ATLANTA – Ever-increasing fees the University System of Georgia’s (USG) 26 colleges and universities charge students are making it harder to afford a college education in the Peach State, a state senator said Wednesday.
The fees even part-time and graduate students are forced to pay each semester have grown significantly, particularly since the Great Recession, Sen. Sally Harrell, D-Atlanta, told members of a Senate study committee created this year to examine the issue and make recommendations.
“Every parent of a USG student sees a long list of fees when they pay the tuition bill,” she said. That bill doesn’t make them happy, especially when the HOPE scholarship doesn’t cover fees.”
Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, who joined Harrell in sponsoring the resolution creating the study committee, said the fees became a greater concern when the coronavirus pandemic shut down college campuses last year, making student activities financed by many of the fees unavailable.
“That made us all more interested in where the fees go,” he said.
While there are dozens of mandatory and elective fees, Harrell said one of the largest – the institutional fee – was a product of the Great Recession. She said her daughter, who attends Georgia Tech, is being charged an institutional fee of $544 per semester.
Teresa MacCartney, the university system’s acting chancellor, said the institutional fee was intended as a temporary measure to help offset the economic impacts of the recession when the Board of Regents approved it in 2009.
However, state tax revenues were slow to recover during the years following the economic downturn, even as enrollment across the system grew with students laid off because of the economy signing up for college classes.
“We had less resources but were required to provide more services,” she said.
MacCartney said the institutional fee raises $230 million a year, money the university system would be hard pressed to replace.
“How do you take away $230 million in revenue and assure we’re providing a quality education?” she said
MacCartney said most of the increase in student fees in recent years has been to pay the debt service on building projects not directly related to instruction, such as parking decks, student housing and on-campus recreation centers.
While the state finances classroom buildings and labs, non-instructional projects are paid for through public-private ventures that account for more than 20% of mandatory student fees, she said.
MacCartney said she has asked officials at all 26 system campuses to look for greater efficiencies that could help save money.
“There are some things we could probably tighten up,” she said. “But even tightening up, I don’t think, is going to drive $230 million.”
Sen. Lindsey Tippins, R-Marietta, chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee and the study committee, promised the panel will take a close look at the fee structure without making any prejudgments.
“We certainly do not want to cripple our institutions,” he said. “At the same token, we don’t want to spend more than we need to spend to maintain fine programs.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Just over a week before a U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals hearing on Georgia’s controversial abortion law, state Democrats said Wednesday they will continue fighting any Republican efforts to curtail reproductive rights in the future.
In a virtual press conference also attended by a Planned Parenthood official, Democrats specifically pointed to Texas’ newly passed abortion bill, which the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month refused to block from taking effect.
“What happens in Texas won’t stay in Texas,” said state Rep. Beth Moore, D-Peachtree Corners. “Not every pregnancy is an immaculate conception or a Hollywood-produced drama. There is a limit to what government can impose, and the Republican Party wants to replace God with government.”
The Texas law prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks. The Texas law leaves enforcement to private citizens through civil lawsuits instead of criminal prosecutors.
On Tuesday night, according to the Associated Press, the U.S. Justice Department filed an emergency motion in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, to stop the law’s enforcement.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hold a hearing on Georgia’s HB 481 Sept. 24. Known as the Living Infants Fairness Equality (LIFE) Act, it also sought to prevent abortions beyond six weeks except in special situations. Lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights eventually led the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to rule the law unconstitutional.
If the 11th Circuit agrees with the district judge, Georgia could then appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which may then look at the law’s constitutionality and the precedent of Roe v. Wade.
Gov. Brian Kemp also is expected to call a special legislative session, likely in November, to redistrict the state under newly released U.S. Census figures. Moore said “it has been suggested that while we’re in session, we could consider other measures” such as a Texas-modeled abortion law.
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta, said special legislative sessions are called for a specific purpose – such as redistricting – but a two-thirds majority vote of the General Assembly could expand its originally called purpose.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The president of the Medical Association of Georgia said Wednesday this flu season could be worse than last year’s, and again stressed the importance of getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
“COVID-19 is a respiratory infection, so co-infection can bring a much higher risk of mortality,” said Dr. Lisa Perry-Gilkes. “Getting vaccinated is the best way to protect yourself from the COVID-19 and flu viruses, period.”
Perry-Gilkes said patients should “not to get lulled into a false sense of security because last year’s flu season was so mild. This could be a worse flu season, which is why I am encouraging every Georgian to get vaccinated as soon as possible, and no later than the end of October.”
