(Radio Iowa) – The legislature has sent the governor a bill to set an April 30th deadline for a tuition rate decision from the board that governs the three state-supported universities. “Ensuring that as students enroll for college each spring, they know the tuition price they’ll be paying that fall.” That’s Republican Representative Taylor Collins of Mediapolis, who led House debate of the “College Affordability Act.” The Board of Regents currently sets the next academic year’s tuition rate for the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa in June. The bill also calls for a study of a fixed tuition rate, so the rate charged in a student’s first year at one of the state universities would be the same rate they’d pay in the next three years.

Senator Herman Quirmbach, a Democrat from Ames, says there’s another way the legislature could help control tuition spikes by increasing state funding for the three universities. “So they could keep tuition rates down so that students wouldn’t have to spend as much time as some students have to…flipping burgers when they should be getting their engineering degrees and earning an order of magnitude more money.” Senator Jesse Green, a Republican from Boone, says the legislature is moving to control costs for students, since the Board of Regents has not.

“Last year we gave them $3 million less than their request,” Green said, “and yet they generated about $35 million more from tuition.” The bill directs each of the state universities to start offering — in the fall of 2027 — at least one undergraduate degree that can be completed in three years.