Could we see a 77 percent tuition hike at public colleges?
A week ago, we sat down with UGA president Michael Adams who was concerned about the ongoing hits to higher education in the state budget. His main concern was losing good faculty members to competing schools because of an inability to come up with counter offers. (He said some interesting things about the disparity in high school quality in the state, but I will write that up later.)
But his boss was at the Legislature today with even more dire warnings: It would take a 77 percent tuition increase at Georgia’s colleges and universities to meet the demand for a $385 million cut in the state’s higher education system budget, said Chancellor Erroll Davis.
That was not what lawmakers wanted to hear. They did not want Davis to tell them that the system could not sustain many more cuts or find any real money outside of raising tuition through the roof. “We are in a budget crisis,” state Sen. Seth Harp (R-Midland) told him. “We have got to cut another $200 to $300 million out of your budget. Please, prioritize where those cuts will come or we will do it blindly.”
Lawmakers threw out ideas for how the system could save money, but those cuts would not produce nearly enough in savings. For example, state Rep. Bob Lane (R-Statesboro) asked how much a 1 percent salary cut would save the system. Davis couldn’t answer, but my AJC colleagues checked and found out that a 1 percent cut to the systems’ teaching budget, the overwhelming majority of which goes to salaries, would save $19 million.
It seems the writing is on the wall for a tuition hike. In our visit, Adams noted that Georgia still is considered a great deal in public college tuition, and there is a fair argument for raising it.
A tuition hike at UGA is really a new burden on lottery dollars since so many Athens students are HOPE Scholarship recipients. The lottery folks already have warned of problems meeting demand, so that seems to point to a collision course between supply and demand.
Not sure how this is going to end, but I would suggest that college students start giving up those weekly Starbucks double shots and the iTune purchases. A tuition hike seems apparent unless lawmakers consider raising taxes or “fees” on something somewhere. (I still vote for the cigarette tax.)
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102 comments Add your comment
megan burkett
March 3rd, 2010
11:32 pm
Being a freshman at Gordon College, I did not understand the importance of the list submitted to be removed next year if no other solution could be made. The Board of Regents is demanding millions of dollars to be cut by many Georgia colleges. Through my intriguing desire to learn more about this scandal, I have learned that all the resources planning to be cut are vital to Gordon College. Hearing my fellow student body protest this idea of losing all these wonderful resources made me realize how important this matter is, and that all students should be worried about the effect it will have on them. The Board of Regents needs to put themselves in the place of the students when deciding how to solve the problem. When a student looks for a college, they look for the attractions, campus landscape, and the quality of the faulty. Once these things are cut the student’s interest is also cut (no students, no school). This reaction could be fatal to Gordon as a growing college. Gordon, from what I understand, had big growing plans for next year. In order for Gordon to grow, these plans need to be set forth. With growth of the campus and dorm life, the result is more students, and more tuition money coming in.
Jennifer Neill
March 4th, 2010
9:46 am
Wow! An increase is budget for college tuition, is exactly what we need…NOT! If this takes place in the Georgia College system it will have the total wrong affect. Does anyone who is making these decisions think about all the bad things that are going to happen if they force these changes? First of all, there is no way that as many students can attend college after these changes. Because some students cannot afford to pay a higher cost and for many other reasons as well. So how can high school counselors and teacher and pretty much the whole society pressure you into to going to college and tell you how much better it will benefit you when you might not even be able to have that option after the cuts. The main reason that we go to college is to graduate. Well if the classes are full that we need to take to achieve that goal then what is the point. So they want us to just take pointless classes so that we can be taking a class but it’s not the one that we need which makes that a waste of money for us. I realize that not every professor at every school has time to chat with students one on one but they at least have office hours so that if you need them you can go there. But if faculty members get cut at schools then the ones that are there will have to teach more classes and then they will rarely ever if all have time to even be in their office. This cut will do nothing good for the students and professors that attend and teach at Georgia Colleges and Universities. So please take a step back and think about more things than money.