Iowa House won’t continue aid that regent campuses spent on DEI

A day after state senators advanced an education budget bill starving Iowa’s public universities of any general aid increase in the coming year, the Iowa House advanced its own package cutting general education support by the amount each university was spending on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

“There is approximately $2.1 million across the three regents (institutions) that they were using for DEI purposes,” Rep. Austin Harris, R-Moulton, said about the cuts amounting to about half a percent of the state’s general education appropriations for each campus.

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“They are no longer doing those programs, therefore no longer using that money,” he said. “So that's just a cleanup.”

But unlike the Senate’s education appropriations proposal, the House bill does acknowledge — and support, to some degree — the tens of millions in “special purpose” increases the universities asked for in the upcoming 2026 budget year.

For example, the House bill allocates $3 million for a University of Northern Iowa proposal to offer instate tuition rates to students from contiguous states.

It carves out $4 million for a UI-based “mental health and maternal primary care health program” aimed at increasing mental health workers in rural portions of the state. And it designates $1.5 million for a new UI Center for Intellectual Freedom that — through separate Republican-based legislation — would require the university to establish an independent school overseen by an external board.

Although the proposal doesn’t give the universities everything they asked for — like $4 million for a new Iowa State University manufacturing pipeline, $1.6 million for UNI’s evolving community-college partnership or a full $10 million for a UI rural health care initiative — the House bill would give some form of special-purpose increase to each campus.

“They do have an increase overall for their appropriation,” Harris said.

The increase would amount to about $5.6 million for the UI, about $3.2 million for ISU and about $3.5 million for UNI, he said, framing any general fund reduction as holding appropriations level with current spending — given the DEI cuts.

“There is a reduction in the general fund for the regents, but that is because they have savings for programs and staff that no longer exist,” he said.

Where the Senate’s education appropriations proposal holds funding flat for Iowa’s 15 community colleges at $235.9 million, the House bill offers an $8 million increase to $243.9 million, which is more than the nearly $5 million increase Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed to reach $240.6 million.

“One of the one of the things I was very happy about was the increase in funding for the community colleges,” Rep. Monica Kurth, D-Davenport, said during discussion on the bill last week. “But then looking at the budgets for the regents institutions — each of them receives a cutback from the estimated budget for this year — and considering that there has been no cost of living for each of those institutions, I think that is very concerning.”

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Rep. Elinor Levin, D-Iowa City, said she, too, was happy to see the proposed increases for both the community colleges and Iowa PBS — for which the House proposed increasing funding to $8.2 million from $8.1 million, per the governor’s proposal. The Senate version held Iowa PBS funding flat.

PBS lobbyist and Communications Director Susan Ramsey said she withdrew her support for the Senate appropriations bill after seeing the increase in the House version.

“I think those recognize the reality of the work that those institutions are doing, and I'm glad to see those,” Rep. Levin said, but added, “I am just concerned to see so many status quo line items — especially in a year when we saw such a high rate of inflation.”

Rep. Tracy Ehlert, D-Cedar Rapids, voiced concern about the sufficiency of $1 million that both the House and the Senate would appropriate toward UI cancer research — given the hundreds of millions being spent already to research cancer care, cures and causes in this state.

“On cancer funding, I would argue that we could use more than a million for that,” Ehlert said.

“I understand where you're coming from on that, I know that's certainly a personal issue — it is for me as well,” Harris said responded. “And I think that we have to be able to do something when it comes to combating cancer in the state.

“But I’ve also had conversations with the University of Iowa, and they certainly feel that $1 million is more than enough to be able to look into the issue.”

The House and the Senate remain at loggerheads over the state budget that takes effect July 1, sending this year’s legislative session beyond its scheduled end last week while negotiations continue.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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