As everyone knows, the Board of Regents released the preliminary tuition increase numbers for the 2002-2003 school year last week. Since those numbers were made public, there has been substantial bickering in the media between the Iowa Legislature and the Board of Regents.

In an article appearing in Thursday’s Des Moines Register, Regent David Neil said the proposed increase wouldn’t make up for “the shortfall due to the Legislature passing more tax cuts for special interests.”

Later in the day, Iowa Speaker of the House Brent Siegrest responded with a press release calling Neil’s statements “counterproductive” and “troubling.” Some of his statements to Neil were quite blunt – “I would suggest if he wants to play politics in this manner, he should move to Nebraska where regents are elected.”

Why was Siegrest so troubled by Neil’s statements? Neil is, after all, working on behalf of the three Regent universities, and the money the Regents had to work with came from the Iowa Legislature, who did indeed pass tax cuts at a time when state revenue increased only 4.2 percent.

We, the very people this heated situation will affect, applaud Neil’s bluntness in questioning the Iowa Legislature’s actions. Since when is the state legislature completely free from criticism over it’s actions?

Siegrest’s statements in his media release were, at best, childish – “Unfortunately, Mr. Neil appears to have missed the Economics 101 class that covered that.” and “Let him put his name on the ballot and see how he fares.”

If Siegrest wants to criticize Neil for statements he deems “counterproductive,” he could have done it in a manner that wouldn’t turn the debate into a public pissing contest via the mainstream media.

Siegrest claims that the quality of education will not be “drastically different” just because the Regents received a little bit less than they did the year before. “I used to be a teacher. I know that’s not the case,” Siegrest added.

Siegrest can tell that to the departments that will need to be cut a little bit more next year in order to prevent tuition from going up even more. Anytime the legislature chooses to spend its money elsewhere and the Regents get less to deal with, the quality of education will indeed suffer. Period.

Passing the buck and calling Neil a “media darling” does nothing productive in what promises to be an ongoing budget problem.

Quarreling between the pages of a newspaper won’t make this problem go away. Personal attacks and sharp rhetoric won’t make the budget battle any easier come next year.

What will make that situation better next year is opening the lines of communication and working together ahead of time. Siegrest claimed that Neil never brought any of his concerns to the legislature before the budget was finalized, and that have been a mistake, even though Siegrest admitted it wouldn’t have done much to change the situation.

If both sides of this debate are truly looking out for the welfare of the students, as they claim, there wouldn’t be this sort of criticism of one another. And if there was need for criticism, it would be face to face and not hidden behind news stories and press releases.

Sam Houston once said “A nation divided against itself can not stand.” We think the same holds true when it comes to the quality of our education. editorialboard: Andrea Hauser, Tim Paluch, Michelle Kann, Zach Calef, Omar Tesdell