We’ve all been told that money doesn’t grow on trees, whether it was when we asked our moms to buy us a candy bar at the grocery store or when we asked our parents for that Toyota 4-Runner for graduation.

“What, do you think money grows on trees?” is the response I always received.

However, the Board of Regents doesn’t seem to believe that a dollar is hard to come by.

In fact, each year a college education is getting harder and harder for people who aren’t National Merit Scholars to obtain.

Each year it seems the Board of Regents sings the same song: “It’s all about the Benjamin’s, baby.”

I didn’t know the regents were Puff Daddy fans.

At least there’s one Puff Daddy-hater on our side this year. Someone who has nothing to lose. (No, I’m not talking about Monica Lewinsky.)

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad finally put his neck on the line for the students of Iowa Monday by disagreeing with a proposal to increase tuition at the state’s colleges by 5.2 percent.

The proposed increase is well above the rate of inflation, which is less than three percent. Branstad said the tuition increase should be closer to the rate of inflation.

This isn’t the first time students have faced outrageous tuition hikes. Last year the proposed tuition hike (which passed) was also above the rate of inflation.

But every year, students complain when the mailman delivers their university bills. The Government of the Student Body (which represents the Iowa State student body) voiced its concern about the increase, but more students need to step up this year.

Students seem to get in the mindset that they don’t have any power and that they can’t make a change. Apathy on this campus seems to be the determining factor in all we do or, more accurately, all we don’t do.

If the 5.3 percent tuition hike is passed, it will not only affect Iowa State students, but also faculty, staff and the university as a whole.

With increased tuition, families who already struggle to send their children to college may not be able to cough up the extra dollars. And a lot of those children come from rural Iowa and are sent to Iowa State to get an education in agriculture to improve their family farms.

So as you can see, the tuition increase could have vast ramifications for enrollment at Iowa State and Iowa’s economy.

Our nation’s politicians wonder why students are graduating from college in debt. The reason is simple — people can no longer afford to go to college unless they are from Richie Rich families.

The whole point of going to college for many is to further their educations, get careers that will provide financial stability and increase their standards of living.

However, the minute college graduates toss their mortar boards in the air and get their first-ever real paychecks, they are faced with outrageous bills to pay back college loans.

Hopefully, with the governor’s disapproval of the tuition hike, the board will not pass the proposal. But nothing is guaranteed. The governor helps to set the political climate in which the board makes decisions, but it is still independent.

Whoever thought that we would find our savior in Branstad, a man who I believe has put the dollar first when making decisions on many issues.

It just so happens that the tuition hike was proposed at the right time. A time when our governor, who has served the longest of any Iowa governor, wants to leave office on a good note.

A governor who wants to be remembered as a governor who helped Iowa’s students, economy and families. Speaking of families, I think his could use some of that free federal psychiatric help.

All this, the 99 county farewell tour and disapproval of the tuition hike, looks like a political ploy by Branstad to leave Iowans with a good impression of his tenure.

Hell, if it means paying less tuition, then he gets an A for the year from me.

---

Tara Deering is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines. She is editor of the Daily.