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Patton Hunt
Tuition at Georgia colleges will continue to climb this year as technology schools, two-year colleges and universities try to recover from millions in cuts to state higher education.
Some students say that, while a tuition hike of between $100 and $500 per semester isn’t ideal, it’s better than seeing their schools cut programs and staff this year.
“I know that, in tough economic times, there are going to have to be sacrifices made,” said Patton Hunt, a junior studying history at Dalton State College. “I am not angry about it. I am not upset about it.”
State colleges such as Dalton State will begin charging $1,347 per semester, a $100 increase from fall, 2009. Students at Georgia universities including Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, the Medical College of Georgia and the University of Georgia will pay a total of $3,535 per semester, a $500 increase.
Tuition also increased $100 last year at Dalton State and 6 percent at UGA.
Schools within the Technical College System of Georgia, which oversees Georgia Northwestern Technical College in Rock Spring, Ga., also will see their fees go up. At Georgia Northwestern, the per-credit-hour fee rises from $40 to $45, officials said.
The Georgia General Assembly approved the tuition plan earlier his year after a long debate on how much of an increase was necessitated by colleges’ financial woes and enrollment growth.
“Our tuition strategy helps us to preserve both access and quality, but we are not accomplishing these goals by shifting all of our costs to students and families,” University System of Georgia Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Jr. said in a statement.
In the last year, the University System of Georgia has cut $227 million from its budget, which now totals $1.95 billion. The tuition increase is intended to generate as much as $80 million, documents show.
“We are cautiously optimistic that the state’s budget will stabilize,” said Scott Bailey, vice president for fiscal affairs at Dalton State. “There is still reason for concern to be cautious.”
Over the past year, college officials have speculated that tuition increases would be much higher than what finally was decided on. Two years ago, the University System of Georgia decided to end the tuition guarantee program, which locked in students’ tuition for four years when they began college.
Students who entered college under the guarantee program still have a locked cost, but entering freshmen must pay future changes year to year.
“(The increase) is really a lot lower than it could have been,” said Bonnie Joerschke, director of student financial aid at UGA. “I haven’t had one complaint from anyone.”
With tuition increasing, Ms. Joerschke said UGA plans to funnel more scholarship dollars to the neediest students. Pell Grant recipients who are Georgia residents and qualified for free or reduced lunches in their high schools will receive an extra $1,000 from the school, she said.
Still, officials said only few students will feel the sting of the tuition hike, since the state’s lottery scholarship covers all tuition costs.
More than 97 percent of entering freshmen at UGA receive the HOPE scholarship, and almost all students in the Georgia Technical College System receive state grants.
“I believe it is a reasonable increase,” Mr. Bailey said. “It’s a $6-per-credit-hour increase. I believe it is manageable for students.”
Continue reading by following these links to related stories:
Article: Dalton State expects no tuition-break fallout
Article: Dalton State College faces 'grave' budget situation
Joan Garrett has been a staff writer for the Times Free Press since August 2007. Before becoming a general assignment writer for the paper, she wrote about business, higher education and the court systems. She grew up the oldest of five sisters near Birmingham, Ala., and graduated with a master's and bachelor's degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama. Before landing her first full-time job as a reporter at the Times Free Press, she ...
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