Ga. regents vote to keep tuition flat at AU, most other schools

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - University System of Georgia regents voted Tuesday to drop the special institutional fee and not to raise tuition at Augusta University and 24 more of the system’s 26 schools.

That means undergraduate and graduate tuition will stay the same for the third year in a row at 25 of 26 institutions. The one exception is Middle Georgia State University.

The board approved eliminating a mandatory special institutional fee charged since 2009 to students systemwide. That action will save students anywhere from $170 to $544 per semester, depending on which institution they attend.

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The board established the fee when state funding was cut during the Great Recession. The fee has continued, but beginning in Fiscal Year 2023, the state will increase USG’s budget by almost $230 million, allowing for the fee’s elimination.

Middle Georgia State’s tuition is rising because it is starting a three-year plan to bring undergraduate tuition into alignment with other universities in the same academic sector. That school will see increases ranging from $17 per credit hour for in-state undergraduates to $64 per credit hour for out-of-state undergraduate students.

USG has the third lowest median in-state tuition and fees for undergraduates at four-year institutions among the 16 states that make up the Southern Regional Education Board, according to the latest data available. The system also averages the 13th-lowest annual tuition and fees in the nation.

Tuition rates for each institution may be found here.