TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Tuition at Florida's public universities, now among the lowest in the nation, could eventually rise to the national average under a bill going to Gov. Charlie Crist after a final vote Wednesday in the House.

Crist, university officials, business groups and the Florida Student Association support the measure, saying tuition must increase to improve the quality of higher education in Florida, help pay for need-based scholarships and stop a brain drain of faculty to other states that offer higher pay.

"The vote today ensures these schools have the resources they need in order to achieve academic excellence," Crist said in a statement. "Students with financial needs, faculty members and researchers will benefit from these efforts to strengthen Florida's 11 state universities and help them compete with schools across the nation."

Opponents, though, say this is not the time to raise tuition because of the strain students and their families already face due to the national recession.

"Right now the people of the state of Florida are having a very difficult time making ends meet," said Rep. Marty Kiar, D-Davie. "They can't put gas in their cars, they can't feed their families and they're having a tough time surviving."

House-Senate budget negotiators on Wednesday agreed to an 8 percent statewide increase. Under the bill, each university then could add up to another 7 percent, known as differential tuition, in the budget year beginning July 1, for a total of 15 percent. That would include across-the-board raises ordered by the Legislature.

The 8 percent increase would boost tuition for a student taking the average 30 credit hours in a year by $197 for a total of $2,658, still among the lowest nationally. At 15 percent, the increase would be $369 for a $2,830 total.

It could more than double, though, by 2013.

Florida's five largest universities already have authority for differential increases up to 15 percent a year, but they are capped at no more than 40 percent total, still below the national average.

Tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities in 2008-2009 averaged $6,585 nationwide, but they've been increasing at the rate of 4.2 percent annually, according to the College Board.

One key selling point of the bill (SB 762) sponsored by Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, is that 30 percent of the differential dollars must be used go to need-based scholarships. Another is that differential tuition increases would not be covered by the state's popular Bright Futures scholarship program that Pruitt also has championed.

"If we want to have a quality education, we have to pay for a quality education," said Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach. "We cannot artificially depress our tuition rates and think that we're going to support our universities."

The Legislature has been reluctant to raise tuition in the past in part because that also would raise the cost of Bright Futures. Funded by Lottery proceeds, the program pays 75 percent or 100 percent of tuition depending on students' grades and test scores.

More than 90 percent of incoming freshmen at some campuses and nearly half of all undergraduates get Bright Futures grants.

Even at the present tuition level the program's costs -- more than $400 million annually -- are threatening to outstrip the state's ability to pay for it.

Bright Futures has become so popular, though, it has become a political lightning rod, and lawmakers have resisted efforts to reduce the grants or make them harder to get