Please hold your applause. The budget's a lot better than it could have been, but it's still a lot less than it should be. The Iowa Legislature obviously has many interests and departments to fund each year, and the challenges it faces in allocating all of the money in its budget are considerable. But one would think that Iowa, which considers itself such a great education state, would try a little bit harder to provide for its touted treasure. Instead, the legislators are forcing an almost certain tuition increase, and they're slowly forcing students away from the state universities.
State universities are central to Iowa's education system.
We prize our universities. State universities are where breakthroughs in technology are made, where remedies to the state's problems are developed and where the vast majority of those in Iowa's workforce are trained. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. In fairness to the legislators, the compromised appropriation for 2001 is still an increase over this year's allocation. Legislators can say that it's time for universities to tighten their belts and deal with less money.