<p>Thousands of new college students will start paying a premium next year to attend a trio of Florida's top-ranked public universities. </p>
<p>Gov. Charlie Crist unexpectedly reversed his opposition to legislation that will allow the University of Florida and Florida State University to charge up to 40 percent more than the state's base tuition rate. The University of South Florida will be able to charge a 30 percent premium. </p>
<p>The University of Central Florida had hoped to be among the schools allowed to charge the fee, but the final bill restricts the increase to UF, FSU and USF. </p>
<p>The universities have not yet decided how to phase in the increases, but the law allows them to do so in increments of up to 15 percent each year. </p>
<p>Freshmen and transfer students would be subject to the fee next year, but students who are already enrolled would not. </p>
<p>Unlike a regular tuition increase, the new fee will not be covered by the state's lottery-funded Bright Futures merit scholarships. Students would have to make up that difference themselves. </p>
<p>Students with prepaid-tuition contracts purchased before July 1 are exempt. It's not clear precisely how the law would affect contracts sold after July 1. </p>
<p>Fee may raise $70M a year </p>
<p>The three schools that will benefit from the new law have argued they need the money to pay for more faculty and services so they can stay on equal footing with elite, research-oriented public schools in other states. </p>
<p>PS: This measure also created a Tier System, and thus Florida has now just created it's own version of the UCAL System. </p>