During years of rising tuition costs, there has only been one constant in tuition pricing for students — in-state and out-of-state tuition.

Now, the Board of Regents is looking at changing the way students pay tuition, including charging different amounts based on major, classification and number of credits, and allowing the three regent universities to charge different tuition rates.

In the middle of the 2003 fall semester, a task force consisting of four administrators, five faculty members, one graduate student and one undergraduate student began examining four areas of potential change in tuition structure after the Board of Regents asked the universities for input in September.

Barb Boose, communications specialist for the Board of Regents, said the board’s tuition policies have not been changed since December 1997.

Mark Chidister, assistant to the president for budget planning and analysis and member of the task force, said reduction in state support contributed to the decision to examine tuition structure.

“It’s just general good practice to periodically examine your core practices,” Chidister said. “This hasn’t been studied in a long time.”

Of the four changes, differential tuition will likely get a lot of attention, Chidister said.

The task force’s report was submitted to Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost Ben Allen Jan. 6.

Allen said he will now gather input from deans, committees within the Professional and Scientific Council, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate and the Faculty Senate, the Government of the Student Body president and others in the university. The task force’s proposal will then move to ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, who will present it to the Board of Regents.

Although the issue is scheduled to be discussed at the February regents meeting, Allen was unsure if the university would make any actual recommendations at that meeting.

“My opinion is we don’t have a position yet,” Allen said, adding, “The report from the task force is very helpful — it obviously reflected a lot of thought.”

Allen said he believes more time is needed to gather input from students.

Chidister agreed it was too early to outline the university’s stance.

“I don’t know that in the end, we came out with a specific recommendation,” Chidister said.

“There are problems with all of the differential tuition approaches,” Geoffroy said. He said it would be up to the Board of Regents to weigh the pros and cons of each.

Boose said any changes in tuition policy will progress depending on what the regents decide at its February meeting. “It’s possible that the regents might say that, ‘We think this is not a way to go, end of discussion,’ … or, they might say, ‘Here’s some discussion, let’s keep that one on the table and talk about it in the months ahead.'”

Another aspect of tuition that will be discussed at the February Board of Regents meeting is allowing the board more time to set tuition by moving back the deadline, Boose said.

According to the Iowa Code, tuition for an upcoming academic year must be approved by the board in November. Boose said an advantage to delaying the vote would be that the board would have a better idea of the amount of state funding it will receive, which is not determined until the months following.

A disadvantage is that many students determine summer work plans based on fall tuition,” Boose said. “Students would have less time to plan.”

Chidister said because tuition rates have already been set for the 2004-05 school year, the earliest any change in tuition policy could be implemented is 2005-06.

Whenever there is a policy change, there must be an opportunity for public comment, he said. The Board of Regents meetings are open to the public. The next meeting is Feb. 18 and 19 in Iowa City.

The following correction to this article was printed in the Feb. 3, 2004 issue of the Daily: “Due to a reporting error, the Jan. 30 article “Tuition pay alternatives revisted” incorrectly stated the task force was led by Mark Chidister, assistant to the president. The tuition task force is led by Charles Glatz, professor and chairman of the chemical engineering department. The Daily regrets the error.”