Lawmakers: State tuition freeze in danger next spring, beyond

DES MOINES — In-state undergraduate students attending Iowa's three public universities will not see a tuition increase this fall.

Next spring? No such promise.

As a national debate rages over the high price of attending college and the large amount of loan debt with which students are graduating, some Iowa lawmakers fear the state is not providing ample resources to help the state's schools rein in costs.

'It was a historically poor year for education (funding),' said Sen. Jeff Danielson, a Democrat from Cedar Falls, home of the University of Northern Iowa. 'We're doing stuff right now that was never done during the '80s farm crisis when we really had to make tough decisions.

'I don't know where the fork in the road comes eventually, but Iowans are going to have to have a deep discussion about whether they want the kind of education system they've had in the past or whether you starve it to death.

'I don't believe austerity gets you quality.'

The contentious debate over state funding for public kindergarten-through-grade-12 education at times overshadowed a similarly challenging budget for the state's three public universities.

State legislators' long-negotiated budget deal included a $5.1 million budget increase for UNI, a $1.2 million increase for Iowa State University and a status quo budget for the University of Iowa.

"We may be delaying a tuition increase, but I'm very worried about the year beyond that. There could be a large tuition increase in the fall of 2016."

- State Sen. Herman Quirmbach

On higher education funding

Lawmakers also passed one-time funds of $2.9 million for the UI, $2.3 million for ISU and $1.1 million for UNI. Those dollars, however, are to be used for one-time expenses, not operational costs such as classroom materials and staff salaries.

Community colleges also received status quo budget funding and a one-time allocation of $2.5 million.

All still must be approved by Gov. Terry Branstad, who has until July 6 to review the budgets passed by state legislators. With his line-item veto power, Branstad could strike some of the funding, in particular the one-time allocations.

He has not indicated which elements of the state budget he will approve.

'A 1.25 percent cut'

Either way, the university funding wasn't nearly enough in the eyes of many Democratic state legislators, including one who warned of trouble ahead.

'Not only is it less than what's needed to guarantee a year's worth of tuition freeze, the other thing is it's one-time money, which means that we start a year from this fall with the universities …

basically start planning the next year with a 1.25 percent cut,' said Sen. Herman Quirmbach, a Democrat from Ames and an economics professor at Iowa State.

'So we may be delaying a tuition increase, but I'm very worried about the year beyond that. There could be a large tuition increase in the fall of 2016.'

Statehouse Republicans called for less funding than Democrats.

Republican lawmakers said lower funding levels were necessary to accommodate a tight state budget stressed by increased costs for education and health care plus significant resources committed to education reform and a dramatic commercial property tax cut.

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, maintained throughout the budgeting process that he thought the state was providing enough funding for the universities to maintain the tuition freeze.

'I believe that we funded them adequately to do a tuition freeze,' Paulsen said after the session on an episode of Iowa Public Television's 'Iowa Press.' 'We don't set tuition in the General Assembly, and so it really comes down to a question of priorities for the regents.'

The state Board of Regents sets tuition for the three public universities. At the board's most recent meeting, board President Bruce Rastetter said tuition will remain frozen for the fall 2015 semester — but the board and universities will work to determine if that is feasible for the spring 2016 semester.

Rastetter said he recognized it was a tough budget year for state lawmakers, and he thinks some of the funding measures passed were 'good things.'

'We want to make sure that we have the dollars to continue to improve the efficiency and the performance of the universities and improve programs,' Rastetter said at the board's June 4 meeting.