University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue
ATLANTA – In-state undergraduates at Georgia’s public colleges and universities will be paying 2.5% more for tuition during the coming school year.
After keeping tuition flat at all but one of the University System of Georgia’s 26 institutions for six of the past eight years, the system’s Board of Trustees approved the tuition hike Tuesday. Out-of-state students will see a 5% increase, and a new third level of tuition for out-of-country students will be set at 2% above the out-of-state rate.
System Chancellor Sonny Perdue attributed the increase to inflation.
“Our institutions face increasing costs to operate, and we must sustain their momentum as some of the best in the nation at helping students succeed on campus and in the workforce,” he said.
Even with the tuition hike, Georgia offers the third-lowest average tuition and required fees among the 16 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, according to national data.
Middle Georgia State University, the only institution to raise tuition during the last academic year, will be finishing the last year in a three-year plan to align its undergraduate tuition with other system universities in the same academic sector.
The regents also adopted a new mandatory fee structure for the growing number of students taking classes fully online. Those students at 20 of the 26 institutions will be charged an online learning fee equivalent to their institution’s technology fee, as well as 50% of their institution’s mandatory fees.
In other business Tuesday, the board voted to extend the system’s temporary waiver of test score requirements. With state colleges already test optional, no test scores will be required for admission to 23 of the 26 institutions during the 2025-26 academic year.
The temporary waiver does not apply to the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Georgia College & State University.
Test scores will continue to be required to apply for Zell Miller scholarships, which go to students who earned at least a 3.7 grade-point average in high school.
The university system began waiving the test requirements in 2020 with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The waiver has been in effect for all but 10 months since then.
ATLANTA – The state Public Service Commission (PSC) approved a request by Georgia Power Tuesday for a huge increase in electrical generating capacity power utility executives said is needed to meet the growing demands of large industrial customers.
The additional capacity will come from a variety of sources, including battery storage and other forms of renewable energy but also from boosting Georgia Power’s investment in fossil fuels.
During several rounds of hearings on the request, the company pledged the plan will save the average residential customer $2.89 a month from 2026 through 2028. But an agreement Georgia Power reached with the commission’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff last month contains no guarantee the company won’t seek to raise rates when it submits its 2025 rate case.
“The stipulated agreement benefits all customers,” said Aaron Abramovitz, Georgia Power’s chief financial officer. “Approval of this agreement will preserve and protect the reliability and quality of electric service our customers expect and supports the continued economic development of our state – all while placing downward pressure on rates for all customers.”
Some environmental and consumer advocacy groups signed off on the agreement. But others pushed back against Georgia Power’s plan to supply some of the additional generating capacity by building three gas and oil-fired turbines at Plant Yates near Newnan and entering power purchasing agreements for oil and gas from Mississippi Power – a sister company of Georgia Power – and Florida-based Santa Rosa Energy Center LLC.
“Georgia Power is … not concerned about moving Georgia to a clean-energy economy, let alone protecting the health of Georgians who live in and around these fossil fuel power plants and the billions who will suffer the dangerous impacts of higher temperature that are already costing Americans some $150 billion in damages annually,” said Kim Scott, executive director of Georgia WAND.
Opponents and some commissioners also cited a series of rate increases the PSC has approved for Georgia Power since the beginning of last year that have driven up monthly bills by more than 50%.
“Our ratepayers cannot continue to see rate hikes,” said Commissioner Fitz Johnson. “The ratepayers are weary. This commissioner is very concerned about the rate hikes.”
Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald made a motion Tuesday to delay the certification of the Plant Yates gas project until no earlier than mid-November. By then, the presidential election would have come and gone, and the future of national energy policy would have become clearer. However, none of the other four commissioners supported the motion.
Georgia Power’s plan then passed 4-1, with McDonald voting “present.”
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., grilled the head of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Tuesday about months-long delays in delivering mail processed at a new regional distribution center in Palmetto.
Since the Atlanta Regional Processing and Distribution Center began operations earlier this year, only 36% of inbound mail is being delivered on time, Ossoff said during a hearing held by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. About 66% of outbound mail is being delivered on time, he said.
“I’ve got constituents with prescriptions that aren’t being delivered,” Ossoff told Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. “I’ve got constituents who can’t pay their rent or mortgages. I’ve got businesses that aren’t able to ship products or receive supplies. You are failing abysmally to fulfill your core mission in my state.”
DeJoy attributed the delays to problems rolling out a long-overdue USPS restructuring plan aimed at making the postal service financially self-sufficient and better able to compete with private shippers including Federal Express and the United Parcel Service.
The plan calls for consolidating local mail distribution offices into huge regional centers, starting in metro Atlanta and Richmond, Va. The Atlanta-area consolidation involved moving nearly 10,000 employees from 10 locations to the new Palmetto distribution center, he said.
“The issues that we had here were in fact management issues on the ground, were in fact employee attendance issues,” DeJoy said. “Now that the organization is engaged … I see the whole team getting better, understanding the transition we have to make.”
DeJoy said he expects to have the problems at both Atlanta and Richmond corrected by this summer.
“Richmond and Atlanta and the whole Georgia area will be the finest run part of the organization very shortly,” he said. “We have to allow time to transition.”
But Ossoff said Georgians who aren’t getting their mail on time don’t have time to wait for the problems to be fixed.
“You’ve got weeks, not months to fix this,” the senator told DeJoy. “If you don’t fix it, I don’t think you’re fit for the job.”
ATLANTA – Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport retained its distinction as the world’s busiest airport last year, the industry organization Airport Council International reported Monday.
The Atlanta airport served 104.7 million passengers in 2023, based on preliminary figures, an 11.7% increase over the previous year.
“Being home to the world’s busiest airport underscores our city’s economic vitality,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said. “It is a testament to our global connectivity and an affirmation of our city’s place on the world stage.”
Hartsfield-Jackson had been the world’s busiest airport since 1998 until 2020, when it lost the No.-1 ranking to Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in China. Atlanta regained the top spot in 2021 and has held it every year since.
Atlanta’s airport became the first in the world to hit the 1 million mark in annual passengers in 2015.
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections continued their downward slide last month, declining by 12.6% compared to March of last year, the state Department of Revenue reported Friday.
Year-to-date tax receipts were more encouraging, with revenues down a slight 0.5% compared to the first nine months of the last fiscal year.
However, that’s only because the state has resumed collecting taxes on gasoline and other motor fuels, a tax Gov. Brian Kemp suspended during most of last year. Not counting those revenues, state tax collections actually fell 4.3% during the first nine months of fiscal 2024.
Individual income taxes declined by 16.1% in March compared to the same month a year ago, in part because Kemp and the General Assembly cut the state’s income tax rates effective Jan. 1.
Net sales tax receipts also fell by 4.5% last month compared to March of last year. Corporate income tax collections dropped by 28.3%, as refunds issued by the revenue agency rose by 88% while payments were down by 91.8%.
Despite the slowdown in tax revenues, which the governor’s Office of Planning and Budget expected, Georgia lawmakers adopted a record $37.9 billion midyear budget in February that includes $5.5 billion in new spending.
A month later, the legislature approved a $36.1 billion spending plan for fiscal 2025, which takes effect in July. It includes 4% cost-of-living raises for most state and university system employees, with an additional $3,000 for those in state agencies hit hard by turnover, including law enforcement and welfare workers.
The largesse stems from a $16 billion budget surplus the state has built up during the last three years.
