Incoming freshmen will pay $180 more in tuition each semester than older students pay.

The Board of Regents approved Tuesday an increase in tuition at all University System institutions. Full-time in-state students at each of the state’s research institutions, including the University, now will pay $2,428 per semester, up 8 percent from Fall 2007.

Full-time out-of-state students at the University also will see an increase.

“That went from $9,800 to a student who starts in Fall 2008, their rate will be $10,584,” John Vanchella, special assistant to the regents office of media and publications, said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

That rate is also an 8 percent increase from Fall 2007.

Out-of-state tuition rates are not uniform across all research institutions. Out-of-state undergraduates at the University pay a higher rate than out-of-state undergraduates at Medical College of Georgia and Georgia State.

Georgia Tech’s tuition for out-of-state students, however, is higher than the University’s.

Vanchella said students who enrolled in Fall 2006 and Fall 2007 will continue paying the rate they currently pay, as a result of a regents-guaranteed tuition plan that fixes the tuition rate for those already enrolled.

Students who enrolled prior to Fall 2006 started before the guaranteed tuition policy was enacted, and they will see tuition rise to the same level as the freshmen.

All changes in tuition must be approved by the regents, Vanchella said. He said those changes typically are uniform for each type of school.

“The tuition rates are decided by the board for the university system, and they usually do it by sector,” he said. For instance, “the research institutions … are all the same.”

This year’s tuition increase follows a 5 percent increase in 2007 and an 8 percent increase in 2006.

Vanchella said the regents-guaranteed tuition policy is helpful to students.

“It really helps you figure out what your costs are going to be for a period of time,” he said.

Students are guaranteed the same tuition rate until they graduate, as long as they graduate in four years, he said. Students who take longer than four years to graduate will have their tuition rates fluctuate with the rate for incoming freshmen.

Usha Ramachandran, interim vice chancellor for fiscal affairs, gave a presentation on tuition Tuesday prior to the regents vote.

“Tuition at Georgia’s public colleges and universities continues to be among the lowest in the nation,” Ramachandran said in the news release.

The state has the lowest tuition rates for four-year institutions of the 16 states that hold membership in the Southern Regional Education Board.

The year’s tuition increase comes with the regents approval of a $2.3 billion budget for 2009. Tuition, as well as funding from the state legislature, increased this year due to a growing student population and increased employee benefits statewide, the release said.