She added patients can now get the COVID-19, flu and other vaccines administered at the same time.
Cherie Drenzek, state epidemiologist for the Georgia Department of Public Health, said the highly contagious delta variant is responsible for the surge.
“The delta variant began spreading in Georgia around July 4,” Drenzek told a virtual meeting of the state’s Board of Public Health. “There has been an exponential increase in cases, hospitalizations and deaths over the last 60 days.”
According to Tuesday’s COVID totals provided by the state Department of Public Health, more than 1.1 million Georgians have contracted coronavirus since the pandemic began in March 2020. A total of 20,806 Georgians have died, and there have been more than 76,000 hospitalizations.
According to data provided by Drenzek to the board, there has been a 20-fold increase in cases; a 13-fold increase in hospitalizations; and a 17-fold increase in COVID deaths since July 1.
However, both Gov. Brian Kemp’s office and Drenzek said state data has begun to show decreases over the last seven days.
Dr. R. Chris Rustin, director of the department’s Division of Health Protection, said as of Tuesday, more than 10 million vaccine doses have been administered in Georgia, with 4.7 million Georgians, or 45% of the state’s population, being fully vaccinated. About 5.4 million of the state’s residents, or 53%, have received at least one vaccine dose.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – For the fourth year in a row, Georgia public-school students outperformed their counterparts in the nation’s public schools on the SAT.
The mean score of 1077 Georgia students recorded was 39 points higher than the national average for public-school students.
According to a report issued Wednesday by the state Department of Education, Georgia’s public-school class of 2021 also recorded significant increases in scores compared to the class of 2020. The mean score for Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (ERW) rose from 532 in 2020 to 546 in 2021, and the mean for math rose from 511 in 2020 to 531 in 2021, for a total increase of 34 points in the average composite score.
“Despite the fact that part of their high-school education took place against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia’s class of 2021 did an outstanding job on the SAT — both increasing scores and outperforming their counterparts in the nation’s public schools,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said.
Thirty-eight percent of Georgia’s class of 2021 took the SAT at some point during high school. This percentage is lower than normal, given the impacts of the pandemic – including the cancellation of some test registrations and closure of some test centers in 2020 – and the temporary waiver of SAT/ACT score requirements for University System of Georgia admissions.
While the College Board does not release participation percentages at the national level, the raw numbers show a decline in participation nationally as well: 1.5 million students in the high school class of 2021 took the SAT at least once, down from 2.2 million in the class of 2020.
Wednesday’s news included only state-level test scores. The department said school and district-level scores will be released Friday.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath touted her family-friendly agenda Tuesday evening during a telephone town hall with 6th Congressional District residents.
McBath, D-Marietta, cited a list of legislative accomplishments, including a bill President Joe Biden signed earlier this year expanding insurance premium tax credits for Americans who lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.
She also worked with congressional Republicans on bipartisan legislation including a package of bills aimed at reducing maternal mortality.
“We have the worst rate of maternal deaths in the developed world,” she said. “This is absolutely unacceptable in the richest nation on Earth.”
Improving child care has been one of McBath’s top priorities in Congress. She cited a bill she introduced in 2019 that created an interagency task force to help states conduct criminal background checks of child-care workers and applicants.
McBath reminded listeners that the third installment of the expanded federal child tax credit Congress passed this year will go out on Wednesday. Part of a COVID-19 relief bill known as the American Rescue Plan, the legislation provides monthly checks of $300 for each child under age 6 and $250 for each child ages 6 through 17.
McBath said more than 100,000 children in the 6th Congressional District are eligible for the tax credit – 64% of the total.
“This is one of the most tangible ways we can support families and children,” she said. “These are middle-class tax cuts for our working families.”
On other issues, McBath said she supports the $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending bill now before Congress, Biden’s Clean Energy Plan and proposed legislation expanding funding for a program that works to prevent domestic violence.
With the Republican-controlled General Assembly getting ready to redraw Georgia’s congressional district lines this fall, McBath has a target on her back.
She captured the 6th Congressional District seat in 2018 after it had been in Republican hands for decades, and the GOP wants it back.
Four Republicans are competing for the GOP nomination to challenge McBath’s reelection bid next year: Cobb County lawyer Jake Evans, former chairman of the Georgia Government Transparency & Campaign Finance Commission, former state Rep. Meagan Hanson of Sandy Springs, activist Suzi Voyles of Sandy Springs and U.S. Army veteran Harold Earls.
The 6th District covers east Cobb County, and the northern ends of Fulton and DeKalb counties.
This story available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.