Iowa fails its state universities

Iowa’s Board of Regens is poised to approve another round of tuition increases at Iowa’s three state universities. On the table today is proposal for a 3% increase at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University this fall. Tuition at the University of Northern Iowa would increase 2%.

The latest increases come after a 3.5% Increase during the current academic year.

Each tuition increase represents a failure by state leaders to adequately fund our public universities. Over the years stagnant and declining state support has forced the schools to cover more and more of their operational costs with tuition.

In 1981, state dollars covered 77% of general university funding with tuition paying for 21 percent. Now, tuition covers roughly 60% with 31% paid for by state funding.

The $573 million approved for the regents’ universities in the 2025 budget is less than what the schools received during Fiscal Year 2009, when state funding topped $600 million. Except for 2009, state funding has flatlined or decreased, according to the Legislative Services Agency. Meanwhile, tuition costs have risen steadily during the last decade.

In 1998, for example, the University of Iowa received $223.6 million from a total state budget of $4.36 billion. In Fiscal Year 2021, UI received $215.6 million from a $7.78 billion general fund budget. For Fiscal year 2025, the governor proposed $223.5 million in state aid to UI.

Iowa Republicans who currently run the Legislature are shortchanging universities that serve as some of the state’s most powerful economic engines. These are institutions that can foster innovations, train a skilled workforce and conduct critical research. Lowballing higher education spending year after year is a shortsighted budget tactic that will harm Iowa and Iowans.

Lawmakers have, instead, decided to treat universities like political punching bags. Republicans have sought to micromanage curriculum and ban Diversity, Equity and Including efforts on campus. This obsession with culture war politics is going to hamper efforts to recruit students and faculty.

Instead of a culture war, Iowa is fighting to mitigate a shortage of workers and stem the out-migration of college graduates from the state. Iowa families are struggling to afford the rising cost of a college education, a problem made worse by annual tuition increases.

The state should be fueling these economic engines, not setting them up for failure.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com