Regents question university ROI data presented to lawmakers

DES MOINES — Shortly after an analyst from a high-profile conservative policy group two weeks ago presented lawmakers with evidence that more than 20 programs across Iowa’s public universities have a negative “return on investment,” a member of the Board of Regents contacted her with questions.

“We have reached out directly to the presenter, as we have some concerns about the data and questions about the methodology used to reach conclusions presented,” board spokesman Josh Lehman told The Gazette.

In response to questions about her presentation and the data cited, Manhattan Institute policy analyst Neetu Arnold said she used a return-on-investment, or ROI, calculator from the non-partisan Texas-based Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, or FREOPP.

The calculation evaluates a program’s ROI by taking the lifetime earnings of a median graduate minus a typical graduate’s counterfactual earnings had he or she not earned the degree, and then subtracting the cost of tuition, fees and other room and board expenses.

“It has been brought to my attention that there are discrepancies between the numbers I reported during the meeting and another set of ROI numbers also available on FREOPP's website,” Arnold told The Gazette. “This is because there are two datasets — one in 2021 and the other in 2024. I was familiar with the 2021 dataset at the time of my presentation, but not with the 2024 dataset.”

After investigating more closely variances between the two sets in how the data was collected and reported, Arnold said she still prefers the 2021 calculator.

And Board of Regents spokesman Josh Lehman acknowledged, “There are advantages and disadvantages with each of the datasets.”

But, he said, “We believe using the most recent dataset (2024) tells a different story for our universities.”

‘The weeds of politics’

Although a 2022 Board of Regents report found Iowa’s public universities collectively added $14.9 billion to the state economy that year, indicating a strong return on investment for Iowa at the institutional level, Arnold’s focus during her Jan. 22 presentation to the House higher education committee was individual ROI — specifically negative ROI for students — framed within the context of shrinking public confidence in higher education amid a swell of “activist-bent” programs.

“Public universities in Iowa are no exception to pushing students into accepting progressive views and ideas as unquestionable truth,” Arnold said, asserting majors that have “gotten into the weeds of politics” — like gender studies, social work, and theater — are more likely to have politicized courses and a negative ROI.

Recommended Reading

Iowa lawmakers urged to get more involved in higher ed

“Many of these programs that were negative ROI are well known to suffer from ideological capture, such as anthropology, social work, and gender studies,” she said.

Citing the ROI calculator from FREOPP, Arnold during her presentation highlighted 10 University of Iowa majors with a negative ROI, five at Iowa State University, and six at the University of Northern Iowa.

“Most programs have positive ROIs,” Arnold said. “And while you don't want to have a low ROI, it is quite appalling to have a negative ROI.”

The UI Communication Sciences and Disorders program was at the top of Arnold’s negative ROI list, reporting a lifetime return of -$351,040, followed by linguistic and related language studies, with a negative ROI of $342,897. Other UI programs she identified as having negative ROIs included dance, drama, social work, English, and ethnic, cultural minority, gender and group studies.

Programs at Iowa State and UNI presented with negative ROIs included religious studies, anthropology, music, and drama.

“When a program causes students to be worse off than if they had not gone to college at all, it means there is a serious disparity between what is being taught and what is valued in the market — in other words, the real world,” Arnold said, adding, “Negative ROI programs funded at state universities should be concerning.”

Chief among the concerns, she said, is the perception the state is “giving its stamp of approval.”

“It's telling prospective students that these programs are good, they're fine, they're OK,” Arnold said. “And it's telling taxpayers their funds are being used to support students who will be worse off going to college. That doesn't seem like a good use of taxpayer dollars.”

‘Biased for smaller programs’

  Buy Photo

Following her legislative presentation, during which she recommended lawmakers take more control over what’s being taught across Iowa’s public universities, regent David Barker called Arnold with questions — compelling her to investigate discrepancies in the data and contact the creator of the datasets.

Where the 2021 data she presented showed more than 20 programs with negative ROIs across the three Iowa universities, the 2024 calculator indicated fewer with negative returns — four at UI, four at Iowa State, and eight at UNI.

In addition to the three years difference between the 2021 and 2024 data, Arnold said she learned the first set projected earnings using Census data for 373 individual majors while the 2024 data lumped the 373 majors into 21 categories.

“This made projections less accurate for small majors that were lumped into larger categories,” she told The Gazette of the 2024 dataset.

She pointed, by way of example, to the UI communications disorders major that in 2021 showed a negative-$351,040 return and in 2024 jumped to a positive-$525,699 return.

“Communications disorders at the University of Iowa (2021 dataset shows enrollment count of 44) would most likely have been combined into the non-nursing health related field, which includes higher earning degrees like dental hygiene,” she said. “This shifts the earnings projections upward in 2024, but not because earnings actually increased.”

That also seemed to bear out for some of the programs Arnold characterized as ideologically-postured — like the UI ethnic, cultural minority, gender, and group studies program that in 2021 yielded a negative ROI of $106,108 and according to the 2024 calculator was deemed to have a positive ROI of $1.2 million.

Highlighting some improvements in the 2024 data — like more years of earnings — Arnold said the 2021 data “has lower bias for small programs that are lumped together in larger major categories, but higher variance because of smaller sample sizes within those fields.”

While the 2024 data set has lower variance overall and more years of data, Arnold said it is “more likely to be biased for smaller programs.”

She said she confirmed this understanding with dataset creator Preston Cooper, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute — a right-leaning public policy think tank “dedicated to defending human dignity, expanding human potential, and building a freer and safer world.”

“He confirmed that my understanding of the methodology is correct,” Arnold told Barker of her conversation with Cooper, according to records requested by The Gazette. “While he generally recommends using the 2024 dataset due to the longer earnings data, he confirmed that the greater aggregation would increase bias for smaller programs like the ones I pointed to in my presentation.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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