The Iowa Board of Regents will meet next Wednesday and Thursday here at Iowa State to vote on a proposed tuition increase for the state’s three major universities.

The proposed increase will once again raise the cost of attending Iowa State by an additional 9.9 percent. An increase of this magnitude only one year after a highly objectionable hike last year leaves us to wonder just how much is too much.

Board of Regents President Owen J. Newlin and his advisers seem to be taking the approach that if we are paying so much to attend this fine university now, what’s an extra 10 percent?

I’ll tell you what that additional 10 percent is. For in-state students this increase will result in a $300 increase to their tuition cost. And if you think that’s bad just be thankful you are not an out-of-state student, their tuition will jump up by about $900 next year.

So why is the cost of attending Iowa State as well as UNI and Iowa getting so much more expensive these past couple of years? As far as I can understand it from the information I have found, it is due to a cut in funding to the Regent Universities from the Iowa Legislature. It seems that they have found better things to spend their money on than higher education and have come to the realization that they could pass the buck off to the students themselves.

Now I don’t claim to know anything about politics, but it seems to me that the financial support of college students is a major issue that all politicians claim to support. So what exactly is going on?

The Re-gents say that the increase in tuition is very im-portant to the quality of the institutions as far as decreasing class sizes, funding renovations, and enhancing technology. This seems like a logical explanation of how to spend all of that extra money, but it also loses the major emphasis that the student governments of each university sees as the ultimate goal “To provide excellent higher education for all the citizens of Iowa.”

Sadly, this is an unobtainable goal as many lower-middle class families have a tough enough time putting their kids through college, thus making it an impossibility for families that do everything they can just to survive. While this is very unfortunate, the ISU GSB has put together a counter proposal in an attempt to keep this knowledge gap from widening even further.

While they realize that a small increase in tuition will be required to cover standard inflationary costs, they believe 9.9 percent is far to drastic.

They hope to persuade the Regents to take another look at this proposal and find a way to decrease the financial blow it will place on the students.

The GSB is hoping that students who have concerns with the proposed increase will attend the Regents meetings next week and voice their opinion to the Board. Flyers have been hung up around campus that give more details as to the times and locations of the meetings.

We are told that our vote can make a difference in the Presidential elections. This issue should be just as important. The Regents see us only as a bunch of dollar signs. With our showing up at these meetings they will have to see us as people with real issues and concerns.

If you value the cost of your education, I urge you to show up and take a stand. It is time we show these superpowers at the Board of Regents what we are made of, and that we won’t put up with their money games anymore.