‘Everything is on the table’ for higher ed in Iowa this session

Just days before lawmakers convene Monday in Des Moines for the 2025 legislative session, the Republican chair of a new Iowa House Higher Education Committee sent a letter to the state Board of Regents advising it to reject a University of Iowa proposal to create a new “School of Social and Cultural Analysis.”

“Iowans expect our institutions of higher education to be focused on providing for the workforce needs of the state, not programs that are focused on peddling ideological agendas,” Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, wrote in his letter to the board about the new school proposed on the heels of the university’s closing of its Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies Department.

In November, Collins also issued a public statement urging the public campuses to update their strategic plans in accordance with a new law limiting diversity, equity and inclusion spending. And a week before that, he emailed the board about his concerns with DEI-related remarks Iowa State University Presidents Wendy Wintersteen had made.

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In September, Collins demanded the UI fire its orientation services director for ongoing DEI-related training that will be prohibited under the new law when it takes effect in July. And, last summer, he aired criticism about “painful and unnecessary animal testing” at the UI.

Those communications and the creation of the new higher education committee Collins will lead are indicative of a heavier hand and closer scrutiny Republican lawmakers intend to have this session over Iowa’s colleges and universities — not just its public institutions, but its dozens of private campuses getting millions through the Iowa Tuition Grant Program.

“I think everything is on the table,” Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, told The Gazette about what he’s told Collins and other lawmakers he’s appointed to the new higher ed committee.

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“If we're going to take on big things, we have to be bold in what we're going to try to do,” he said. “And so the creation of that committee, partially, was because I felt like we weren't able to give full effort to some of our higher education issues."

Driving the committee’s focus this session will be meeting Iowa’s workforce needs, according to Grassley.

“We need to make sure that the taxpayer investment that we're making into higher education globally — this isn't just us picking on the regents … but higher education globally — is are we getting the value for the taxpayer to help fill the high-demand fields that we have all across the state,” he said.

Grassley acknowledged the committee likely will look at possible changes to the 56-year-old Iowa Tuition Grant, established to aid instate students at Iowa’s private colleges and universities.

Iowa Tuition Grant

The Legislature for the current budget year has appropriated $52.7 million for the grant program — a $1.3 million increase over the previous year. In the 2023 budget year, according to the most recent data available, 8,151 students received an average award of $6,098.

Democratic House Leader Jennifer Konfrst said she’s heard talk of “putting limits on who gets to receive it based on their major and based on what they want to study.”

“I feel that that is incredibly shortsighted, because it is not looking at jobs that might be necessary five, six, seven years down the road,” she told The Gazette. “And a job that pays well now is maybe not a job that will pay well in 10 years.”

Stressing the innovation role higher education plays both regionally and nationally, Konfrst suggested students seeking aid in the future might want to pursue a degree for a job that hasn’t yet even been created.

“I have very serious concerns about tying aid money to what students decide to study in college for a lot of reasons, including the fact that a majority of students change their major when they get to college,” she said. “Are we going to have students who now don't get a scholarship because they change their major?”

Given changes the Legislature imposed last session on the public universities’ diversity, equity and inclusion efforts — prohibiting spending on DEI offices, programming and staff who are not required by law or for accreditation — Grassley said lawmakers could now address DEI on Iowa’s private campuses through the tuition grant program.

“I think that will be part of the discussion and what the impacts on DEI are as well,” Grassley said.

Diversity, equity and inclusion

Given DEI mandates for Iowa’s public universities will take effect this July, Republican lawmakers in the legislative majority said they’ll be monitoring for compliance.

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“I’m not sure it’s settled,” Senate President Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton, told The Gazette of the DEI issue, despite the attention last session. “I will say that the Board of Regents has done a really good job of working with us. In fact, they've been proactive in some cases, as far as making sure the (universities) are educating the next generation, and doing it in a way that isn't necessarily biased or slanted.”

The Board of Regents oversees the state’s three universities in Iowa City, Ames and Cedar Falls. Its members — a majority of which currently are Republicans — are appointed to the unpaid positions by the governor.

Sinclair said that “the election spoke” — and two things voters made clear were their thoughts on the economy and “out-of-control liberal policies that many Americans found offensive.”

“And so to the extent that that was a mandate from the American electorate — and certainly from the Iowa electorate — we're going to continue to work with the Board of Regents and the universities to make sure that those places are compliant educational opportunities for our kids,” Sinclair said.

Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, told The Gazette his Republican colleague’s attacks on DEI run counter to the universities’ efforts to grow enrollment.

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“Talking to many people who work at the university, both front-line and in management, they're greatly discouraged,” Jacoby said. “At one point you're saying, we need more students, but we're eliminating recruiting by diversity.”

Acknowledging changing demographics in Iowa — including an increase in low-income and minority high school graduates — Jacoby said the DEI crackdown could hinder university growth.

“There's facts and there's facts, and when you look at the numbers of projected enrollment, the numbers of people that we have going into engineering or into medicine, especially (OB/GYN), then what we need to do is make sure that we're inclusive and get the top people,” he said. “This just shuts the door and it doesn’t bode well for the future of the university if we can't say all are welcome.”

Sen. Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, said among her concerns with the DEI mandates is “how it came about — tacked onto a budget that must pass instead of being actually discussed as a policy bill.”

“There are a lot of different populations that are at our universities who deserve being paid attention to,” Weiner said. “There are a lot of first-generation Iowa college attendees. We have veterans. When you think of what that means — having a diverse college population — that just essentially means being there to help and provide services for different students who need the help. And whoever that is, services ought to be available to them.”

Although Collins hasn’t said what issues his committee might tackle and what bills they might consider this session, he told The Gazette, “The only three letter acronyms the committee will be focused on over the general assembly will be MEI — merit, excellence and intelligence.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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

Tom Barton of The Gazette’s Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.