The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia voted last Tuesday to end the tuition guarantee for incoming freshmen. Students currently enrolled in the regents’ guaranteed tuition plan will see no change in their tuition this coming fall.

According to regents, Fall 2009 freshmen will pay tuition at the same per-credit-hour rate charged last year, but will be subject to future tuition increases thereafter. Students entering Georgia Southern University in the fall will pay $134 per credit hour—the same cost as last fall.

“In these difficult economic times, it is impossible to guarantee anyone a fixed cost for anything,” said Ron Core, vice president for Business and Finance at GSU. “I think the quality of education and the services provided to students at Georgia Southern are a bargain.”

In addition to ending guaranteed tuition, the board of regents set the full-time tuition rate at 15 credit hours instead of the current 12 hours. For the first time, students not on the guarantee will pay the per-credit-hour rate for all classes taken up to 15 credit hours.

Carolyn Watkins, a 2007 graduate of Sequoyah High School, will be attending GSU in the fall. Watkins said not having guaranteed tuition is “definitely more than a little inconvenient.”

“I don’t want to always have to worry about whether or not tuition is going to be raised and if I’m going to be able to afford it or not,” Watkins said. “On the other hand, everyone is making cutbacks in costs nowadays and even schools are being affected, so as much as I hate the uncertainty of no guaranteed tuition, I understand the need.”

Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs for the USG Tonya Lam sent out a memo Thursday that said “The fact that students will be charged tuition for up to 15 credit hours has no effect on full-time student classification for the purposes of financial aid, insurance or athletics.”

Students will still be classified as full-time as long as they are enrolled in 12 credit hours or more.

“The bulk of freshmen take more than 12 hours,” said Usha Ramachandran, vice chancellor for Fiscal Affairs for the USG.

According to a report compiled by Wallace Brown, assistant registrar for the Office of the Registrar, about 89.5 percent of students enrolled in 12 credit hours or more for fall 2008. About 47.7 percent enrolled in 15 credit hours or more.

“I think the new tuition rate will make students more likely to enroll in 15, 16 or 17 credit hours,” said Associate Registrar of Operations Wayne Smith.

“While the board’s basic priorities were preserved in the state appropriations, I remain deeply concerned about the challenges of meeting rising enrollment across the entire system with diminished resources,” said USG Chancellor Erroll Davis.

GSU’s fall 2008 undergraduate enrollment was 15,490—up 4.3 percent from Fall 2007.

“We will need to all work together to share our limited resources and understand that increased enrollment is critical to help with our budget cuts,” said Teresa Thompson, vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management.

The board also approved a special institutional fee of $100 for Georgia’s research universities, GSU, and five other USG institutions.

Thompson said GSU’s administration is still reviewing the regents’ decisions and will develop effective ways to communicate the changes to everyone on campus.

Sade Oshinubi