This study analyzed elements of finance structure and directions of finance
management of lifelong education centers of universities in Korea. The study was
conducted with various data: budget documents for estimated and settled accounts
from 19 lifelong education centers of universities across Korea, and in-depth
interviews with staffs who were in charge of financial operation in their lifelong
education centers.
The findings were as follows. First, the portion of tuition and fees took an
average of 96% of the entire revenue of lifelong education centers as the biggest
one among several revenue sources. And, there was a big difference in finance structure
between lifelong education centers of Seoul metropolitan areas and those of local district
areas. Furthermore, there was some difference of budgeting mechanism among lifelong
education centers of local district areas.
Second, personnel expenditure for instructors took 39% out of whole amount of
expenditure for lifelong education centers. However, current expenditure took 3.1%
as the smallest factor. In particular, outflow to mother universities was shown to
contribute to finance of mother university, taking the ratio of 19.5%. However, some
lifelong education centers seemed to go far to become simple means for securing
enrichment of finance of mother universities.
Third, the lifelong education centers of Seoul metropolitan areas were analyzed to be more
relatively sensitive to the increase of investment for students than those of local district areas.
On the other hand, lifelong education centers of local district areas appeared to invest some
part of revenue to maintaining and expanding building and facilities, showing that
management expenditure took about 30%.
Fourth, financial outflow from lifelong education centers of national universities was of a
little, reflecting characteristics of budgeting structure of national university. And, budgets of
private universities were considerably helped with some finance inflows from lifelong
education centers. Consequently, compared with national universities, lifelong education
centers of private universities were found to contribute more to the stable finance of mother
universities.