University students must pay a $100 fee next semester to meet an 8 percent budget cut plan approved by the Board of Regents Wednesday.

Also included in the plan are further maintenance deferrals and a 5 percent reduction in employer contributions to PPO and HMO health plans.

As a result, University employees enrolled in those health plans will pay increased premiums ranging from $17 to $65 a month.

“While we have not received instructions from the office of planning and budget to go to an 8 percent budget cut,” said John Millsaps, spokesperson for the Regents, “we have been monitoring the situation and this is the recommendation of the staff.”

He said the ongoing economic downturn was the driving factor behind the regents’ decision.

“Georgia is not allowed to have a state deficit. The only way for us to implement the plan we approved in August was to have that plan begin to take effect in January. The board had to act today.”

In August 2008 the board approved plans for implementing 6 percent, 8 percent, and 10 percent budget cuts throughout the University System. The move to accommodate 8 percent budget cuts comes just four months after the board mandated the 6 percent plan.

Millsaps said there was no discussion Wednesday regarding the possibility of moving to the 10 percent plan.

“I want to reinforce the point that these are not easy decisions but the board recognized that we had a primary responsibility to protect the academic quality in the classroom,” he said.

The required student fee varies across all institutions in the University System of Georgia. It is $100 for research institutions, $75 for comprehensive universities, and $50 for two-year colleges.

The difference in fees accounts for the varying operating costs of the individual schools, Millsaps said.

The fee will not be included in tuition costs. “We didn’t want to put it in tuition because we have a guaranteed tuition plan,” Millsaps said. “We didn’t want to imply that it was permanent.”

He said the HOPE Scholarship does not cover the costs.

The fee dollars will remain at each institution to be used wherever that administration decides it is needed most.

“We try to do things that have a minimal impact on the classroom,” Millsaps said.