<p>Georgia's public colleges and universities are on the road to greatness but face tough new challenges in an era of tighter state budgets, Chancellor Thomas Meredith told his board Wednesday.</p><p>To prevent quality from slipping, the system must continue to seek new research grants and slim down, he said, but he also cautioned that the continuing financial pressure "may challenge our ability to keep tuition low."</p><p>He commented in his annual "State of the System" address to the Board of Regents, governing board of the state's 34 public institutions.</p><p>Citing oft-repeated statistics, Meredith said the system has lost $378.2 million to state budget cuts since 2001 while enrollment grew by 44,000 students.</p><p>There will be some relief in the budget year beginning July 1 when the agency receives an 8.3 percent increase, he said.</p><p>But in Georgia, as in states across the country, public higher education faces enormous competition for state dollars from other agencies as a result of surging Medicaid costs, a soaring prison population and rising health care costs for state employee benefit plans, he said.</p><p>"We must be prepared for an era of tighter state budgets," Meredith told the board.</p><p>Last fall, the board flirted with the notion of an unprecedented midyear tuition hike after Gov. Sonny Perdue told struggling agencies they might face more budget cuts.</p><p>Perdue persuaded university system leaders to drop the idea and the budget proposal he subsequently presented _ still before the Legislature _ is far less damaging than it was advertised to be.</p><p>Still, tuition remains a sensitive topic for the university system and it is one that arises each year.</p><p>Every time the state puts more money into public colleges and universities, tuition must be increased to preserve the two-thirds to one-third ratio that lawmakers years ago established as the benchmark between public support for higher education and tuition paid by students.</p><p>Meredith named a task force last fall to study the system's tuition status and to explore possible innovative approaches. He plans to report the findings to the board in the next few months.</p><p>"Our goal all along has been to keep tuition as low as possible," he told reporters later. "And we've been pretty successful at that _ 15th out of 16 (southern) states for the four-year (colleges) and 13th out of 16th with the two year."</p><p>Among some of the possibilities under study: charging more for junior and senior courses, which cost more to deliver; charging more for classes in high-demand areas; charging less for classes conducted at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., the least popular times, or charging more for classes between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., the most popular times.</p><p>Meredith also announced three public forums on Feb. 14, 16 and 17 to hear concerns from students, parents and lawmakers about the rising cost of textbooks. He said that will lead to a recommendation in the next few months.</p><p>___</p><p>Dick Pettys has covered Georgia government and politics since 1970</p>
