Friday, Oct. 24, 2014 | Volume 210 | Number 44 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
Regents discuss tuition
Following the herd
By Danielle.Ferguson @iowastatedaily.com
the Division of Student Affairs and getting the Vice President of Student Affairs, Tom Hill, on board to help us create a new service, the GSB Senate voted to pull the funds from the Financial Counseling Clinic.” The Student Loan Education Office differs from the Financial Counseling Clinic because they meet with students one on one to discuss, in depth, their financial situations and their concerns. They also hold presentations for classes, groups, residence halls or Greek houses that discusses basic financial aid, student loans, student loan repayment, credit and budgeting. Roberta Johnson, director of
The Board of Regents is suggesting an increase in tuition and mandatory fees for the 2015-16 academic year, but multiple board members spoke out against the increase, saying they want to freeze tuition for a third year. The regents had a first reading of proposed tuition and mandatory fee rates, which were proposed to increase next academic year, at the Thursday meeting in Iowa City. Resident undergraduate tuition has been frozen for the past two years, but is proposed to increase by 1.75 percent, or $116, for resident undergraduates, translating to a $13 increase per month. Iowa ranks sixth highest in the nation in terms of students graduating with debt. Iowa State students, on average, graduate with the highest debt of Iowa’s regent universities at just less than $30,000. “The debt at sixth in the nation is a social and economic negative for our state,” Regent Larry McKibben said. “[It is important for] students to graduate without having a tremendous amount of debt, to be able to get married, have a family and maybe make a first down payment on a house and stay in Iowa.” McKibben said he is going to make a motion to freeze tuition at the December meeting, when the board is scheduled to vote on rates. “It’s not enough to say we’re flat and we’ll just be content at staying the sixth highest in the nation,” McKibben said. “Absolutely and unequivocally unacceptable. We can do better.” On average, tuition has increased by three percent in Iowa every year, compared to 5.4 percent around the rest of the nation. Resident undergraduate tuition has stayed steady at $6,648 for the since fall 2012 because of two tuition freezes, a move that hadn’t happened since the 1970s. Regent Ruth Harkin and Regents President Bruce Rastetter agreed with McKibben. Harkin mentioned cost-cutting attempts with the efficiency review could also help keep tuition frozen. “As we learn more about the opportunity in efficiency savings, it really brings into my mind the question, ‘Why are we raising tuition?’” Rastetter asked. The ISU Government of Student Body President, Hillary Kletscher, shared opinions from her constituents with the regents. Students understand that higher education comes at a cost, she said, but more should be done to help students maintain debt. “It’d be great to see another tuition freeze,” Kletscher said. “We understand we’re getting a great education at a great price. Still, more can be done.” Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, said he hopes the Iowa House and Senate can work with the board to freeze tuition for a third year. “We agreed that we would have as a goal a third year of a tuition freeze,” Quirmbach said. “The truth of the matter is, that increasing state funding, we will reduce the pressure of tuition increases for everybody.” Last year, the regents asked for and received a 4 percent increase in funding from the state, which is about $24 million. The regents, in return, agreed to freeze tuition. The University of Northern Iowa Student Body President, Kevin Gartman, however, said the UNI student body is in support of the tuition increase, and suggested tuition increases by small, yearly increments, rather
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Yik Yak community continues to grow, new app goes nationwide By Dakota.Carpenter @iowastatedaily.com
Richard Martinez/Iowa State Daily
Y
ik Yak paddywhack, is it on your phone? The social media app Yik Yak is intended for college students and has become very popular among ISU students. The app allows users to post comments anonymously in a community, or what the app refers to as a herd, within a 1.5 mile radius. Yik Yak was developed by Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington and launched in November 2013. Droll and Buffington work alongside Cam Mullen, Yik Yak’s Lead Community Developer, to gain more users of the app. Users are referred to as yakkers. “We love colleges and colleges are some of our best yakkers,” Mullen said. To make sure that Yik Yak is being used by college students only, the developers have blocked use of the app at nearly every middle school and high school in the United States by using longitudinal and latitudinal points. “It was created with college in mind,” Mullen said. “They [high school and middle school students] aren’t psychologically ready to handle something with that power.” Maggie Kraemer, a freshman in biochemistry, said the material is sometimes offensive, but it is useful to
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Eric Fields/Iowa State Daily
New office educates students about loans By Oscar.Alvarez @iowastatedaily.com Student debt has a way of creeping up on students at the same time they are entering the working force. To combat that problem, the Government of the Student Body funded a new office to teach students how to manage loans. The Student Loan Education Office is a new office that has begun providing financial counseling services this year. It was created through a partnership between GSB, a division of Student Affairs and Office of Student Financial Aid. The Student Loan Education Office, located in Beardshear
Hall 0680, serves students by being a resource to help reduce their student loan debt while learning how to effectively manage their finances while pursuing a college degree. Hillary Kletscher, president of GSB, began working on the Student Loan Education Office last year as a vice president. Last semester, GSB conducted a review of all of the services they fund for students which included a Financial Counseling Clinic. “We were looking at how the student fee dollars we were allocating to those offices were being used,” said Kletscher. “When doing the review of the Financial Counseling Clinic, last year’s chief of staff and last year’s presi-
dent found some discrepancies in the number of students that were being served. They found that number was actually decreasing,” said Kletscher. Kletscher stated that the focus of what the Financial Counseling Clinic was doing had shifted, and GSB thought students were not using the clinic enough to justify funding it with student fees. Last year’s GSB president Spencer Hughes created the solution that the clinic would serve the community at large through a teaching aspect while the Student Loan Education Office would focus directly on students. “So after putting all the figures together, and working with