With another tuition hike likely, regents worry about affordability of Iowa schools

DES MOINES - Two leaders of the Iowa Board of Regents say tuition hikes are likely at the three state universities if the Legislature doesn't provide at least an additional $8 million for the coming year.

Regents can't say how much of a tuition increase will be necessary, President Bruce Rastetter said Thursday. Once lawmakers set funding for the coming fiscal year, the board will look first at tuition for international and non-resident students, 'but we'll need to look at resident tuition.”

The possibility of another tuition hike fuels concerns the small rate of growth in state funding is putting too much burden on Iowa students and their families, added President Pro Tem Katie Mulholland.

The regents made their comments during taping of Iowa Press that will air at 7:30 p.m. Friday and noon Sunday on Iowa Public Television, 8:30 a.m. Saturday on IPTV World and beginning Friday evening at www.IPTV.org.

The board, which has approved 3 percent tuition hikes at Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa beginning this semester and at the University of Iowa beginning in the fall, won't know how quickly it would have to look at another increase until the Legislature act, said Mulholland.

Once lawmakers set funding for the coming year, 'we have to come back and look at what the effect is on our overall finances and make a decision then,” she said.

It's been the board's practice over the past four years to look at state funding 'and make a decision on not hurting the quality of the education that the students are getting, but what is it that we can manage to operate on,” Mulholland said.

The increases at UNI and ISU and the pending jump at UI bring to an end the sustained tuition freeze at Iowa's public universities dating back to the 2012-13 school year.

Regents haven't given up on winning approval of their $8 million request as lawmakers put together a proposed $7.35 billion state budget. Legislators have agreed to put $153 million of the anticipated $176 million in new revenue in the fiscal year beginning July 1 into K-12 schools. They also plan to honor their commitment for $25 million to backfill property taxes for cities and counties.

When lawmakers make a decision 'we will ask the universities to come back to us in a logical way as to what we approve in June and what we move forward with,” Rastetter said.

'We would hope that it would just be a slight increase at the worst case,” he said.

Mulholland and Rastetter expressed concern there is not a proper balance between state funding, which is 31 percent of university budgets, and tuition, which is 64 percent.

'When you begin to think about where the burden is, we have to take a look at how we can balance that out because we want our universities to be accessible and affordable,” Mulholland said.