Andy Davis, and Jeff Charis-Carlson

Press Citizen

After hearing from hundreds of affected students and their families, the University of Iowa is reinstating some legacy scholarships to students after announcing last week that they would not be renewed.

The decision, however, is likely to increase UI's efforts to persuade the Iowa Board of Regents to raise base tuition and fees for Iowa students by 33 percent over the next five years.

UI officials announced Wednesday that they decided to reinstate the Iowa Heritage Award and other recently canceled scholarships for current and incoming students in fall 2017. The scholarships will be discontinued for new students starting in 2018.

"Over the past few days, we heard from many families who were unaware that these were renewable scholarships reliant on state support," according to a UI news release. "Though these were never need-based, we also heard from families who budgeted for college based on these scholarships and feared financial hardship with the programs’ elimination."

Two students had filed class-action lawsuits against UI concerning the pulled non-merit, non-needs-based financial awards. Both suits were filed on behalf of all 3,015 students who would have been affected by the scholarship cuts — 2,440 of them being Iowa residents.

Last week, UI President Bruce Harreld told Iowa lawmakers that the university decided to cancel the legacy scholarship program in response to an $8 million cut in state funding for the current fiscal year. Since that time, UI’s share of cuts has increased to $9.24 million.

"I want to thank the students and parents who contacted me and shared their concerns," Harreld said in the news release. "The University of Iowa takes its relationship with students and alumni very seriously and wants to honor the awards previously made to those currently receiving these awards."

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The Iowa Board of Regents, which oversees Iowa's three public universities, issued a statement Wednesday supporting UI's decision to reinstate the scholarships. None of the nine members of the board had any questions for Harreld during last week's board meeting, in which he informed them of UI's plans to cut $4.3 million worth of promised scholarships for the 2017-18 academic year.

Other belt-tightening steps already taken by the university include reducing its Summer Hawk Tuition program, tightening residency requirements for out-of-state students seeking to pay in-state tuition, and increasing the minimum number of credit hours required for students to live in the dorms.

"The board looks forward to working with the UI to resolve this short-term issue," Bruce Rastetter, president of the board, said in the statement. "We also realize that a longer-term funding solution is needed that allows the UI to reach the strategic plan we recently approved. Moving forward, if the state chooses not to adequately fund the UI's five-year strategic plan, the board is committed to work with the UI to bring its tuition in line with its national peer group."

Harreld told lawmakers last week that UI would be willing to commit every state dollar above the current appropriation level to be used to support resident students. That promise, he said, was conditional upon UI receiving permission to raise its tuition and fees over the next five years from nearly $9,000 to nearly $12,000.

The Board of Regents alone has the authority to set tuition levels at the public universities, but state lawmakers and the governor set and approve the state funding levels of each of the three institutions.

The thousands of students and their families affected have reached out to state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Speaker of the House Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, accused UI last week of playing politics with students' education.

State Sen. Tod Bowman, D-Maquoketa, a member of the Senate Education Committee, said Wednesday that he's thankful the university reversed course.

"I think President Harreld looked at a lot of different things and heard from parents and families and understood the impact this would have, and he's trying to deal with providing world-class services for less dollars," Bowman said. "He's put in a no-win situation, and we need to find a way to appropriate the necessary dollars so (the university) can maintain great services."

Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, issued a statement Wednesday denouncing state Republican legislators who, he said, since the session began in January, "have twice taken back millions of state dollars already allocated to Iowa’s public universities and community colleges."

Jim Larew, an attorney representing UI sophomore Jenna Pokorny in one of the class-action lawsuits, said his client received a letter from the university confirming the scholarships would be reinstated. He said the lawsuit would likely be dropped.

"Assuming that all parties are reinstated fully to the program, the goal of the litigation was to make sure that would happen, and if that's occurred then there would be no reason to continue (the suit)," Larew said. "We'll want to have it confirmed exactly. ... I know my client and her peers would love that and they can get back to a life of being faithful and productive students."

Steve Wandro, an attorney representing UI freshman Benjamin Muller in a separate suit, said he also was working to confirm the scholarships had been reinstated for his clients.

"This is really good news, but we'll have to see. I have no reason to believe that they will not restore everybody's," he said.

UI's legacy scholarships were expanded in 2014 after the regents approved a new formula for dividing state funding among the three universities. The formula more directly tied the total funding a university received to that university's in-state enrollment.

The Iowa Legislature, however, has never used the formula when making appropriations to UI, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa.

Reach Andy Davis at 319-887-5404 or aldavis@press-citizen.com and Jeff Charis-Carlson at 319-887-5435 or jcharisc@press-citizen.com. Follow them on Twitter as @BylineAndyDavis and @JeffCharis.