Iowa cross-campus partnerships booming

Five years ago, a 37-year-old Rodell Jones was working as a Transportation Security Administration officer at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport — having pursued some higher education years earlier, but without landing a degree.

He had never been to Iowa — or even thought much about it — until considering the TSA’s offer to earn a certificate in homeland security by taking online courses from a selection of colleges, including Des Moines Area Community College more than 1,000 miles away.

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After earning that DMACC certificate in 18 months — all virtually from his home in Hagerstown, Maryland — Jones kept going, pursuing an associate degree in criminal justice from DMACC, with an eye on an eventual bachelor’s degree. He had planned to do that closer to home, transferring credits to a nearby four-year college, until a DMACC professor asked: “Have you thought about UNI?”

“He said, ‘I don't know whether or not you know this, but they have a partnership with DMACC’,” Jones said.

That University of Northern Iowa partnership — called “UNI at Iowa Community Colleges” or UNI@IACC — was not just news to Jones, but was news to Iowa last year. Offering associate-degree earners from any of Iowa’s 15 community colleges the option of seamlessly and virtually completing bachelor’s degrees in high-demand areas, like criminal justice, the program attracted 348 students in its first year and contributed to an 18 percent one-year spike in UNI transfer students in fall 2022.

Before that bump, UNI’s transfer student numbers had been dropping year over year, and in 2021 fell to just 453 — its lowest in decades and 45 percent below UNI’s 829 transfer students in fall 2010, according to Board of Regents documents.

UNI’s community college collaboration — like dozens of other cross-campus collaborations and partnerships that have emerged across Iowa over the last decade — had its intended effect of both increasing enrollment, despite a decline in the number of high school graduates, and improving access to higher education for non-traditional students.

Jones, after stopping out of college to raise a family, didn’t know if he would ever complete a degree. But his experience with the DMACC him confidence to take advantage of its collaboration with UNI.

“If I can do that,” Jones said of his ability to get an associate’s online, “then that means that I should be able to take advantage of going to a university online, which is where we're at now.”

On track to finish his degree in August, Jones flew to Iowa in May to participate in UNI’s commencement.

“You always dream of walking with that bachelor's degree,” Jones said.

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Non-traditional students

Although Jones is a rarity among students taking advantage of the UNI@IACC partnership — in that he doesn’t live in Iowa and doesn’t plan to move here — non-traditional students like him are the target of the multitude of cross-campus agreements and collaborations emerging of late.

Students who are older, already in the workforce, raising families or from families without a history of college or the resources to finance it are becoming increasingly important across higher education — especially in the Midwest, which faces shifting demographics and waning high school graduates.

“All the four-year schools are, in a sense, competing for the same community college students, and so we do have to look at new partnerships and ways to be collaborative and transfer-friendly,” Paul Sapp, director of the UNI@IACC program, told The Gazette.

Like Iowa’s four-year colleges and universities, its community colleges have lost enrollment in recent years, too, making transfer-friendly policies and flexibility important.

“It's what the market demands; it's what the consumer — in this case, the students — they're demanding flexibility,” UNI spokesman Pete Moris said, acknowledging that most traditional students coming straight from high school prefer the “the meat and potatoes experience here on campus.”

But for the growing number who aren’t coming straight from high school, “We’re making sure we schedule around their lifestyle, around their work schedules,” Moris said.

“It does the students no good if we schedule a class that they need at 1 o’clock in the afternoon when they're at work.”

Like Ana Miranda, 36, of Des Moines, who’s taking advantage of UNI’s “2+2 Elementary Education BA” program that lets students pursuing or already holding an associate degree from a community college to finish “entirely online” the remaining two years needed for a bachelor’s.

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“It was heaven-sent,” Miranda told The Gazette about UNI’s collaboration with DMACC — where she started her postsecondary journey after earning her high school diploma in 2005. Originally from Mexico, Miranda first had to learn English and then get financial aid to pursue college.

“My academic journey has been bumpy,” said Miranda, who earned her associate degree in 2014 before becoming pregnant and married soon after. “I never stopped working full-time (except for maternity leave). I wanted to focus on my new life as a wife and mother, but a part of me refused to give up the dream of becoming a teacher.”

When she stumbled upon UNI’s “2+2” offering, she brought her son with her to an informational meeting and met her now academic adviser.

“I won’t forget that day,” Miranda said.

But even after starting toward a UNI degree in education, Miranda had to pause when her marriage fell apart.

“I then returned to the program, took some more classes, but at that point I was struggling with mental health,” she said. “As hard as it was, I had to make another pause to take care of myself (and my son).”

Now back on track, Miranda has three courses left, with expectations to graduate next spring.

“I would not be able to even be talking about graduating next year if it wasn’t for the 2+2 UNI-DMACC,” she said, adding, “I am certain that other non-traditional students (who would not have access to higher education otherwise), will continue to take advantage of this program. I hope they do because it is an incredible opportunity.”

Partnerships boom

Cross-campus collaborations also could help address Iowa workforce challenges. Many center on high-demand degrees and aim to churn out graduates at a faster clip — offering shorter times to graduation, like the University of Iowa’s 3+3 law degree collaboration with 17 institutions statewide.

Admitted students — from any eligible college or university, including Coe, Cornell, Wartburg and Luther colleges — can begin their law-degree pursuits in their fourth-year of undergrad, saving time and money. Or its undergrad-to-grad public health degree partnerships with Coe, Cornell, Luther and Grinnell.

Several partnerships have emerged statewide to address the need for more nurses — like Kirkwood Community College’s “RN to BSN program” with the UI College of Nursing that launched this year.

Most of the dozens and dozens of cross-state partnerships have emerged in the last decade — the majority in the last few years. Many of the programs are online or hybrid, a style of learning and teaching that campuses had to expand after COVID-19 hit, creating an opportunity to expand.

The pandemic also affected enrollment and the workforce.

“We'll be adding this fall a hybrid accounting program that will be partially online and partially face-to-face here at DMACC-Urban,” UNI’s Sapp said of his university’s Des Moines Area Community College-based site.

“That was really something that the leadership of some of the financial sector firms in Des Moines did a great job of collaborating with us and DMACC on,” UNI spokesman Moris said. “Because there's a need. There are not enough entry-level people going into accounting.”

Moris said he thinks the partnerships are going to grow as the non-traditional students do — with many workers who didn’t initially think they’d need a four-year degree discovering or deciding they do.

“These folks are finding out that they've kind of hit a ceiling in terms of what their earning potential is without that four-year degree,” he said.

The campuses might hit a ceiling, too, in the straight-from-high school students they can enroll, as that population shrinks. Pulling from and partnering with other campuses to educate as many students in the state as possible could be a path forward for Iowa’s colleges and universities.

Still, Sapp said, even with all the collaboration, competition persists.

“The transfer students are, I think, more savvy and are really shopping around and looking for their best options,” he said. “So we all have to try to make sure we're the best option.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com