Hunter
06/15/23
Students at the three state-run universities will have to dig deeper in their pockets to pay for schooling starting this fall.
The Gazette reports after hearing from student representatives worried about the rising cost of higher education but aware of eroding state support, Iowa’s Board of Regents without discussion Wednesday approved across-the-system tuition and fee increases — including a 3.5-percent hike for all in-state undergraduates.
The tuition bump means that undergraduates at the University of Iowa will now pay over $9000 a year.
Graduate-level tuition will now cost $11,256 at the U of I.
The newspaper also says the universities also continued charging “differential tuition” for costlier programs, including a 17-percent tuition and fees hike for resident undergraduate students in the UI “medicine radiation sciences program” or a 6-percent increase for UI undergraduate residents in education.
The Regents now estimate that with tuition, room and board, and other costs and fees, the average cost to attend one of the state –run universities this fall will be nearly $25,000.
Costs to students continue to rise as state funding continues to fall. State appropriations accounted for 77 percent of the universities’ general education budgets in 1981. Today, it’s just 31 percent. Democratic senator Herman Quirmbach of Ames said in a statement that had the legislature granted the full increase of $32 million in general fund appropriations, the board requested, the tuition increase wouldn’t have been necessary .