ATLANTA – All but one of Georgia’s public colleges and universities will not be raising tuition for the third year in a row.
The University System of Georgia Board of Regents voted Tuesday to hold the line on tuition during the upcoming school year for every school in the system except Middle Georgia State University. The school in Macon is beginning a three-year plan to bring undergraduate tuition into alignment with other universities in the same academic sector.
Increases will range from $17 per credit hour for in-state undergraduates to $64 per credit hour for undergraduates from outside of Georgia.
Tuesday’s vote marked the fifth time in the last seven years the board opted not to increase tuition at most of the system’s 26 institutions across Georgia.
The state can afford to keep tuition where it is. Gov. Brian Kemp and the General Assembly provided $3.1 billion in state funds to the university system for the fiscal year starting July 1, up from $2.3 billion in the budget lawmakers approved a year ago.
“The university system’s longstanding commitment to affordability helps empower students, keeping them on track to learn the skills they need to get good jobs in a highly skilled workforce,” said system Chancellor Sonny Perdue, the former governor who took over as chancellor last week.
“That workforce is critical to the economic development that has allowed Georgia to thrive, and we are grateful to Governor Kemp and the General Assembly for passing a state budget this year that provides record support for public higher education and USG institutions statewide.”
The board also voted to eliminate the special institutional fee that was imposed during the Great Recession, when the university system was strapped for funds. Doing away with the fee will save students anywhere from $170 to $544 per semester, depending on which institution they attend.
Georgia’s university system has the third-lowest median in-state tuition and fees for undergraduates at four-year institutions among the 16 states that make up the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), according to the latest data available. The system also averages the 13th-lowest annual tuition and fees in the nation.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.