With the cost of tuition steadily rising each year in both private and public schools, the announcement of Gov. Terry Branstad’s approval of the tuition freeze for Iowa universities was decidedly good news. The majority of families and potential students in the past few years have been burdened by the difficult economic state of the United States. This tuition freeze, effective for the 2013-14 school year, seems like the first step in an excellent direction.

However, though the freeze will assuredly save next year’s students a few hundred dollars, we have no guarantee that it will continue in future years. Additionally, the fiscal savings created by the tuition freeze only affect students who are Iowa residents.

Iowa State University’s estimated cost of in-state undergraduate university expenses for the 2013-14 school year will remain at the 2012-13 price of $16,490, slight relief from the previous years’ $338 increase. While that’s nice, and no one is going to complain about money saved, it pales when compared to the overall price of tuition and living at a state university.

Furthermore, out-of-state students will not experience this small relief. The cost of 2013-14 non-resident university expenses will increase by $440 from the previous year to an estimated total of $29,040. Non-resident tuition has always been substantially more expensive than in-state, and the tuition freeze will only widen that gap.

Collegexpress.com claims that 24 percent of Iowa State’s student body is made up of non-residents. Though not the majority, it is a sizable enough chunk that their tuition disadvantage should not be ignored.

State universities such as Iowa State were created to benefit in-state students. However, out-of-state or international students shouldn’t be so heavily disadvantaged. If out-of-state tuition continues to rise while in-state is frozen, we may experience exaggeratedly falling rates of non-resident enrollment. If we as a school are so proud of our diversity, we shouldn’t make it so hard to achieve.

Whether in-state or out-of-state, students may not be affected by the tuition freeze to any level of significance. All we have been guaranteed is a brief pause in the rise of higher education expenses. If this pause extends past the 2013-14 year, maybe then we can consider it a change worthy of proper celebration. In the meantime, the tuition freeze remains more of a symbolic step in the right direction than anything else.

Despite bitterness that the freeze will save so little money for so few students, it is undeniably a sign of better times. It remains to be seen if future factors such as enrollment, economic status of the country and Iowa’s state legislature will continue movement in this direction. Though we can wish for lowered tuition or for an extended freeze, for now we can only look at the tuition freeze in a positive — and hopeful — light.