Jeopardizing Iowa’s education vitality

Education was a high priority for Iowans even before statehood was achieved. Loras College was founded in 1839 seven years before Iowa became a state and by 1900 over 60 more colleges were established.

Back then, Iowa's private colleges attracted students from the east coast, often being the main reason the railroads came to town and why Main Street flourished with bakeries and clothing stores. Today, nearly 50 percent of the colleges founded before 1900 continue, many located in smaller communities such as Storm Lake, Lamoni, Fayette and Indianola.

While their mission is education not commerce, they are significant economic engines in their respective communities, employing many local residents and buying local services. They survived the ‘30s Depression, the student-drain created by World War II, and the arrival of the community college system in the ‘60s. Iowa's private colleges have ‘right-sized' and continue to thrive, serving a mix of both ‘in-state' and ‘out-of-state' students.

By building transfer partnerships with both the private colleges and the state universities, the state's community colleges have proved to be an ally, not a competitor to Iowa's four-year institutions. For example, Kirkwood Community College annually delivers 200 transfer students to Mount Mercy University and 300 students to the University of Northern Iowa. Additionally, 50 percent of all students who transfer into the University of Iowa come via Kirkwood.

The beauty of this relationship is that many of these students would find it difficult to succeed if they went directly from high school to a four-year college. Smaller class-size, more personal attention, pre-admission screenings and remedial help makes the difference. Statistics show these transfer students succeed and earn their bachelor's degree just as successfully as those who have attended for all four years.

The bottom line is that all of Iowa's colleges and universities - private and public, two-year and four-year - have forged a harmonious way to serve everyone well. They provide multiple options for Iowa high school graduates, and they continue to attract significant numbers of out-of-state students, even if today they no longer arrive by rail. This strong, mutually respectful, student-productive and economically fruitful structure has now been challenged by the Board of Regents, and the question has to be asked 'Why and What For?”

Basing their new funding formula largely (60 percent) on in-state student enrollment and then calling it 'performance-based” is simply an incongruity. Performance is determined via qualitative reviews such as graduation rates and semester-to-semester student retention, not quantitative sums that only reveal who can roll out the largest recruiting campaign. The only true performance metrics in the Regents new formula is a paltry 15 percent allocated for 'progress to degree by resident undergraduate students” and 'degrees completed by resident students”.

As legislators make their higher education funding allocations, I hope they step-back and view this from a big picture perspective. Jeopardizing the economic vitality of Iowa's many college towns, forcing all Iowa colleges to chase the same shrinking pool of high school graduates and ignoring quality in favor of quantity is simply not sensible governance.

' John Swanson is serving his second term on the Kirkwood board of trustees. Comments: jwsltd@msn.com

Guest columns by former Iowa Governor Robert Ray and Iowa Representative Nate Willems are also a part of this editorial package.