The Republican Education Budget Shell Game: How It Affects Iowa
by Darrell Lewis
As
a parent of two daughters who will be attending the University of Iowa
next year, I must say I am totally fed up with Republicans crowing about
how they have held the line on taxes. It's nothing more then a
shell game on their part and their antics are falling particularly hard
upon parents in Iowa.
In the past four years, the actual general
fund allocation has decreased by approximately $100 million dollars to
the Iowa Board of Regents. I am not just talking failure to keep
pace with inflation, I am talking here about a real decrease
in money to support education. Because of this, Iowa universities
have made national news for being among the public universities with
the largest tuition increases nationwide. Only the University of
Wisconsin exceeds the tuition at the University of Iowa among all Big
Ten Universities.
The tuition increases have resulted in
increased revenue from students of approximately $200 million. This
was necessary to fill the gap of underfunding by the Republican
legislature, Bush initiated Federal funding cuts and rising
costs. In spite of the tuition increases, professors have still
been laid off at Iowa universities. Here's the percentage
increases for tuition:
2001-2002 10.0%
2002-2003 18.5%
2003-2004 17.6%
2004-2005 8.3%
That's right – in four years, the total tuition increase at the University of Iowa is approximately 60%. (Each
year's percentage increase must also be applied to prior years'
percentages; thus the total increase exceeds the cumulative annual
percentages….OK, I was a math major at ISU and get kind picky about
these number things.)
Heck, lets get right to the
bottom line……it means an additional $5,000 this year for my two
daughters' tuition. And heck, you have to add room and board
increases to that. For those of you without children in
college, this means it is costing somewhere around $50,000 to send my
two daughters to the University of Iowa this year.
I can't type
here what I really think of all this and how Republicans are fleecing
students and their parents in Iowa…..and then building rainforests,
giving private school tax credits and giving the rich tax
breaks……grrrrrrrrrrr…well, maybe the Marine with the pickup
(scroll down) said it well enough for me.
This report originally appeared on the Drury for Iowa Senate website.
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