Out-of state and graduate students at the University of Iowa will not likely see a tuition freeze in the near future.

In her monthly media availability, UI President Sally Mason said she remains in favor of a tuition freeze for undergraduates from Iowa but asserted her opposition to a tuition freeze for nonresident and graduate students.

“So I think that in fairness to the taxpayers of Iowa we absolutely should hold to our nonresident students paying the full cost of their education,” Mason said.

Resident-student tuition has remained at $6,678 since the 2012-13 academic year. During that time, out-of-state student tuition has increased 10.1 percent, from $24,900 to $27,409.

Mason iterated that graduate tuition may increase because of the expensive equipment and research facilities necessary to properly educate UI graduate students.

She also stated she didn’t want tuition freezes to have adverse effects such as increasing class size or sacrificing staff.

“If we’re depending on savings that will come a little further down the road, or new tuition dollars that will come when the students come, we need to take some steps that will be a little quicker than going out and hiring the tenure-track faculty that we will need ultimately,” Mason said.

As a temporary fix, she said, the university may hire more lecturers to fill the space of future tenured professors.

She also said the school has finance, information technology, and human-resource teams in place to move forward with the state Board of Regents’ decision.

Melissa Zimdars, campus chief steward for the UI Campaign to Organize Graduate Students, said it is a problem to position out-of-state students as a drain on taxpayer revenue.

“The problem is nonresidents are paying more and perhaps subsidizing the education of resident students,” she said.

She said many out of state students do pay taxes and are not rewarded for it.

“If it’s a matter of tax fairness, why has resident increase [multiplied] 13 times while nonresident has 21 times since 1972?” Zimdars said “Wouldn’t their increase be the same if it were about maintaining taxpayer fairness?”

Regent Katie Mulholland said the issue is on the regents’ agenda.

“We don’t want to discourage out-of-state students, but they should pay their way so they’re not subsidized by the state of Iowa,” said Sen. Bob Dvorksy, D-Coralville.

If the state can fund the proposed increase, he said, he would be in favor of another tuition freeze.

“Basically, there’s a pressure to freeze tuition, but they probably can’t freeze it for everybody,” said Rep. Linda Miller, R-Bettendorf.