The search for a new top-level leader, such as the president of the ISU Foundation, is always an opportunity. Iowa State has been searching for a new foundation president since March, when President Dan Saftig resigned and ended his eight-year tenure. The next eight years may require just as large an effort, and we hope that both candidates currently under consideration are up to the challenge.

As president, Saftig oversaw a fundraising campaign that drew in $867 million. That is a huge amount of money. The ambitions of our new university president, Steven Leath, as well as a modernizing world, probably require budgetary increases that tuition from new students and increased state appropriations will not meet. Research requires equipment and facilities; teaching requires faculty and facilities that do not lump hundreds of students — whether they be in, agriculture, science and engineering fields, social sciences, arts and humanities, or the fine arts — into the same class and thereby sacrifice learning and student-professor interaction to budgetary inadequacies.

Indications from Republicans in the state legislature are they will act positively on the Board of Regents’ request for additional appropriations this year, including the Regents’ proposal for a $39.5 million state grant program to eliminate tuition set-asides, which last year accounted for about 20 percent of the cost of tuition.

But the past several decades show state support for higher education cannot always be counted on. In fiscal year 1981, state appropriations funded 77.4 percent of a full-time student’s tuition costs. In 1991, the state funded 67.8 percent. That number changed little over the next 10 years, as in 2001 Iowa still funded 63.7 percent of tuition. By 2011, however, state appropriations amounted to only 39.7 percent of tuition.

Although students have an enormous stake in their education and ought to pay for it accordingly, public governance of a university leads to an expectation of public monetary support. A university’s foundation also has a responsibility to improve the university if not extend support in the form of scholarships and grants. In the case of Iowa State, that foundation is roughly $480 million.

To make up for tuition set-aside funds alone, Leath has set a fundraising goal of $150 million during the course of five years. More, however, is always better. And easing the transition away from tuition set-asides should not, of course, be the ISU Foundation’s only object in the next few years.

Emergencies often command more attention than daily needs. As Iowa State develops further, increasing enrollment and creating a research park, there will be other day-to-day needs such as classrooms, course offerings, professors and other faculty, dining services, residence halls, and other unforeseen or overlooked needs.