Teaching Assistant Kate Kedley goes over the plan for the day's lesson with a Reading and Writing Processes and Instruction class in the Adler Journalism and Mass Communication Building on the UI campus on Monday, November 12, 2012. (Kyle Grillot/The Gazette-KCRG)

Graduate and professional students at Iowa’s public universities say tuition and fee increases in the past decade are squeezing them as well, but their situation doesn’t get as much attention as costs for undergraduate students.

Some graduate and professional student leaders are urging legislators and the state Board of Regents to take a closer look at how cost increases are affecting that student population and at the benefits those advanced-degree earners provide the state.

One concern is that continued increasing costs will decrease Iowans’ access to advanced degrees. In the past five years, tuition and fees for resident graduate students increased 25 percent for UI students, more than 21 percent for Iowa State University students and nearly 20 percent for University of Northern Iowa students. Costs vary by major, but the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences is used as the standard.

Do you think Iowa’s resident graduate students are being treated unfairly when it comes to tuition increases at state universities?