by Dave Williams | Apr 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Student enrollment at Georgia’s public colleges and universities reached 345,823 this semester, an all-time record for the spring, the University System of Georgia’s vice chancellor of research and policy analysis reported Wednesday.
The spring enrollment numbers at the system’s 26 institutions increased for the second year in a row after declining in 2022 and 2023 as the system emerged from the pandemic, Angela Bell told members of the system’s Board of Regents meeting on the campus of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro.
“We outpaced the nation again in growth,” system Chancellor Sonny Perdue added.
The largest enrollment growth this spring occurred among undergraduates, whose ranks increased by 14.1% over last spring. The number of students enrolled in master’s degree programs grew by 12.6%.
Enrollment at the system’s four research universities – including the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech – rose by 6.5% compared to last spring, while enrollment at the system’s comprehensive universities – including Georgia Southern and Kennesaw State University – was up by 6.1%.
As university system campuses have become more diverse, white enrollment as a percentage of the student population has declined from 47% to 42% during the last five years, Bell said.
Hispanic enrollment has increased from 10% of the student population to 12% during that same period, while enrollment among Asian American students is up from 11% to 14%.
Perdue said he’s concerned by the rapid growth in the number of students taking classes online. The number of online courses being offered shot up during the pandemic, and the trend of more students taking a full course load online or a mix of online and in-person instruction has continued.
“I’m not sure if it’s driven by teacher demand or student demand,” Perdue said. “If it continues, we won’t need new buildings in the university system.”
Perdue said the growing popularity of dual enrollment students – high school students taking college courses – has stirred discussion among Georgia lawmakers of establishing three-year degree programs in the university system.
In other business Wednesday, the regents voted to name Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy after Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. The late former president from Plains, who died last December at the age of 100, attended Georgia Tech in 1942.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Federal law enforcement officials announced a major drug bust Tuesday, seizing more than 100 pounds of fentanyl and arresting 22.
The takedown involved two Mexican drug cartels, but two kingpins remain on the loose.
The federal government has issued a cumulative $8 million reward for information leading to the capture of Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga, known as “Pez,” and his brother Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga, who goes by “Fresa.” They are both believed to be in Mexico, said Michael Herskowitz, who oversees narcotics and dangerous drug prosecutions for the U.S. Attorneys’ Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
“It is our hope that these multi-million dollar rewards will encourage people to come forward with what they know” about the brothers, he said, “both here in the United States and in cities and towns in Mexico.”
Some of the arrests involved a money-wiring operation in Gwinnett County that authorities said was sending drug proceeds to Mexico in small sums that would minimize attention. The practice, called “smurfing,” involves transactions below $10,000, a threshold for federal reporting.
Jae W. Chung, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta division, said the amount of fentanyl seized — 47 kilograms — would probably sell for around $1.5 million on the street and that it was enough to kill at least 23 million people. That’s more than two times the number of people in Georgia. (Two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal depending on a person’s body size, tolerance and past usage, according to the DEA.)
“For Atlanta DEA, that’s probably the single largest seizure,” he said.
Chung said the investigation had been ongoing for years.
Herskowitz said the U.S. State Department had labeled the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which helped with the investigation.
by Dave Williams | Apr 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – For the seventh time in the last 10 years, the University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents voted Tuesday to hold the line on tuition for in-state students.
Since 2016, tuition at the state’s 26 public colleges and universities has increased by less than 1% per year, Tracey Cook, the system’s chief fiscal officer, told the regents at a meeting on the campus of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro.
“USG and the Board of Regents remain focused on keeping college affordable for Georgia families to ensure higher education stays within reach across the state,” system Chancellor Sonny Perdue said. “As more students than ever enroll on our campuses, we continue to prioritize reducing financial barriers and offering excellent value.”
Among the 16 Southern Regional Education Board states, Georgia is third lowest in average undergraduate tuition and required fees compared to its public peers, according to national data from the College Board. Nationally, the system has the sixth-lowest tuition and fees.
