Despite the success of tuition freezes at Western Illinois University, bringing it to Iowa State would be unsuccessful, Regents said.

“Tuition freezes are cost guarantees when a student enters a university,” said John Maguire, spokesperson at Western Illinois University, the first college to successfully have a tuition freeze. “It guarantees that the tuition will remain the same for all four years of college.”

Parents and students are able to plan college costs using the rate structure, Maguire said. It also makes the institutions inexpensive and provides the students with good and affordable education, he said.

At Western Illinois University, the tuition, fees and room and board all stay the same, Maguire said.

Regent John Forsyth, Des Moines, said having a frozen tuition is unrealistic in Iowa. With the state funding being cut, it would be harder to keep the quality of education high at Iowa State if student tuition increases were not there to help pay part of the loss, he said.

“Not many universities have a frozen tuition,” said Forsyth. “It is very unlikely [to work] in the short run.”

Forsyth said a tuition freeze would create a large decrease in funds brought in to the universities if it was instigated in Iowa.

A tuition freeze may be more affordable for students, but the Iowa Board of Regents cannot see how Iowa universities can do it, Forsyth said. With increasing costs and inflation, he said he does not know how the budget could continuously be balanced without tuition increases. If cuts are made to the budget, it would cause the quality of the university to suffer, he said.

“The problem is that state support is going down,” said Forsyth. “Balancing the budget would become more difficult [if tuition freezes were applied].”

Universities have to be aware of the state revenue, Maguire said. The tuition freeze, beginning in the 1999—2000 academic year, is working for Western Illinois University because they have smaller budget cuts, he said.

Maguire said the university has to have reasonable and sufficient revenue for the school.

“We have to be very precise [with the budget] in what costs are going to be for students and government funding,” Maguire said. “You need to be a good planner.”

Though Forsyth cannot see Iowa State having a tuition freeze, he said the Board of Regents would like to make sure tuition increases go down as much as possible. “The university would like to give salary increases to professors for doing a good job educating,” Forsyth said.