With a unanimous vote, the Board of Regents passed an operations and appropriations request to the legislature of $16 million; $12 million of which will be split among the three regent institutions if the request is approved. 

Iowa State, if the request is granted, will receive $5 million under the condition that it all goes toward financial aid for in-state students in fiscal year 2020.

Director of the Student Financial Aid Office Roberta Johnson said these funds would help the office, but will not completely make up for the recent budget cuts.

“The most important thing that we try to do is to make sure we are providing funds, so that students can afford to come to Iowa State University,” Johnson said. “We believe that we offer a world class education and we want, as a land grant university, to be accessible to all the students in our state, not just those that have financial means.”

Iowa’s three regent universities faced budget cuts of over $30 million in state appropriations during the most recent legislative session.

Since the budget cuts the Student Financial Aid Office has maintained its funding, though they now have to be much stricter with their deadlines.

“So, when we told people that you have to have the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA form, in submitted by our priority date, it means that we don’t have a lot of flexibility to help people who miss the priority date, or who have an extenuating circumstance that comes up later in the year,” Johnson said.

Johnson said there are still exceptional circumstances where exceptions could potentially be made such as extreme illness of a student, their parent or the death of a parent. She said they still attempt to aid the students.

There are situations, Johnson said, that despite these circumstances there is nothing that can be done and the student is told they need to borrow more money. Johnson said the additional funds would give the Student Financial Aid Office a little more flexibility when these issues come up.

“[The funds] won’t replace 100 percent of what has [been] lost,” Johnson said. “It will help us tremendously in helping keep Iowa State affordable particularly for those students who are financially needy and who, without additional assistance, would be unable to attend.” 

Josh Lehman, the board’s senior communication director, said this is an effort by the board to address concerns about affordability that were heard during the tuition task force report at their Sept. 7 meeting. 

Regent presidents, at the request of the board, proposed a tuition increase of 7 percent a year for in-state students and 4 percent a year for out-of-state students for five years. 

If implemented, in-state tuition would raise from $7,978 to $10,457 by the end of the five years. Out-of-state tuition will raise from $22,144 to $25,905. 

The board will propose an official tuition proposal during its October meeting and will vote on the proposal in December.