Increasing tuition will be the focus of the Board of Regents meeting on Wednesday, and the Government of the Student Body is prepared to take a stand against it.

At the meeting, the Board of Regents will take a final vote on whether to raise tuition at the University of Iowa, University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State by 5.2 percent.

GSB President Bryan Burkhardt said although GSB will not be making a formal presentation at the meeting, GSB has been continually making other efforts to lobby against the tuition increase.

GSB has initiated a postcard campaign and conducted an informal telephone survey of students within the past 10 days, Burkhardt said.

“What we did was we asked students to take a couple of moments and write the regents about their personal comments about tuition,” he said. “We mailed out all of the postcards, and we compiled the numbers from the survey, which we made into brief reports and mailed to the regents yesterday.”

Burkhardt also said GSB is trying to encourage students to attend the meeting.

“The other effort we’ve been making is to have more students in attendance at the regents meeting,” he said. “We’ve invited members of the GSB senate and cabinet as well as other students.”

GSB is hoping for significant feedback from students so the board has something to take into consideration when they vote, Burkhardt said.

“We’ve been hoping for everything from ‘please don’t raise my tuition,’ to specific instances about how the farm crisis has affected ISU students from farm families, and we were successful in getting that,” he said.

Mike Pogge, LAS, said GSB decided to protest the increase because of concerns about the issue of affordability for the students. He said GSB decided to take steps to make sure the regents were aware of that.

“There were a couple of areas that we hit on — we couldn’t really find the rationale for having such a high increase since inflation has been really low,” Pogge said.

“We are also concerned that students are not going to be able to afford this increase because this increase is going to be compounded for students in the future,” he said. “We are not only concerned about current students, but also the future Iowa Staters.”

Despite the great possibility that the board will approve the increase, the issue is still uncertain, Burkhardt said.

“Realistically, I think the regents will come back this month after thinking long and hard about the implications and will make a wise decision in the best interests of Iowa,” he said. “It was certainly an easy effort for us in terms of focusing student opinions, and I think the regents really needed to hear student opinions. They needed to get a larger perspective than just student government.”

Pogge also said he did not think the matter was finished.

“There’s been a lot of discussion since the regents meeting last month, and it’s hard to say what is going to happen,” Pogge said.

“The board is still recommending a 5.2 percent increase, but we know that there are also some members who are undecided,” he said. “There has been a lot of lobbying on all sides this weekend, and right now it is so hard to say what is going to occur.”

Inter-Residence Hall Association President Ben Chamberlain said the IRHA supports the efforts GSB has made in regards to lobbying against the tuition increase, which IRHA demonstrated by passing a bill resolving to support GSB’s actions.

“The people in the [IRHA] senate really wanted to express their opinion and support GSB’s efforts,” he said.