What exactly is 'on the table' as Iowa Tuition Task Force kicks off?

Jeff Charis-Carlson
Press Citizen

"Everything is on the table."

That's the message the Iowa Board of Regents has sent ahead of a series of meetings this month to discuss how to set tuition levels at the state's three public universities. 

The regents created a Tuition Task Force this summer in response to the more than $30 million in total cuts faced this year by the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. It meets for the first time Monday.

University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld showed this slide Wednesday to state lawmakers to explain how the Iowa Legislature, the Iowa Board of Regents and public universities need to all work together to enhance the state's investment in higher education.

By the end of the 2017 legislative session, the regents saw $20.75 million in midyear cuts for 2016-17, followed by an additional $9.6 million for 2017-18. The cuts led the board — for the second year in a row — to approve last-minute tuition increases for the upcoming fall semester.

“(Tuition reform) is a significant priority,” said Rep. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, the ranking member of the joint Education Appropriations Subcommittee. “We cannot continue to shortchange the universities and pass along the cost of higher education onto Iowa families." 

The cuts also have put an end to the regents’ previous attempts to bargain with the Iowa Legislature. In the past, regent leaders have promised to hold off on in-state undergraduate tuition hikes in hopes of persuading lawmakers to increase the overall state funding levels by a certain amount.

That strategy worked during the 2013 and 2014 legislative sessions, but not in 2015 and 2016. It completely fell apart this year.

The regents are now searching for a new tuition philosophy. They have called on each university to prepare a five-year strategy to address long-term revenue concerns, and the Tuition Task Force has scheduled meetings this month to hear the public’s reaction to those strategies.

“We are looking to have a transparent dialogue,” said Regent Larry McKibben, a former Republican state senator who is chairing the task force.

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The task force, however, canceled plans last week for an introductory meeting in Des Moines. Of the dozen legislative, executive and business groups invited to a scheduled July 27 meeting, regent officials said they had heard back from only House and Senate Democrats and Iowa Workforce Development.

“Let’s be clear who was interested to speak and who wasn’t,” said Sen. Herman Quirmbach, who was scheduled to speak at the July 27 meeting. “The reason is very clear: the steep tuition increase for this year — which is now 2½ times what the Board of Regents had initially approved — is due to the budget cuts that the Legislature and the Budget Office approved. I don’t think they want to own that message.”

Quirmbach plans to make his intended comments during Wednesday's task force meeting in Ames.

The Governor's Office said Tuesday that education adviser Linda Fandel had planned to attend the July 27 meeting and did respond to the regents.

"The governor wants tuition to be as low as possible to ensure college is affordable and accessible and reduce student debt," Brenna Smith, a gubernatorial spokeswoman, said via email.

Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R-Fort Dodge, said lawmakers understand that tuition cannot be frozen indefinitely.

“Nobody would ever want a tuition increase, but costs are increasing in every other part of our lives,” said Kraayenbrink, who co-chairs of the joint Education Appropriations Subcommittee. “For us to have a sense that tuition should just remain the same for as long as possible … well, someone has to pick up the difference. It costs more each year for the institutions to function. If that amount is made up through tax increase or tuition, the money has to come from somewhere.”

The universities will not release the specifics of their strategy until the task force meets on each regent campus. But university officials have raised several options over the past few years that are likely be included in those long-term plans.

Bruce Harreld, president of the University of Iowa, listens June 8, 2017, during a meeting of the Iowa Board of Regents at the University or Northern Iowa.

Here is look at several options that could be recommended.

UI tuition could go up by one-third

UI President Bruce Harreld made headlines earlier this year when he rescinded — and then reinstated — $4.3 million in already-promised legacy scholarships for the 2017-18 academic year. Harreld said the money was needed to help offset the long-term effects of a $9.2 million midyear budget cut to the university. Since then, UI’s budget was slashed another $6.2 million for the current fiscal year.

Harreld repeatedly has suggested that the regents give UI their blessing to increase base undergraduate tuition so that the university can move to the middle, rather than the bottom, of its group of peer institutions. He estimates that bringing UI’s tuition rate to the average of its peer group would provide an additional $91 million for the university.

For in-state undergraduates, such an increase would require hiking UI’s base tuition and mandatory fees by 33 percent from nearly $9,000 to nearly $12,000 over the next five years.

