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.