(Radio Iowa) – A bill that would freeze undergraduate tuition at Iowa’s three public universities for five years has won overwhelming approval in the Iowa House. The tuition rate set for this fall at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa would be in place through July of 2031 if the bill becomes law. Representative Taylor Collins, a Republican from Mediapolis, says it would give students predictability and push the universities to cut costs.

“I think we’re at a point when it comes to higher education that we can’t just keep giving them more money and hoping and praying they don’t raise tuition and so that’s one of the reasons why we moved forward this tuition freeze, to make sure that we’re drawing a line in the sand,” Collins says. “We have to find other ways to cut expenditures.” The bill passed on an 86-to-five vote. Democrats like Representative Adam Zabner of Iowa City have recently proposed freezing students’ tuition, but they also argue the state support Iowa, Iowa State and U-N-I needs to increase.

“In the year 2000, about a third of the universities’ funding came from tuition and two-thirds was covered by the state appropriations,” Zabner said. “Nowadays because the legislature has starved our universities, that mix has flipped.” Zabner says the state needs to provide more than a third of the funding for the three state universities.

If the tuition freeze were to go into effect, the Legislative Services Agency estimates Iowa, Iowa State and U-N-I would get about 200 million dollars less in tuition revenue during the five year period.