In case you were working on an end-of-semester project, sleeping off a hangover, or just disconnected from all things public college in this state, tuition is going to go up 2 percent for the 2017-2018 academic year. That should work out to between $27 and $98 per semester for full-time, in-state undergraduates, depending on the college or university.
Don’t worry, exactly zero dollars and zero cents will be added to my salary (or almost any other professor’s salary) from this increase!
The Chancellor and the Board of Regents have to say things like “we thank the General Assembly that we were graciously allowed to raise costs,” and probably it’s not smart for an untenured, assistant professor (who is a librarian, nonetheless) to point out reality, but as costs to educate increase, our funding has to come from somewhere, and it’s almost assuredly not going to come from state appropriations.
A December 2016 state audit found that funding from the state has decreased $1,288 ($2,448 when adjusted for inflation) per student over the past ten years, while costs have increased in the neighborhood of $6,430 per student over that same time period. Put another way, state appropriations funded $2.2 billion of the University System of Georgia’s $8 billion budget this academic year. That leaves a very large gap, which nowadays comes from tuition increases, student fees, and fundraising.
Meanwhile, the Board of Regents is investigating those student fees. (Seriously, why are commuter students required to have meal plans?) Beginning in Fall 2017, there will be only 12 student fees approved for USG institutions. Further, online education credit hour fees are either dropping or are remaining steady across the system. Next, the Board of Regents will be auditing the administrations of its institutions for additional cost-saving measures. We’re not done with the school consolidations, either, as Georgia Southern and Armstrong State are the next to merge (which might be more contentious than the Georgia Health Sciences-Augusta State merger). All of this adds up to USG institutions costing about a quarter less than their peer institutions in other states. Go us.
Last but not least, we have a new chancellor for academic affairs, which basically covers everything but the kitchen sink. His name is Tristan Denley, and we stole him from Tennessee.