Iowa regents won’t consider tuition next week as planned

Iowa's Board of Regents was expected to make public Tuesday the outcome of its summerlong tuition review. But regents are not ready, said board President Mike Richards.

'We need additional time to consider what tuition levels will be for the next academic year,” he said in a statement.

Instead of the usual first consideration of rates in October and then a final vote in December, the board will consider the issue at a date to be determined later.

Last year, the board agreed in December to raise resident undergraduate rates 2 percent for the 2017-18 school year. Then-board President Bruce Rastetter vowed not to raise rates more so long as lawmakers sustained state funding.

But when the Legislature imposed deep cuts to the universities - more than $30 million for the 2017 and 2018 budget years - regents agreed over the summer to raise tuition more, amounting to a 5 percent increase that began this fall.

But the unpredictability and criticism over how last-minute hikes affect students and families prompted the board to convene a tuition task force over the summer.

Leaders at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University recommended 7 percent annual tuition increase for the next five years, if lawmakers don't increase appropriations. The University of Northern Iowa suggested a 5 percent average hike if there were no additional aid.

Students and lawmakers have voiced opposition to such dramatic increases, and at least one regent, Larry McKibben, has told The Gazette the 7 percent increases aren't going to happen.

'One of the key messages we heard is that students and families do not want multiple tuition increases during the year,” Richards said in his statement. 'We agree with this, and we will not revisit 2018-19 tuition levels once they have been established.”

That commitment, according to the board, is why regents won't discuss tuition next week.

'We do not have a timetable for when we will do a first reading of tuition,” Richards said. 'But we will do it as soon as we have a proposal with which we are comfortable.”

Iowa's public universities have said they'd suffice with lower tuition increases if lawmakers come through with the $12 million in additional appropriations the board is asking be split among the three for the next budget year. All that money would go toward student aid and allow the institutions to reduce their reliance on tuition.

All three schools have said they also are cutting costs on campus and setting resource priorities.

But the universities' reliance on state support nonetheless suggests the board might wait for more information from the Legislature before deciding on tuition rates. The next legislative session starts Jan. 8.