It’s not like we weren’t expecting it.

Did anyone actually think the Board of Regents wouldn’t vote to raise tuition?

Well, they did it, and we’ll be paying 4.3 percent more on our tuition next year. That translates into $128 more next year for in-state students and a whopping $410 for you poor out-of-state fools.

Again, no one was surprised by the tuition increase. Either students are just desensitized to the whole tuition issue or university administrators who want more of our money are getting better at telling us its all for our own good.

The truth is, students are OK with paying out of the nose for a college education — as long as they know where their money is going.

If we could only tell exactly which programs and services are getting our hard-earned dollars, we wouldn’t care nearly as much about the yearly tuition increase. Because then we would know whether the university really does need the extra money for those nebulous “improvements” we keep hearing about.

As it is, no one really knows where our money goes. All we know is that we keep paying more into the coffers of Iowa State while donations to the school get more and more extravagant.

There may be a good explanation for that. But it’s hard to justify paying more in tuition when the university keeps getting more from alumni — and we don’t know where any of our money is going.

The other troubling thing about the Board of Regents’ vote is its acceptance of the University of Iowa’s new scheme to get even more of students’ money.

Under the new tuition/fee separation system, the U of I can install a separate mandatory student fee on students’ bills, while taking the money in students’ tuition that used to be designated as student fees and throw that into the general fund.

So now the U of I will be able to charge students even more then they used to, under the guise of “separating” student fees from tuition.

How does that seem right?

Sadly, the regents bought it, and ISU won’t be far behind in instituting a similar system. So next year, expect to be faced with a tuition increase more like 8 percent, instead of just the 4 percent to which we’ve all become accustomed.

The Board of Regents let us down yesterday.

But were we expecting anything else?