Quitting EPIK contract Gyeonggi consequences

From what I know, the school is allowed to make you pay back your rent for the year, as they Office of Education has to give the money to your school to cover your rent for the year, and if your bail early, the school still has to keep paying the landlord for the remainder of your contract. This happened to my downstairs neighbor, she re-signed in August 2019 and the COVID hit in 2020 and she decided that she had enough, applied to grad school, and told the school that she had to leave mid-April. They told her that she had to cover here rent until August (the end of here contract). So she had to give the school 1.6 million won. She was on he 3rd year with EPIK though, so she didn't have the school pay her deposit... instead she paid it herself directly to the landlord (I'm not sure if she had it returned or not....)

From what I know, the school is allowed to make you pay back your rent for the year, as they Office of Education has to give the money to your school to cover your rent for the year, and if your bail early, the school still has to keep paying the landlord for the remainder of your contract. This happened to my downstairs neighbor, she re-signed in August 2019 and the COVID hit in 2020 and she decided that she had enough, applied to grad school, and told the school that she had to leave mid-April. They told her that she had to cover here rent until August (the end of here contract). So she had to give the school 1.6 million won. She was on he 3rd year with EPIK though, so she didn't have the school pay her deposit... instead she paid it herself directly to the landlord (I'm not sure if she had it returned or not....)

That story is confusing and is another example of why the OP should stop just listening to our speculation but go and file with the Ministry of Employment and Labour.  Otherwise, this is going to just be a case of what a school can do if you do nothing about it, rather than what your school is actually allowed to do.  Filing doesn’t cost anything and at the very least in the op’s case is going to make his employer show up and go through these clauses in the contract and how it justifies them taking all this money to a MOEL adjudicator.  They are not going to jump at the opportunity and can’t say no. If they don’t show it goes in the employee’s favor.  This is not something a public school administrator wants to be embroiled in.  OP needs to have any and all deductions justified by the law, not the well meaning posters on here.  If he doesn’t file with the MOEL then he was just blowing steam and not really that invested in his situation to begin with. Or he’s lazy or intimidated by his school.