Regents hope Iowa lawmakers will support tuition freeze, performance plan

JOHNSTON - Leaders of the state Board of Regents expressed optimism Friday that their new plan to distribute state funds to the three state universities and a proposal to freeze tuition a third straight year for in-state undergraduates will get legislative approval in the upcoming session that opens next Monday.

Regents President Bruce Rastetter and President Pro Tem Katie Mulholland said the proposals the board is making are designed to meet the universities' mission to provide affordable and accessible higher education to Iowans as efficiently as possible. They made their comments during Friday's taping of Iowa Public Television's 'Iowa Press” show, which airs tonight and again on Sunday.

Rastetter said the proposal to freeze tuition for Iowa students at state universities for a third straight year is historic and an acknowledgment that the 'dramatic” upward trend in costs was threatening to price young people out of a college education due to burgeoning debt loads.

The regents president said his board is seeking a modest 1.75 percent increase in state appropriations for the fiscal 2016 budget year and 'it would appear to us that we're going to get that.”

The two top regents also defended the board's new performance plan for distributing state appropriations to the three state universities which includes a provision that rewards them for enrolling a greater percentage of Iowa residents.

Rastetter said the proposal, which would shift some money from the University of Iowa to be divided between Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, provides a clearer picture of how state funds are being spent at the three campuses, while Mulholland said the plan includes a request for $12.9 million in 'backfill” to the University of Iowa to cover any unintended consequences of the new funding formula.

'We've asked the Legislature to backfill the University of Iowa the $12.9 million so there aren't any winners and losers,” Rastetter said. 'The reality is we have clear funding goals and then we've also asked for that backfill, and we're confident that we will be successful at that.”

Asked about the state of college athletics at Iowa's three regent universities, Rastetter said regents hear comments, positive and negative, about sports programs, which for the most part operate without taxpayer money. The board takes a hands-off approach to an area that is the responsibilities of the university presidents, athletic directors and coaches.

'We do not micromanage the athletic departments. But we do have high expectations and we express those to the university presidents,” Rastetter told reporters after the taping.

'Do we like losing football games? No,” added Rastetter, a University of Iowa graduate. 'I know one person that's probably as disappointed as anybody is Kirk Ferentz from last Friday (when Iowa lost a football bowl game to the University of Tennessee) and I would expect, as Gary Barta has said, that there will be improvements in the program and we'll see that.”

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