The regents did raise tuition for in-state undergraduates by 2.5% last year. Perdue cited inflation at the time.
The coming school year will see a 2% tuition increase for out-of-state students and a 3% increase for students from other countries.
The board also approved changes to mandatory student fees at eight of the system’s institutions. Among those eight, six institutions will see fee hikes ranging from $5 to $21 per semester, while two will lower their fees.
In other business Tuesday, the regents approved a plan to consolidate Georgia Southern and East Georgia State College.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Nearly 200 years of legal precedent should not apply to a 20-year-old man who wants to carry a gun, his lawyer argued before the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Thomas Stephens, who turns 21 next year, was denied a license to carry a handgun in public when he applied for one in Lumpkin County. He sued, and his case made it to the high court, which heard arguments by his lawyer and by the state attorney general’s office. The state contends in a legal brief that the restrictions on adults under age 21 are “baked into the Georgia Constitution.”
Stephens’ lawsuit goes to the heart of one of the most contentious issues in America today: how to interpret gun rights under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It says, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” An introductory phrase has been a complicating factor, saying that a “well regulated Militia” is needed to secure a free state.
Georgia’s constitution elaborates by saying that the legislature “shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.”
A lawyer from Attorney General Chris Carr’s office argued that the state’s age-based limitations date back to the Civil War era, when he said those under 21 were not subject to militia service.
“The court should stick with the analysis that it’s applied for 180 years,” said Zachary A. Mullinax, an assistant attorney general. “I don’t think that there is any historical evidence that an 18-year-old had the right to carry a handgun in public.”
But Stephens’ lawyer made the case that Georgia’s restrictions are rooted in a time before courts began applying a higher standard on government intrusion into personal liberties.
The state Supreme Court has based its decisions on a “reasonable” exercise of government power to limit access to guns, said John R. Monroe, the Dawsonville attorney representing Stephens.
That was before the World War II era, when the U.S. Supreme Court first developed a higher standard of “strict scrutiny” and began requiring that burdens on fundamental rights be justified by a “compelling” state interest, Monroe said. “Strict scrutiny should be applied to this case because it’s a fundamental right for people to keep and bear arms.”
It’s unclear how the state’s high court will rule. The justices peppered both lawyers with questions, although Justice Andrew A. Pinson told Monroe early in the hearing that he had an “uphill battle” to make his case. That is due to the history of Georgia’s restrictions on gun rights, Pinson said, “which we’ve said arguably is now baked into our constitutional language given that it was enacted and then we ratified new constitutions with that same language.”
by Dave Williams | Apr 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
SMYRNA – Gov. Brian Kemp had a pithy message as he signed two tax relief bills Tuesday.
“Tax cut bill on tax day,” the Republican governor exclaimed as he prepared to sign legislation accelerating income tax reductions the General Assembly put in place last year.
House Bill 111, which Kemp signed at an event inside the Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre sponsored by the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, will reduce the state income tax rate from 5.39% to 5.19% retroactive to the beginning of the current tax year.
The second tax relief measure Kemp signed Monday will provide a one-time rebate to Georgia taxpayers. Under House Bill 112, single tax filers will receive $250. A single filer who is the head of his or her household will get $375, and married couples filing jointly will receive $500.
The rebate legislation sailed through the General Assembly during the recently concluded legislative session without a single “no” vote. But House Bill 111 proved controversial, with Democrats arguing most of the benefits of the tax cut will go to upper-income Georgians.
Kemp defended both bills Monday before a crowd of state and local business and political leaders.
“We know this is your money, not the government’s, and we know you know best how to spend it,” he said.
The Georgia House of Representatives and the state Senate passed House Bill 111 largely along party lines.
Kemp was flanked by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, House Speaker Jon Burns, other Georgia lawmakers and state constitutional officers as he put his signature to the bills.
