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In-state undergraduates at Georgia’s public colleges and universities will be paying 2.5% more for tuition during the coming school year.

After keeping tuition flat at all but one of the University System of Georgia’s 26 institutions for six of the past eight years, the system’s Board of Trustees approved the tuition hike Tuesday. Out-of-state students will see a 5% increase, and a new third level of tuition for out-of-country students will be set at 2% above the out-of-state rate.

System Chancellor Sonny Perdue attributed the increase to inflation.

“Our institutions face increasing costs to operate, and we must sustain their momentum as some of the best in the nation at helping students succeed on campus and in the workforce,” he said.

Even with the tuition hike, Georgia offers the third-lowest average tuition and required fees among the 16 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, according to national data.

Middle Georgia State University, the only institution to raise tuition during the last academic year, will be finishing the last year in a three-year plan to align its undergraduate tuition with other system universities in the same academic sector.

The regents also adopted a new mandatory fee structure for the growing number of students taking classes fully online. Those students at 20 of the 26 institutions will be charged an online learning fee equivalent to their institution’s technology fee, as well as 50% of their institution’s mandatory fees.

In other business Tuesday, the board voted to extend the system’s temporary waiver of test score requirements. With state colleges already test optional, no test scores will be required for admission to 23 of the 26 institutions during the 2025-26 academic year.

The temporary waiver does not apply to the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Georgia College & State University.

Test scores will continue to be required to apply for Zell Miller scholarships, which go to students who earned at least a 3.7 grade-point average in high school.

The university system began waiving the test requirements in 2020 with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The waiver has been in effect for all but 10 months since then.