Over the past 150 years, education has become cherished in America as a right. The Morrill Act of 1862 was designed to make it possible for all young Americans to achieve an advanced education. President Bush has even said all Americans have the right to go to a good school and receive a good education. It is with this goal — affordable education for our students that will prepare them to succeed in an ever-changing world — that we as Iowans and Americans strive to provide them the resources and tools to learn more about the world and themselves.

Unfortunately, the ability to easily attend a public university in Iowa has come under attack in recent years. Costs have skyrocketed, attempts have been made to cut grants and other assistance programs. No guarantees have been given that tuition increases won’t be as drastic next time. The end result of these actions has left ISU students paying increased tuition without seeing an increase in services.

The most recent attack involved attempts by the Bush Administration to cut Pell Grants. The administration reorganized the Pell Grant formula to cut $270 million dollars, remove 84,000 students and cut the grant size of a million students. The financial aid available for students affected by this would have gone down due to the student or their family contributing more money to make up the loss.

Luckily for these students, the Senate stood up to the Bush administration and voted to restore funding. Iowa’s Republican Sen. Charles Grassley voted against restoring funding, apparently convinced that giving tax cuts to the rich and sending billions of dollars to Iraq is more important.

Here in Iowa, as you all know, our state legislature has engineered budget cuts in such a way that tuition at state schools has gone up more than 50 percent in the last three years. Despite attempts to restore funds toward higher education, students have borne the brunt of our state’s economic recession.

During this past legislative season, the hot topic was a flat-tax income tax in Iowa. The problem was a $400 million a year shortfall to the state budget. When Sen. Larry McKibben, a key supporter of the flat-tax plan, was asked by Sen. Herman Quirmbach where the cuts in the state budget would come from, he evaded answering the question. When asked specifically if education would be spared he replied with a diatribe of “Praise the Lord for Republicans!” and refused to answer.

So here we stand — we continue to see tuition rise at great speeds, with no guarantees from the Republican state legislature, and with half of our representation in the United States Senate backing moves that would cause many of us to have even greater financial burdens. If these attacks against our access to public education continue, it will not be long before college students refuse to praise their deity for Republicans.