The state Board of Regents voted to repeal the $100 tuition surcharge to students and approved a 6-percent tuition increase for the next academic year during a meeting at Iowa State University Wednesday and Thursday.
The board voted unanimously to repeal the surcharge pending the approval of Iowa Governor Chet Culver’s latest budget proposal. Last week, Culver proposed that the state restore $30.4 million in general education appropriations to Iowa’s public universities for this fiscal year and next fiscal year.
According to Board of Regents President David Miles, the surcharge was instated as a result of Culver’s 10 percent across-the-board budget cut in October.
“When we imposed the $100 surcharge, we felt like we just had very few options,” Miles said. “The governor had implemented the 10-percent across-the-board budget cut, which was about $60 million, and we needed to find dollars wherever we could. And we went into that thinking that if the students could cover 10 percent of that, we could find the other 90 percent somewhere else, and that’s what we did.
“But the governor’s come back with his new budget and recommended to the legislature that they restore $31 million dollars of the $60 (million) for this current fiscal year,” he continued.
“So we said, ‘Gosh, if they do that, yes, we’ll still be down $29 million, but we thought we could cover all but the last 10 percent of it through other means before, so let’s use the first $6 million to restore that money that we asked students to pay with that surcharge.’”
Adam Haselhuhn, president of the Northern Iowa Student Government, is conflicted on the repeal of the surcharge. While he supports students getting $100 back, the repeal of the surcharge means a loss of $1 million for the University of Northern Iowa.
“Even if they do get the $30.4 million (from the governor’s proposal) that becomes about $5.2 million for UNI. We still need the money; it’s not like we don’t need it,” he said. “I know (UNI President Benjamin) Allen feels students have made great sacrifices and would like to give back the $100, but to me, I just hope students don’t get the wrong message, the kind of: you needed the money but now you don’t?”
Haselhuhn also expressed concern about the cost needed to return the money to students.
“There’s a lot of factors that go into the decision, but at the end of the day, $100 back to students is $100 back to students.”
Whether or not the surcharge will actually be repealed depends on the Iowa legislature’s approval of the governor’s budget proposal.
“I know the legislators are very committed to our public universities, and they will protect them as much as they possibly can, but it’s a difficult budget year, so whether at the end of the day they’ll approve it exactly as submitted, I don’t think I would be in a position to predict one way or the other,” Miles said.
The board also approved a 6-percent tuition increase for Iowa’s public universities by a vote of seven to two.
“The 6 percent is intended to try to help close some of the gap in funding as the state has reduced appropriations,” Miles said. “It doesn’t nearly cover it all; in fact, I had the board office calculate it: if we wanted to make up the full decline in state appropriations from where we started in 2009, it would have required a 24 percent tuition increase. And notwithstanding the fact that Florida increased 15 percent this year and California increased 32 percent, this board was just not going to levee that kind of burden on students.”
While Miles doesn’t believe that 6 percent is a perfect number, he thought it was a reasonable amount to reduce the number of reductions that will be made on the expense side through salary reductions, program eliminations and mergers and other cuts.
While Haselhuhn doesn’t support the tuition increase, he understands its necessity.
“The bottom line is that if we don’t have that increase in tuition, then we’re going to lose more for students at UNI,” he said. “And I say that because I’ve seen what our administration is doing to cut costs, and the campus has seen — they’re combining colleges, they’re eliminating divisions, they’re merging major programs — so I think that if we wouldn’t have done that, we would be in a lot worse situation next year than we are this year.
“So while of course I don’t want to see a tuition increase outside of the Higher Education Price Index range, I also have to be realistic and do what’s best for students, not only financially but also for their educational experience,” Haselhuhn continued.
Regents Ruth Harkin and Michael Gartner voted against the tuition increase in light of the governor’s budget proposal. According to KCRG-TV, Gartner stated that Iowa’s public universities can better absorb the poor economic conditions than Iowa’s families.
“I have tremendous respect for both Regent Harkin and Regent Gartner, and I know that they have the best interest of the institutions and their students at heart, just as I do and the other regents,” Miles said. “I disagreed with their analysis because we still have lost, through across-the-board cuts in 2009, through lower appropriations in 2010 ... take all of that into account, and you start from where we started at the beginning of 2009 and where we would be for 2011 with the governor’s budget as proposed, and the institutions are down a total of $132 million.
“And so to say that the institutions aren’t sacrificing — nobody suggested that. But I say we get to a point where we hurt the very — the very same students that they’re trying to protect by not increasing tuition, we end up damaging in a different way because we damage the quality of the education they’re getting.”
In addition to the tuition increase, each of Iowa’s public universities pledged to put a total of $3.2 billion into need-based aid to protect those who would have the most difficult time coming up with the money, Miles said.
State Board of Regents approved 6-percent tuition increase, voted to repeal $100 surcharge
Published: Monday, February 8, 2010
Updated: Monday, February 8, 2010
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