Applications climb, budgets trim at state colleges

Record numbers of high school seniors are applying to state colleges in Georgia even as the university system trims its budget for lean times. Applications for the HOPE scholarship are also soaring.

High school counselors say more students want to stay in Georgia for college because of the uncertain economy, said Joe F. Head, dean of admissions at Kennesaw State University. Freshman applications at his school are up by 7 percent over last year’s 6,324, he said.

“Everyone is attributing the spike to the financial condition of the country,” Head said.

The significantly lower price tags for Georgia’s public colleges, combined with the help provided by HOPE scholarships, make state schools tempting.

Tuition at Georgia’s major universities is just under $2,500 per semester. The HOPE scholarship covers that.

Applications for the lottery-funded HOPE scholarships are up 20 percent this year over last — from 23,980 to 28,775, said Monet Robinson, spokeswoman for the Georgia Student Finance Commission.

A sampling of local private colleges showed both increases and decreases in applications. But public universities large and small uniformly saw growth.

The University of Georgia, with 18,100 new applications, and Southern Polytechnic State University, with 1,314, both reported increases of 4 percent.

Georgia Tech saw an 11.5 percent bump to 11,485.

Georgia State University’s numbers were up a whopping 25 percent, from 8,409 to 10,504.

Georgia State president Mark Becker attributed the uptick to his school’s growing reputation and range of opportunities.

But interviews of prospective students and their parents at the downtown Atlanta campus revealed another consideration: money.

Cindy Stroud of Atlanta likes Georgia State because “it’s a great school” and it has a program in mass communications. Then there’s that other reason.

“I’m trying not to go into debt to attend college,” she said.

Kourosh Sabzevari of Marietta is looking at three state universities.

“I’m getting the HOPE scholarship,” he said. “That’s going to pay for a huge chunk of my schooling.”

Kayla Johnson will move from Ohio to live with her mother and possibly attend Georgia State next fall.

“We looked at Emory,” said her mother, Kelli Culbreth. “Whoo! The cost was outrageous.”

Emory University received 10.5 percent fewer undergraduate applications than last year’s record number of 17,427. Officials attribute the decrease to discontinuing the use of an online application form called FastApp.

Despite its total undergraduate cost of close to $50,000 a year, Emory is committed to meeting the financial needs of all dependent undergraduate students through scholarships, grants, loans and jobs, said spokeswoman Beverly Clark.

Other metro Atlanta private colleges reported boosts in applications. Agnes Scott College received 25 percent more than last year; Morehouse College was up 10 percent. Neither school could explain the increase.

The popularity of public schools could overstretch the state’s ability to provide a reasonably priced education, officials said.

After cutting $239 million from its $2.3 billion budget for the current fiscal year, the University System faces a continuation of that cut plus a possible loss of $32 million in state appropriations for next year. The state’s budget is still undecided.

Earlier this year, in his state of the system address to the Georgia Board of Regents, chancellor Erroll Davis raised the possibility of an enrollment cap.

“A continuing trend of increasing enrollment and decreasing resources is not a formula for success over the long run,” Davis said. “In fact, some of our presidents have already indicated that their institutions are at or near a tipping point.”