Graduate students have been trying to receive budgetary money from the Iowa Board of Regents for a long time.

For the past few years, the graduate college has made a request for an increase in funding for full tuition to ISU President Martin Jischke, said Liesl Kelly, vice president of the Graduate Student Senate. Jischke then makes a request to the Board of Regents, and Governor Terry Branstad has the final authority.

A list of priorities is sent to the Board of Regents from Jischke and the other two state universities requesting funding for the next fiscal year. Undergraduate student funding has consistently held more priority than graduate student funding, Kelly said.

The Board of Regents approved a $300,000 increase, but the governor vetoed it, said GSS Finance Committee Sen. Alex Soejarto.

While the governor does not disagree that graduate students are important, he maintains that funding for undergraduates is a higher priority to Iowans, Kelly said.

“We were important, but didn’t make it to the list that could get us funded,” Kelly said.

According to the decision makers, the citizens of Iowa do not think that graduates should get a free education, Kelly said.

Jischke and Branstad are in agreement, and in their strategic plan undergraduates remain a priority until the year 2000, Soejarto said.

GSS is not giving up, and is at the very beginning stages of preparing for the next funding request, he said.

Graduate student enrollment has gone down in the past few years, but the significance of the decrease has not been determined, Soejarto said.

“We’re trying to see what’s really happening at ISU with graduate students, and we’re just at the beginning,” he said.

This is a very important issue to graduate students, because many graduate students face more financial battles than undergraduates, Kelly said.

For example, graduate students, depending on their department, are not allowed to take jobs outside of university assistantships or part-time teaching, or are heavily discouraged in doing so, Kelly said.

It is particularly difficult when some graduate students are married and are trying to support a family, or are simply supporting themselves alone, Kelly said.

Graduate students want to continue their education without going into debt before graduation or without incurring more loans than they already have, she added.

Time is also a factor, because even if the department allows outside-university employment, graduate student courses and assistantships require much more time than most undergraduate courses, Kelly said. Graduate students generally have more pressure to do well and must receive good grades to continue with their programs, she added.

Kelly also said graduate students pay more money per credit hour than undergraduates. Graduate students take about six to nine hours and undergraduates take about 12 to 15 hours per semester and both groups of students are paying about the same, she said.

Currently, the graduate college pays half of the in-state tuition for students with half-time teaching or other assistantships, she said.

The range of payment for assistantships is $875 to $1,800, depending on the department, with the average being $1,000, Kelly said.

Full tuition remission is important for retention and recruitment of students because ISU intends on being one of the premiere land-grant universities, comparable with schools such as Wisconsin or Cornell and not just Big Eight schools, Soejarto said.

“At the best universities, the majority of research is performed by graduate students with a creative component involving professors and graduate students,” Soejarto said.

Research attracts students, and people here are good, but “it’s just how you keep good people coming,” Soejarto said.