By Zach Weigel
While many of us enjoyed our all-too-short fall break by gathering around the dinner table with family and friends, we may have forgotten that another potential tuition hike is also on the table. On Dec. 5 and 6, the state Board of Regents will vote on their latest proposed tuition hike. Under the proposal, resident students would see a 2 percent increase, and nonresident undergrads would see a 2.5 percent increase in each of the next two academic years. Not exactly welcoming news as the holiday season sets in.
You might think that the recent string of tuition hikes is due in part to all of the new buildings popping up around campus; however, a closer look reveals this isn’t the biggest reason for the uptick in tuition. A sharp decline in state appropriations is the real culprit.
It is true that within the last few years, many buildings have been upgraded or added to the University of Iowa campus, but much of this construction has been covered by funds from the devastating flood in 2008 or were desperately needed to accommodate a larger enrollment.
Meanwhile, the self-sustaining Athletics Department received the new JumboTron at Carver and the luxurious Hansen Football Performance Center. But both of these were made possible by private donations.
Furthermore, expanding administrative and faculty costs are only a fragment of the formula responsible for constraining the university’s budget. At $590,000, UI President Bruce Harreld does have a $65,000 higher starting salary than former President Sally Mason had when she retired, yet $65,000 doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things.
According to a FiveThirtyEight analysis, from 2000 to 2014, the national average pay for full professors has risen 12 percent to more than $160,000. Still, these salary increases are a mere anthill compared with the precipitous drop in funding from the state Legislature.
Thus, administrative and faculty costs, flashy new buildings, and amenities aren’t the catalyst behind the increasing tuition.
According to the Department of Education statistics presented by FiveThirtyEight, the state of Iowa has seen the fifth-biggest decline in state appropriations from 2000 to 2014. Currently, the average cost of tuition among Iowa’s three public universities sits at $10,000. That’s nearly $5,000 more than, or double, the cost of tuition in 2000.
Whereas states such as Alaska, North Dakota, and Wyoming fix their state appropriations to inflation and enrollment growth, Iowa sadly does not. Consequently, from 2000 to 2014, per-student funding dropped $5,500 among attendees of the regent universities in Iowa. This reveals that a loss of state appropriations is directly responsible for the rise in tuition. While intuition may lead you to believe that new buildings, amenities, and athletics facility upgrades are causing tuition to rise, in reality the blame lies at the hands of the Legislature.
Now the question is: How do we get the lawmakers to allocate more money for higher education? Seemingly, there are two options. It would help if higher-education funding was given a higher priority in the state budget. Meanwhile, a tax increase could also help the state raise funds to give to public education.
Will either happen? Well, if the current impasse on K-12 funding in the Legislature is at all indicative, it certainly doesn’t bode well for the cost of tuition in Iowa. But hey, it’s 2016, so anything could happen.