Regents prepare to set tuition

By Laura Diamond

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia college students and parents will learn Tuesday how high tuition will be this fall.

Enlarge photo

Brant Sanderlin, AJC Georgia State University senior Hira Mahmood takes part in a protest over the cutting back of HOPE scholarships on Thursday, March 31.

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The state Board of Regents is scheduled to vote on the new rates, which will be released at Tuesday's meeting.

Tuition increases are practically an annual tradition for the 35 colleges in the University System of Georgia. But there's heightened concern among families this year because of changes to the HOPE scholarship, which used to pay all tuition for students who earned at least a 3.0 GPA.

Now only the state’s brightest students -- about 10 percent of recipients -- will get full-tuition scholarships. For the rest the awards will equal 90 percent of current rates, meaning HOPE will not cover any tuition increases.

Lawmakers said they overhauled the scholarship this spring to keep the lottery-funded program from going broke. They advocated for no or minimal tuition increases because many families will pay a larger share of college costs.

College students, who have protested increases in the past, worry about another double-digit hike. Tuition increased by as much as 16 percent at some campuses this year. It went up by 25 percent at all campuses during the 2010 fiscal year.

"That pattern creates fear because we can’t anticipate how much higher it will get," said Kaitlin Miller, vice president-elect of the Student Government Association at the University of Georgia. "There’s fear of the unknown and fear of not being able to prepare for just how bad it’s going to get."

Students are graduating with more debt than ever before. College loan debt outpaced credit card debt for the first time and is projected to reach a trillion dollars this year, studies show.

"We are aware and respectful of the challenges students and their families face," regents Chairman Willis Potts said. "But we have to make sure our colleges can still provide students with a quality education."

Potts said HOPE changes won’t play a role in setting tuition, noting less than a third of the system's 311,000 students receive the scholarship.

He said tuition hikes are driven by rapid enrollment increases accompanied by cuts in state funding. The system is expecting about $5,500 a student from the state -- not even half of the $12,900 that college officials say it costs to teach a full-time student.

Nearly all state agencies are receiving less money because of the recession.

Chancellor Erroll Davis warned a tuition increase will not cover all the state cuts and said college presidents may have to curtail campus spending.

About 45,000 students will not pay more because they're on the "fixed for four" program, which locked students in at the same tuition for four years. The regents ended the program in April 2009 because of cuts in state funding, but grandfathered in students participating.