ATLANTA - - Parents and college students may have to open their wallets a little wider come January if the Board of Regents for the University System of Georgia approves a staff recommendation Wednesday to double a special, mandatory fee.
The board imposed the fee originally at its meeting in August, of $100 for students at the Medical College of Georgia, University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Georgia State University. Students at middle-sized schools paid $75, including Augusta State University, Armstrong Atlantic State University and Savannah State University.
Students at the smallest schools paid $50, including the College of Coastal Georgia.
At the August meeting, the board set in motion plans to raise the fees in January by $150 at the biggest schools, $100 and $75. After getting feedback from college presidents, students and members of the public, the staff chose to recommend smaller increases.
The fee increases and the budget cuts are needed because of a steep decline in the state’s tax collections. Together, they’ll account for an 8 percent reduction, or $176 million.
Also this Wednesday, the board will consider a staff recommendation to set an expiration date for the special fee on June 30, 2012. The staff also suggests a one-year moratorium on all fees that individual schools might raise, except those needed to pay back the costs of buildings currently under construction.
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Yea, I have to open my wallet when a robber asks me too as well. This is just the first of many "fees" the state will come up with due to them not getting "enough" tax revenue. A fee here, a fee there, but hey, its not a "tax."
And I ask, yet again, when do welfare recipients and others getting federal/state assistance start seeing small reductions in their "benefits" and start paying small co-pays for their medical treatment?
college is turning into insurance companies- legalized robbery. they already furloughed professors. lets see if the "board" is going to take pay cuts.
If you don't want to pay the fees, don't go. Nobody makes anybody go to college. It's still the best bargain there is, because it's an investment in yourself. Education is priceless, and no matter what happens to you in life, no matter where you go, you have your education.
it's not that i don't want to pay the fees, i have no problem paying fees, but if i'm going to pay more, i'd expect to see more. ASU is witnessing the highest enrollment ever, more people are going to college now compared to in the past. therefore they have more revenue coming in... its a never ending cycle.
They have more revenue coming in, but they have more expenses, too. State universities don't break even or make a profit. They need heavy subsidization from a state to operate. ASU is one of the best bargains in Augusta. Less subsidies, more fees. It's not like retail.