What bills affecting Iowa’s public universities are still alive?

Five bills poised to directly affect Iowa’s public universities survived the second “funnel” deadline this week of the 2025 legislative session — including one to establish a “Center for Intellectual Freedom” at the University of Iowa and another requiring each campus to create at least one three-year bachelor’s degree program.

“The board is also required to conduct a study establishing a policy on tuition guarantee,” Board of Regents state relations officer Carolann Jensen said of House File 440 — which in earlier versions would have done more than study the issue, capping annual instate tuition increases at 3 percent and then freezing that rate for resident undergraduates for up to four years.

“The study shall include projections of how much such a policy would increase enrollment at each of the institutions of higher education governed by the board, the technical feasibility of such a policy, the cost of implementation of such a policy, and the results of implementation of similar policies in other states,” according to the amended version of the legislation that Thursday cleared a second key deadline for non-tax policy and spending bills to remain eligible for consideration this session.

An earlier fiscal note from the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency predicted a tuition cap and freeze — if implemented — could deprive the three universities of $32.8 million annually once fully implemented in the 2030 budget year.

The regents oversee the UI in Iowa City, Iowa State University in Ames and the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Other regent-related bills that survived the funnel deadline include:

House File 516

This proposal — for which regent lobbyists remain undecided — would require at least 80 percent of students accepted to the UI doctor of medicine program and the UI College of Dentistry to be Iowa residents or enrolled in an Iowa-based college or university.

The measure also would require the UI to — among other things — tell lawmakers annually where dentistry and medical college graduates migrate to one year after their graduation.

It would mandate UI Health Care prioritize federal residency positions for those who live in Iowa or got a degree from an Iowa college or university. And it would require UIHC to offer interviews for medical residency posts to applicants specializing in obstetrics, psychiatry, surgery, emergency medicine, neurology, primary care or cardiology and also live in Iowa.

“Do you think we’re already close to 80 percent?” Regent David Barker asked a regent lobbyist Friday when discussing the surviving bills. “Yes,” Chief Government Relations Officer Keith Saunders said.

A fiscal note from the Legislative Services Agency shows the UI colleges of medicine and dentistry reported 70 percent resident enrollment in the 2024 academic year.

Given the difference between instate and out-of-state tuition for those programs — amounting to an annual $21,000 gap for medical students and a $25,000 gap for dental students — the agency projects, should this bill become law, the university to experience a revenue reduction reaching $2.3 million by 2030.

House File 437

This bill — for which regent lobbyists have registered in favor — would establish a UI Center for Intellectual Freedom charged with teaching and researching historical ideas, traditions and texts “that have shaped the American constitutional order and society.”

The center could accept and administer private donations and adopt a name of any dominant donor.

The center, according to the bill, it should expand the campus’ intellectual diversity, foster civic engagement among faculty and students, collaborate with the other regent campuses and offer at least one credited course on American history and civil government.

An advisory council including no more than one UI employee would head a search for the center’s director and submit a number of finalists to the Board of Regents. The board, rather than the UI president, would pick a director who would be tenure eligible on the UI faculty.

A Legislative Services Agency note determined establishing and maintaining the center would cost about $1.5 million a year, including $400,000 a year in salary and benefits for the director.

House File 295

This bill — for which regent lobbyists have registered in favor — addresses a loophole that diversity, equity and inclusion-related legislation passed last session carved out for Iowa’s public universities.

That 2024 legislation barred the campuses from establishing, maintaining or funding a DEI office or any DEI employees except as required by law or for accreditation standards.

This new bill — known as the “accreditation autonomy act” — bars an accrediting body, like the Higher Learning Commission, from taking adverse action against a public university for complying with its state law, like the one banning DEI programming.

The bill also provides a remedy — namely authorizing a university to “bring a civil action against the accrediting agency in this state if authorized by the attorney general.”

The Higher Learning Commission — accrediting most of Iowa’s public, private and community colleges — includes among its accreditation standards several addressing diversity. An institution’s processes and activities, for example, must “demonstrate inclusive and equitable treatment of diverse populations.”

House File 401

This measure — for which regent lobbyists have registered in favor — brings legislative authority into classrooms by spelling out general education requirements to include a specific number of English, math, natural and social sciences and humanities courses.

It also requires three credit hours in Western heritage and three in American heritage — covering American history, Iowa history, American government or American literature.

Each of the campuses already have general education requirements — like at the UI, where students have to take courses in communication and literacy; sustainability; natural, quantitative and social sciences; and culture, society and the arts.

Within its communication and literacy requirement, students must fulfill three “diversity and inclusion” semester hours — an area to be renamed “understanding cultural perspectives.” Courses fulfilling that requirement include “Diversity in American Culture,” “Race, Gender, and Sexuality on Screen,” “Diversity and Power in the U.S.” and “African American History Since the Civil War.”

According to the proposed gen-ed bill, regents should adopt a policy to ensure that courses satisfying gen ed requirements “do not distort significant historical events or include any curriculum or other material that teaches identity politics or is based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States of America or the State of Iowa.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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