WATERLOO -- Students at the University of Northern Iowa and at colleges across the country will soon begin to feel the pinch of sudden and significant price increases for name-brand birth control pills.

UNI Pharmacist Cory Badura said, for example, prices for one of the most popular brands of birth control, Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, which has no generic alternative, will more than triple in price by the end of the school year, to nearly $50 per prescription.

Until this year, pharmaceutical companies had offered birth control drugs to colleges and universities at a deep discount. An unintended change caused by the signing of the Deficit Reduction Act last year made schools ineligible for the discounts, said Jodi Tomlonovic, executive director of Family Planning Council of Iowa.

"In terms of college health, it's a significant impact," Badura said. "Enough that we need to take a look at our pricing and make sure we can offer a low-cost alternative."

Badura said the university has been able to avoid price increases on the drugs. When he heard about the price changes, like other schools, he stockpiled the drugs at the cheaper price. But those won't last forever.

"It's going to be some sticker shock, especially once we lose the Ortho (Tri-Cyclen Lo) stockpile," he said. "Hopefully we'll make it through this semester and, if we're lucky, through most of next semester."

The low estrogen Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo has proven one of the most popular forms of birth control at UNI. Even more women started using it after the university lost a contract for another popular birth control drug, Desogen.

He said students with health insurance also may pay more because co-payments for expensive generics and name-brand drugs typically cost $20 to $35, and is still significantly more than the old pricing plan.

Health professionals said women receive birth control not just from the university, but from medical providers all over the Cedar Valley. The percentage of students who use the UNI pharmacy isn't tracked, Badura said. Even so, the price increases at colleges are part of a wider increase in birth control prices this decade, physicians and family planners said.

Martha Ochoa, UNI Student Health Clinic medical director, said prices for Ortho Try-Cyclin Lo were at $9 when she started at the clinic in 2001.

"Since I've been here, the past six years, the prices have only gone up," she said.

Sandy Kahler, program coordinator at Allen Women's Health, said she's been able to shield low-income women from increased prices because of a federal waiver program that took effect last year. Even so, she said her clinic still feels the effects of the growing costs of drugs.

"Some of our pill prices have doubled, some have tripled, and some are 10 times higher than they were a year ago," she said.

Whenever those costs are passed on to women, it can force them to switch to another drug, which can create unpleasant side effects and discourage use, said Tomlonovic, the executive director of Family Planning Council of Iowa.

For college students, she said some women lead such busy and stressful lives that using a patch may be the only way to ensure consistent doses of birth control. If those prices increase, it may lead to missed doses.

Keeping birth control accessible and affordable is particularly important because college students are sexually active, health professionals said. More than two-thirds of college students report having at least one sexual partner in the last 12 months, according to a fall 2006 survey by the American College Health Association.

"We really want to make sure, if they are going to be sexually active, that they are taking appropriate care to ensure they don't have an unintended pregnancy. It's a matter of what works for that person physically and for their lifestyle," Tomlonovic said.

Contact Jens Manuel Krogstad at (319) 291-1580 or jens.krogstad@wcfcourier.com.