ISU similarly is at the bottom of its peer group when it comes to in-state tuition and fees. Officials there have not been as vocal as Harreld in calling for double-digit tuition increases, but they have cited the low ranking when explaining why smaller tuition increases are needed. ISU saw a $9 million midyear cut in 2016-17, followed by another $2.5 million cut for 2017-18.

UI's official peer group includes mainly Big Ten schools and other flagship state universities with medical centers. ISU's includes 10 public land-grant universities with high levels of research.

More and higher differential tuition charges at ISU

At the beginning of the 2016-17 academic year, then-President Steven Leath proposed implementing a two-tier tuition structure at ISU — eventually charging more tuition for juniors and seniors than for freshmen and sophomores.

ISU already charges extra tuition in its architecture and business programs. Leath argued that his proposal would allow tuition rates to reflect “the higher costs associated with more advanced and increasingly specialized coursework, learning opportunities, personalized instruction (and) smaller classes that you get as you proceed through your undergraduate education.”

Iowa State University campus

The proposal never evolved into an official recommendation. The regents, instead, approved raising tuition for ISU juniors and seniors, but only in five additional programs.

The idea of increasing options for differential tuition, however, is still on the table. Officials with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, for example, sent an email in March inviting students to an informational meeting to discuss "a new differential tuition structure for juniors and seniors in several departments and programs."

Changing more tuition for specific programs also has been offered as a means of slowing growth at university, whose student body has increased by 44 percent over the past decade.

UI also charges supplemental tuition for advanced students in business, nursing, engineering and other programs. UNI also charged additional tuition for some business students.

Tuition won't increase as much, as fast at UNI

In most states, there is a substantial difference between the tuition charged by the public research universities and tuition charged by the public regional comprehensive universities.

In Iowa, however, the base undergraduate tuitions at UI, ISU and UNI are within $30 of each other. The schools add different fees and supplemental tuition for some programs.

That’s likely to change. UI and ISU are likely to ask for higher, faster tuition increases than UNI is.

In the past, regents have been concerned that charging lower tuition at UNI would imply that the education offered in Cedar Falls was of lesser quality than in Ames or Iowa City. But that argument has fallen out of favor with UNI’s new president and the members of the Cedar Falls legislative delegation. 

“Our competitors are different than Iowa’s and Iowa State’s, and our (comparison schools) are also different,” UNI President Mark Nook told the Register in June. “So I think it is important for us to look at whether or not all of our tuitions should be at the same level. We know our costs are different.”

Gap to widen between resident, nonresident tuition

Out-of-state students have complained in recent years about feeling like walking ATMs used by Iowa's public universities to make up for falling levels of state funding. 

In the 2016-17 school year, for example, nonresident undergraduates at UI will pay $21,644 more in base tuition than resident undergraduates. Out-of-state students at ISU will pay $13,836 more and those at UNI will pay $10,542 more.

As long as the regents and universities base their proposed tuition increases on percentages, the gap between resident and nonresident tuition will continue to expand.

During the most recent tuition increase, for example, UI called for charging resident undergraduates an additional 3 percent ($216) while nonresident undergraduates were asked for extra 3.8 percent ($1,078).

The current gap may hold a little longer at UNI, which is trying to increase the number of out-of-state students enrolled. But with UI and ISU continuing to serve as destination universities for students across the globe, even small percentage increases will lead to bigger dollar amounts.

More tuition, more financial aid

University leaders report that, as they make plans for future increases to tuition, they also will plan to increase the amount of financial aid offered.

“As we take our tuition up, clearly we are placing a financial burden on an awful lot of people,” UI's Harreld told the regents in June. “Consistent with that increase, we also need to be increasing our student financial aid — both merit as well as needs-based. In our budget models, we’ve already included that.”

In their proposed budgets for 2017-18, UI has $111.4 million designated for scholarships and fellowships, ISU has $115.2 million and UNI has 16.3 million. In terms of each institution's general university spending, those amounts account of 15.1 percent at UI, 17.6 percent at ISU and 9.1 percent at UNI.

Beyond increases in base tuition, such increases in aid also would to be tied to the supplemental tuition all three universities charge some students in engineering, nursing, business and other programs.

Higher education experts have raised concerns that differential tuition and other increases too often dissuade prospective students from low-income families from even applying. 

That’s why the regents are taking three months to decide where to set each institution’s price point over the next five years.

Set it too high, and prospective students from low-income families may feel priced out of public education.

Set it too low, and the universities won’t have enough to make up for the drops in state funding.

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffCharis.