The Iowa Board of Regents unanimously approved raising tuition at a meeting on Wednesday for undergraduates at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Northern Iowa. This vote will go into effect for the 2022-23 school year.

The approval means tuition rates will be raised by 4.25 percent, which amounts to over $300 per year at each college for in-state students.

• $355 more at Iowa
• $345 more at Iowa State
• $331 more at Northern Iowa
  

  2022-23 base undergraduate tuition at the #IARegents Universities. pic.twitter.com/F6em1Wth6o

  — Iowa Board of Regents (@IowaRegents) July 27, 2022

Student debt in the United States currently totals to over $1.7 trillion. 

Josh Lehman, the senior communications director, said to KCCI that tuition needs to be raised to keep up with inflation.

A month earlier, student representatives from the universities met with the board to ask them to not raise tuition. 

“In recent years, we’ve seen economic burdens of higher education, a shift away from our state legislature and onto the backs of young adults fresh out of high school,” Patrick Johnson, the president of the University of Iowa’s Undergraduate Student Government, said at the student representatives meeting.

Atlas Van Lines, a moving company, shared their findings on migration patterns of their clients. Their 2021 findings showed that Iowa is the No. 8 state where more people are leaving than staying.

Johnson said that continuing to increase economic barriers for students by raising tuition are pushing young Iowans out of the state and giving new graduates excessive student loan debt.

“We look to other states to bolster our student body with diverse perspectives from across the nation,” Johnson said. “At the same time, we asked students to remain in Iowa following their graduation. However Iowa is a state in which the median household income lies in the bottom half.”