The increases in tuition approved by the Board of Regents Tuesday range from $50 a semester at two-year schools to $500 a semester at research universities like Georgia Tech.

Jeannen Hobbs is a senior at Augusta State University where tuition will go up by $200 a semester. She says she’ll take the increase in stride considering how bad things looked only a few months ago when there was talk of slashing programs and raising tuition by as much as 77 percent.

"We knew that a cut was going to have to come some way but the fact that it’s not as big as we thought, we’re not losing our music or drama department, at least that’s pretty encouraging," said Hobbs.

According to officials with the Board of Regents the increases will absorb about 35 percent of the more than $200 million cut from higher education for the next fiscal year.

Tags: Georgia General Assembly, budget cuts, Augusta State University, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, college tuition, Georgia university tuition rate hikes, Georgia tuition rate hikes, state budget cuts, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgiatuition