On Monday I took a trip down to the Iowa capitol in Des Moines for Iowa Regent’s Day. I started my day out at the capitol meeting with Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, the state representative for Ames, who showed [ISU students] Sam Haakenstad and Ryan Hagen, along with myself, around the representative House.

Next, we went over to the Senate side and talked with Sen. Herman Quirmbach of Ames, who was excited to see a large turnout. Then we started our lobbying, which consisted of talking to Linda Fandel, the special assistant for education, who has close contact with the governor.

The three of us expressed our opinion on not raising tuition by allocating more money to the Regents. We began our discussion with the cost of tuition and how we were paying for it. I told her that I’m grateful for federal and state aid because I’m an independent adult made by a guardianship change, thus I have to take out loans for what isn’t covered in aid and money from appropriations. Then, Fandel posed a question to us: “What do we think about the quality of our education?”

We informed her that our professors are effective in teaching, and so far we haven’t seen drastically larger class sizes because our classes are generally taught in a lecture. Fandel left us with the message to “stay in touch.”

From here, I went on to lobby representatives and senators. I faced the difficulty that not many lawmakers were not on the floor. I was able to talk with the assistant of Sen. Michael Gronstal from Council Bluffs, the secretary of Sen. Merlin Bartz from Clear Lake and Rep. Janet Petersen from Des Moines. With senators and representatives who weren’t available, I left my contact info and my sheet with, “Vote to not raise tuition,” and a report from the Legislative Service Agency showing that year-to-date fiscal year 2011 revenue could be used on the budget gap.

I was disappointed that out of the three senators and five representatives from my hometown of Cedar Rapids, only one of them was present, Kraig Paulsen, and he replied that he was busy. At 2 p.m. I went to the press conference, where I was able to see Gov. Terry Branstad, and I had the opportunity to shake his hand.

The governor, from my knowledge, didn’t attend the press conference. I learned important info about our Regent schools: For every $1 spent by the state on education, $14.5 is generated in economic activity.

So after doing a calculation, if the state wants to decrease Regent funding to our universities by $148.8 million, the state of Iowa will miss out on almost $2.2 billion of economic activity. If we could have that much extra economic activity, think about how many jobs could be created, not just short term but in the long run, people can afford to go to the three Iowa universities and find jobs here in the state of Iowa.

I received a valuable life experience Monday, and I would hope our elected officials see what our Regent universities do for Iowa, and the state will continue to fund higher education, so we as the students don’t have to pay higher tuition.