University of West Georgia President Dr. Beheruz Sethna addressed students Thursday at the Student Government Association meeting to explain how the state’s economic woes have led to the $100 fee increase students will be paying beginning next semester.

The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia on Tuesday approved a plan to increase its budget cuts from 6 percent to 8 percent and the plan included a graduated special institution fee for the universities in the system. Students at UWG will be paying an extra $100. This is the second time the regents have approved a special fee to deal with budget cuts. Last school year, students were assessed the first graduated fee and this new fee doubles the mandatory fee students will be paying to $200. When the regents approved the fee, they also included a sunset date of June 30, 2012, when the $200 fee would expire.

“I was not happy at all about these increases,” said junior Derrick Martin. “It seems like they just keep finding some reason to go up on the fees. That’s another $100 my family has to come up with to send me to school.”

After seeing how dire the financial situation at the university is, he understands the university has to plug the holes left by dwindling state funding, but said it’s becoming more and more difficult to afford higher education.

He and the other students will have to come up with the money out of their own pockets since fees are not covered by the HOPE scholarships many students rely on to pay their tuition. In addition, record numbers of students attending the state’s colleges and universities are straining the HOPE scholarship funding and plans are in the works to cut and even eliminate the money for text books students receive if lottery proceeds, which fund HOPE, don’t increase. That could make the cost of a college education rise even higher.

Still, the decision was made to raise the extra money through fees because the fixed-for-four plan that students during a three-year period enjoy made it impossible to spread the cost over the entire student body. Every student – undergraduate, graduate, part time and full time – will pay the fee.

“Many of you are under a fixed-for-four plan which means that if you joined in 2006 (2007 and 2008) and you graduate in four years, then your tuition is frozen,” Sethna said. “They could only increase tuition for this year’s freshmen. So, this year’s freshmen would have to pay an astronomical fee.”

The fee will stay on the campus on which it is collected to help maintain that university. Without the fee, the university system would have had to mandate other cuts to balance the budget – like layoffs, more furlough days for employees or cutting programs. The fee helps maintain the quality of the campus, Sethna said.

However, students are only shouldering about 14 percent of the cuts the university has had to make. The other 86 percent of cuts were made by increasing the amount employees paid for insurance, furlough days and institutional cuts such as deferred maintenance. That is in line with the amount students pay toward their education, Sethna said. Students pay between 25 and 30 percent of the actual cost of their education. The lion’s share of funding comes from state government coffers.

Whatever the reason, the rising costs may mean some students will have to cut back or postpone their higher education plans.

Gabby Dunn, a junior majoring in business administration, is rapidly heading to that point. She is paying for her education herself and has had a harder time securing loans to pay for college. At just 12 hours a week, her campus job provides her a small amount of income but she needs to pay rent and living expenses. She is thinking about looking for an off-campus job that allows her more hours and if she can’t find one, she may not come back to school next semester.

“I think the fee is necessary,” Dunn said. “Two hundred dollars may seem small, but when you don’t have a lot of income coming in – a lot of these students are just students; they don’t have jobs. It’s just like, ugh, something else to pay.”