Last week, Iowa State Athletics donated $1 million to the University to go toward students who are having financial difficulties completing their degrees. That is tremendous.

The donation has the opportunity to make a significant impact at Iowa State, especially considering mid-year budget cuts and lagging funding.

Education is all about advancement, economic development and growth. This donation comes at a hard time for education. It’s not only a tragic situation for the student and their family when they have to drop out due to financial reasons, but it’s loss for the university and the economy.

With students carrying more and more of the costs of education, it’s no wonder there are students dropping out because they can’t afford to complete their degrees. That’s something that should truly frighten us all, especially at a land grant university. 

As a land grant university, Iowa State is meant to serve all Iowans by providing affordable education. It’s extremely hard to do that when the state doesn’t give universities anywhere near proper funding and springs mid-year budget cuts on them.

Simply put, we need more funding security at Iowa State and the other regent universities. That security is not just for the institution’s sake, but for the sake of all students and prospective students who hope to obtain a world-class education at Iowa State.

That’s why donations, like the one from athletics, provide so much opportunity for better financial security. For those who have money readily available, it may be easy to forget that some students may drop out of college simply because they have no means to pay for amounts as small as a couple hundred dollars. Image how far $1 million can go for those cases.

We need more where that came from. We need more people to recognize that education is worth the investment. And we need to recognize that everyone deserves a chance to obtain an education, not just those with the money to pay for the prices that continue to rise.

Thank you, Iowa State Athletics, for your leadership. Now, let’s see the state and private donors follow in their footsteps.