Raising college tuition is a harmful action.
According to the Daily Iowan, the recent regents’ decision means “In-state undergraduate students at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Northern Iowa will pay 3.5 percent more for their tuition and fees.”
Students should be able to attend college and learn how to navigate the world through their degrees to acquire good jobs without breaking the bank. An increase in tuition will further alienate students from attending because debt is a serious problem.
Although the increase in student debt will no doubt be met with opposition, it’s important to understand why this choice was made by the state Board of Regents.
According to the Des Moines Register, “The board representatives said the tuition increases were implemented to help support programs such as grants at a time when federal support is waning.
While the idea of boosting programs for students is a noble one, increasing tuition costs have to be increased is ultimately a bad idea that will plunge students further into debt.
Although financial aid and scholarships are available to acquire financial support, not everyone can apply for financial aid or achieve scholarships. In fact, one of the reasons students do not go to college is because a degree can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and burden them with debt.
It has been reported by Iowa College Aid that 56 percent of college students in Iowa will graduate with federal student debt, with the average debt being more than $24,000. Meanwhile, the average federal student loan borrower in the US has more than $37,000 in debt, and the average private student loan debt is over $54,000 per borrower.
The student loan debt crisis is crushing middle-class and working Americans, leading 51 percent of American voters to support President Joe Biden’s student loan debt cancellation plan that was recently struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
This unnecessary financial burden is one that doesn’t just fall on Iowans. In total, over 45 million Americans have student loan debt, with 92 percent of them being federal loans. To put that into perspective, that is almost the population of Spain.
As of March 2023, the cumulative student loan debt in the United States is roughly $1.8 trillion dollars, all because the cost of attending college is absurdly high. The cost of acquiring a degree is already too much, and it looks like the decision from the Regents will make things worse.
With the increase in tuition costs, the increased financial burden will cause more students to drop out or not attend in the first place. 38 percent of college students drop out because of the cost, and increasing tuition costs will certainly not help.
For many good-paying jobs, a quality education is not optional. The state Board of Regents should not be making that quality education more expensive and harder to get.
Columns reflect the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board, The Daily Iowan, or other organizations in which the author may be involved.
