Students will pay a $200 fee next semester, the Board of Regents decided Tuesday.

The Regents agreed to double the mandatory special institutional fee as the University System of Georgia braces itself for 8 percent budget cuts – up from 6 percent – in the coming year. Eight percent cuts will total budget losses at $176 million for fiscal year 2010.

Some students are already worried about covering the fee hike.

“[The fee] hurts me. It’s already hard enough for my family and me to pay,” said Stephanie Tiv, a senior from Winder. “I wasn’t very happy about even the $100 [fee], so to raise it again, that really hurts.”

The University’s Student Government Association sent a delegation to the Regents meeting to represent students affected by the fee increase. The SGA Senate also plans to draft a resolution highlighting student frustrations about the fee, said Cameron Secord, vice president of SGA.

“The resolution will outline that we urge the Board of Regents to consider increasing student input in the practice of raising tuition and fees,” Secord said.

He said the short amount of time students have to prepare financially for the fee increase was not fair, and a failure to involve students in the process created “unnecessary tension” between the students and the Regents.

“Our intent is not to undermine ensuring the quality of education provided,” Secord said.

“It’s to emphasize what we feel is a need to work with students in evaluating the problems that we face.”

A regulation was included in the proposal for the fee increase that prohibited further increases in other mandatory fees, such as student activity and health fees. But the Regents amended the regulation to allow for more institutional discretion – meaning specific universities could overrule the regulation under special circumstances and with student support.

The mandatory fee covers 14 percent – $24 million – of the budget cut, said John Millsaps, spokesman for the Regents.

But students could see indirect costs elsewhere – through the effects of possible furloughs, layoffs and reductions in programming.

“If you can’t hire positions, that means larger classes or classes not offered at all,” Millsaps said. “Certainly those actions do have an impact down the stream.”

Although the Regents planned for budget reductions in August, some elements of the plan have shifted, and the board remains unsure of the specifics concerning covering the 8 percent cut.

“We’ll be working with institutions and working with the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget to figure out how we’re going to handle the rest,” Millsaps said.

Because the Regents’ 8 percent reduction plan originally called for a $150 fee increase, other areas will have to cover the holes created by the lessened student fee.

“Since we reduced the amount of that student fee, that leaves a gap,” Millsaps said.

At the institutional level, the University submitted a plan to the Regents in August, outlining its proposals for cutting the budget by 8 percent.

The original plan for fiscal year 2010 calls for 229 layoffs at the 8 percent level.

But Tom Jackson, vice president for public affairs at the University, said layoffs are not on the agenda.

“We hope that through good management we can avoid that this fiscal year,” Jackson said.

He said the August budget reduction plan was not set in stone, and the budgetary situation at the University has shifted since the plan was drawn up – for example, additional faculty positions have been lost through attrition, allowing the University to avoid layoffs.

“All this goes together in a very tight situation to help us make it through,” Jackson said. “And there’s no doubt it’s critically tight.”