Tuition freeze enters political fray for Iowa governor candidates

DES MOINES - Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Hatch said Thursday he opposes a 'surprise” tuition increase on students at Iowa's three state universities already struggling with heavy college debt loads.

'This is no time to drop a tuition increase on Iowa students, as our fragile economic recovery is beginning to pick up steam,” Hatch said in a statement. 'There is no stability or predictability in the system now. It's embarrassing for our state.”

The state Board of Regents is considering a plan to raise the cost of tuition and mandatory fees for undergraduates at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa State University in Ames and the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. The 1.75 percent tuition increase was the subject of student protests on Wednesday and, in a surprise move, several regents came out against the proposal at the board's meeting in Iowa City on Thursday, favoring instead a tuition freeze for a third straight year.

Three members of the regent panel say they want to table the proposed increase and freeze tuition rates for the third year. The nine-member panel is slated to vote on the plan in December.

The issue spilled onto the campaign trail Thursday, where Hatch, who is seeking to unseat five-term Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, said he would pursue more flexible course offerings that would allow students to finish in less time and incur less debt. He said he would seek to expand accelerated bachelor's degree programs to move students through college in three years, instead of four or more years.

Hatch also said he would seek to establish a low-interest loan program that would allow 5,000 students to get loans of up to $3,000 at 1 percent interest to go to public or private non-profit four-year institutions or to community colleges. The state-funded loan program would cost $150 million when fully funded, but would start with $15 million a year, each year.

'A surprise tuition increase is exactly what Iowans should expect from an administration with no plan to reduce college costs or student debt,” Hatch said in a statement. 'My plan is install a tuition lock so that what a student pays for freshman year will remain the same through senior year.”

Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a joint statement Thursday applauding the board's decision to go slow on the tuition proposal, a move they viewed as the first step toward freezing tuition at regent universities for a third straight year.

'We're pleased the Iowa Board of Regents continues working with us to give Iowa students access to affordable, high-quality education in Iowa. We look forward to working with the Board of Regents on our initiative to provide Iowa students a variety of fixed-priced four-year degrees,” Branstad said in a statement. 'Upon receiving the Revenue Estimating Conference's December report, we will begin crafting the state budget with hopes to continue the tuition freeze.”

Branstad proposes to offer fixed-price degrees or $10,000 bachelor's degree for popular major at public universities to cut costs for a limited number of in-state students and tax credits for being volunteers in qualifying community activities.

Last month, Democrats who make up a 47-member minority in the Iowa House, came out in favor of a third year of tuition freezes at state universities and expanding grants to students attending private college to keep higher education affordable and accessible to Iowans.