Tution increase that penalizes unacceptable

The Board of Regents' recent decision to set a fixed tuition rate starting with this year's incoming class is a good policy. It takes away the unpredictability of frequent tuition hikes and makes planning college finances easier. It is a program that addresses the needs of prospective students.

As long as there are not dramatic budget cuts or an unexpected increase in expenses, then each incoming class should still pay for only their costs.

However, if there is an unforeseen increase then the next year's incoming class may unduly bear the burden of paying for the mistake with a much higher fixed rate. The rates will have to be selected carefully so that Georgia's tuition rates do not sky rocket after one bad year as this could potentially deter potential students.

Still, any cushion built into the fixed rate is worth it compared to the financial planning benefits of the program.

It makes sense that the tuition rate cannot be fixed indefinitely. If that was the case, then a student from this incoming class that sticks around until 2013 would be paying based on forecasted education costs that only considered how college costs might change through 2010.

It is perfectly acceptable for the tuition to increase after the fourth year to an amount that accurately covers the current cost of tuition.

What does not make any sense is increasing the tuition rate one penny over what is necessary in the fifth and subsequent years. Such a fine has been referred to as an incentive to graduate in four years.

Georgia does need to improve its graduation rates. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 25 percent to 28 percent of students in Georgia's public colleges graduate in four years compared to 34 percent nationally. Still, this penalty system is not going to solve the problem.

What more incentive does a student need to graduate than the additional cost of tuition, the loss of potential post-graduation earnings, and the extra time spent in school away from other things? If those costs are not enough to make a student graduate in four years, than adding on an extra penalty cost for staying longer is certainly not going to have an effect.

A penalty could actually lower retention and graduation rates. Students facing unexpected additional years in college are already facing an economic burden. According to the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics 65.4 percent of Georgia students who graduated in the 2003-2004 school year took out loans with an average loan total of $20,767. The cost of education is worth it, but do not punish students still working towards a degree.

If tuition is increased any more than they absolutely have to after four years, then they may drive students to take longer because they are having to earn more money to pay for school or they may not finish all together. Those situations may only happen occasionally, but it is still opposite of the goals of the program.

The only person that a penalty might motivate to finish sooner is the type of person that cannot realize the opportunity costs involved in staying extra years in school. Policy should not be generated that hurts the majority that it effects, just to benefit the ignorant.

There are plenty of reasons why people stay five or more years in school, many of which are not the student's own fault. For example, not being able to register for a prerequisite because a class was full can put students in school an extra semester; surely a student in this situation is already paying a high enough cost without adding on any penalty above what tuition actually costs that semester.

Instead of having to consider how to make accommodations for co-op, transfer, double majors or other students who are staying five years under a socially accepted program, the program should simply increase tuition each additional year they are in school only as much as it has increased to educate them in the last four years.

This differs little from what is in place now except that current students do not benefit from fixed tuition rates. No additional penalty tacked on to tuition increases after four years is going to improve graduation rates.

In particular, the policy could affect Tech students for the worse because a larger percentage of Tech students take more than four years to graduate than at any other school in the University System of Georgia.

The Board of Regents should give each school flexibility when determining how to implement the tuition increase after the fourth year, but it should drop the idea of increasing tuition rates more than needed to encourage speedy graduation altogether.