuition deductions can be used as the resources for scholarships to students from low income families, expanding opportunities for higher education for those students. In the long term, the tuition deduction policy which is regressive in nature should be repealed and policies to directly reduce tuition burdens on financially underprivileged students should be devised.