To: Bruce Rastetter, President, Iowa Board of Regents
Cancel the tuition hikes at Iowa's public universities!
Demands:
1. The Board of Regents allow 2 undergraduate students from each university to sit on a committee to determine if tuition increases are the best course of action; requiring that at least one of the students from each campus identify as a racial minority.
2. The Board of Regents hold a minimum of one meeting at each university to allow other students to freely voice their concerns about the proposed increases.
3. Until these meetings have taken place, tuition hikes be removed from the table due to a lack of student input in a decision which will solely and heavily affect them.
1. The Board of Regents allow 2 undergraduate students from each university to sit on a committee to determine if tuition increases are the best course of action; requiring that at least one of the students from each campus identify as a racial minority.
2. The Board of Regents hold a minimum of one meeting at each university to allow other students to freely voice their concerns about the proposed increases.
3. Until these meetings have taken place, tuition hikes be removed from the table due to a lack of student input in a decision which will solely and heavily affect them.
Why is this important?
Graduates from Iowa's public universities already face an alarming amount of debt at current tuition levels. For example, in the 2014 school year the average graduate from Iowa State University faced a whopping $28,880 of student debt according to the Des Moines Register and The Institute for College Access & Success. The Board of Regents has announced that they are planning to raise tuition even higher forcing students to face higher levels of debt and further disenfranchising those without the resources to attend college. It is time to find other solutions to the budget issue, and stop forcing students to bear the cost while our institutions of learning are transformed into 5-star resorts.