Drop in state funding also affects Iowa's private college students, report says

Declining state funding to higher education has impacted students at private colleges as well, through decreased support for tuition grant programs that help Iowa students, according to a report released Thursday.

The decade-long trend of reduced state funding to higher education has notably impacted public higher education, but Iowa students who attend the state's private colleges also have been affected through reduced tuition assistance via the Iowa Tuition Grant program, the report says.

When adjusted for inflation to 2011 dollars, state funding to that program peaked in fiscal year 2000 at $62.25 million and has declined steadily since, to $47.51 million this year, according to the report from the Iowa Fiscal Partnership.

"The point is, every part of higher education is getting whacked," Iowa Policy Project Executive Director David Osterberg said. "Whether it's Coe College or ISU or Kirkwood Community College, it is just an attack on higher education."

It's the third report analyzing higher education funding issues released this spring by the Iowa Fiscal Partnership, a joint initiative of the Iowa Policy Project and the Child & Family Policy Center. The previous reports looked at the trend of state funding cuts to Iowa's public universities and community colleges.

This report looked at state funding to numerous tuition assistance programs. The Iowa Tuition Grant program is for Iowa students who attend one of the state's private colleges. The report also looked at funding to smaller programs, including the Iowa Vocational-Technical Tuition Grant, the Iowa National Guard Educational Assistance Program, the Iowa Grant Program and the All Iowa Opportunity Scholarship.

The grants are helping students cover the cost of college far less than they did in the past and the money is reaching fewer students, Andrew Cannon, the report's author and research associate for the Iowa Policy Project, said.

While the size of the annual average award through the Iowa Tuition Grant program has not changed much over the past 20 years, the dent the average award made in student tuition and fee costs has decreased significantly, the report says. Average Iowa Tuition Grant awards cover about half as much tuition and fees in 2010-11 as they did in 1989-90, falling from 28 percent to 13 percent, the report states.

"No one can say that the folks in Des Moines are committed to higher education when you have numbers like this," Osterberg said.

In the decade starting with Fiscal Year 1990, the statutory maximum Iowa Tuition Grant award increased by 56 percent, to $3,900. But from Fiscal Year 2000 to last year, the statutory maximum grant increased by just 3 percent, to $4,000, according to the report.