Incoming freshmen at Georgia Highlands College will pay as much as $72 more per semester than their predecessors under tuition hikes approved by the state Board of Regents on Wednesday.

But they’ll pay that same price for the next four years as the state’s “fixed-for-four” tuition plan goes into its second year. The plan — a pet project of Gov. Sonny Perdue — locks students into the same tuition rate for four years of schooling at four-year campuses and for three years of classes at two-year colleges.

That means rising sophomores will pay the same rates they did this school year — $802 per semester — and students who were enrolled prior to last August will pay $834, a $40 increase. Incoming freshman will pay $874 per semester, a 9 percent increase.

“The fixed-for-four allows students and parents some ability to plan, but we also have to be able to plan,” said Randy Pierce, president of GHC. “It appears to be a large increase, but it will be parceled out over three years. The idea is to keep tuition affordable to everybody while maintaining the quality.”

The Regents passed the tuition rates as part of a record $2.1 billion budget, which includes $54 million in raises for faculty and staff. The state’s colleges and universities got 10.5 percent more in state money this year than last, the largest jump in state funding for the Regents in 12 years, Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Jr. said. Click here for the Board of Regents Web site.

“It was an extremely good budget year for us,” Davis told the 16-member board.

Pierce said, out of the new money, he anticipates about $700,000 in new funds in addition to his annual budget requests. He said while most schools need funding for capital outlay, GHC’s need is for faculty funding.

“Our growth has been limited to our faculty/personnel resources. We have far too many part-time faculty and not enough full-time faculty. We’re capable of growth. We just need a general core,” Pierce said. “We need communications faculty, service personnel, nursing staff as well as math and science teachers so we can break up our math and science divisions.”

Floyd County’s Willis Potts, the 11th Congressional District’s representative to the Board of Regents, was pleased with the funding levels, saying while the tuition hike seems high, he is optimistic that after a

couple years of fixed tuition it won’t be as a big of an increase.

“I give the local delegation a lot of credit — we’ve been blessed with good elected officials; … that gave us a good operating budget and offered strong support for education.”

The budget was passed by the General Assembly in late April and is currently pending the governor’s final approval before it is officially in place.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. EXPLAINER

For now, it means a lot of confusion in trying to answer the question “How much is tuition?”

Here is a breakdown for per-semester tuition rates:

At two-year colleges, incoming freshmen will pay $874, rising sophomores will pay $802 and students enrolled before August will pay $834.

At research universities, incoming freshmen will pay $2,248, rising sophomores will pay $1,946 and students enrolled before August will pay $2,044.

At regional colleges, incoming freshmen will pay between $1,434 and $1,479, rising sophomores will pay $1,280 and students enrolled before August will pay between $1,345 and $1,357.

At state colleges, incoming freshmen will pay $936 and current students will pay $888.

The Associated Press