Regents president supports tuition freeze for fall

AMES - With the legislative session ending and state funding for Iowa's public universities becoming more clear, Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter suggested Thursday his board follow through on a proposal to freeze undergraduate resident tuition - at least for the fall semester.

Rastetter said the board office would work with the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and University of Northern Iowa to determine whether funding for the 2016 budget year - if approved by the governor - will 'allow us to continue that freeze for the spring semester.”

The board last fall voted to freeze tuition rates for undergraduate Iowa residents at $6,678 for an unprecedented third year, although the freeze was contingent on a requested 1.75 percent increase in general operating support.

Lawmakers earlier this week agreed on education funding for the 2016 budget year that would increase UNI's base funding by $5.1 million and ISU's base funding by $1.2 million. UI's would remain flat.

But all three would receive a 1.25 percent increase in one-time funds amounting to $2.9 million for the UI, $2.3 million for ISU, and $1.1 million for UNI.

Rastetter said lawmakers have indicated those one-time dollars should be spent on one-time expenses.

'We will work with the institutions on where the one-time funding should be spent,” he said.

Even though the governor has not yet signed the Legislature's budget, Rastetter said, the board wanted to publicly voice its intentions to freeze tuition, at least for the fall, to help prospective students prepare.

'Students and parents need visibility and certainty on what the cost of education would be,” he said. 'The fall semester is quickly approaching.”

Because the universities don't yet have final numbers on state support for the 2016 budget year, Rastetter said, it's too soon to discuss details of a possible increase for spring.

Rastetter praised lawmakers for proposing base funding increases for both ISU and UNI, saying they recognize ISU's growing student body - it's now the largest public university in the state - and UNI's heavy reliance on in-state students - its enrollment is about 90 percent Iowa residents, meaning it doesn't capitalize on higher out-of-state tuition.

But as part of the board's funding request, it asked lawmakers to allocate funds based on a new performance-based funding model that would have tied 60 percent of state support to resident enrollment and could have taken millions from the UI - if its enrollment makeup remained unchanged.

That model was rejected by lawmakers.

Rastetter said Thursday the board is disappointed. But, he said, the board 'will continue to have performance expectations of the universities.”

And, he said, the board will continue discussing performance-based funding metrics and come back to lawmakers with a new proposal next year.

The board took two years putting together its first performance-based recommendations, Rastetter said, and he's not surprised it's taking more time to approve.

'It may take more than one year to institute,” he said.

Lawmakers, as part of their budget bill, also proposed financial support for a new Student Innovation Center at ISU. The center is touted as a 'highly flexible, dynamic space that encourages experimentation, innovation and interdisciplinary investigation” that will enable students to blend science with hands-on experience.

The project is proposed as a public-private partnership - with $40 million from private sources and $40 million in eventual state funding.

ISU President Steven Leath has pushed for support of that center to deal with the campus' growing student body, while also stressing the attributes of the performance-based funding model. Critics of the model have said it would ramp up competition among the universities and colleges in Iowa and upset a higher education system that has worked for years.

Leath said Iowa State is expecting 'significantly more students again this fall,” but he said that increase is the result of popular programming and improving retention rates - not ramped up recruitment.

'This is not the result of us competing in any different way,” he said. 'I turned down every single proposal to increase recruiting at Iowa State.”