Lawmaker priorities drive session’s higher ed funding, bills

Iowa’s three public universities will see no increase in general education appropriations from the state in the upcoming budget year — and only targeted bumps in special purpose funds — despite the governor’s recommended 2-percent increase.

The Iowa Legislature in the recently-wrapped session approved just a fraction of the “special purpose” funds the universities requested — like $10 million the University of Iowa wanted for a new “Rural Iowa Health Care” initiative and $4 million that Iowa State University requested for a program to increase the manufacturing workforce.

In total, lawmakers appropriated $5.5 million in new money for special purposes across the Board of Regents system — two-thirds of which was requested by the campuses and one-third of which supports legislative priorities.

For example, instead of giving UI the $10 million it wanted to help address rural health care needs, lawmakers gave the university $1 million in support of Gov. Kim Reynolds request for an “Iowa Cancer Assessment and Intervention Plan.”

Lawmakers also appropriated $1 million to establish a new UI Center for Intellectual Freedom — stemming from House File 437, which has not yet been signed into law by the governor.

Similarly, the Legislature appropriated $1 million for the University of Northern Iowa’s new Center for Civic Education but ignored its $1.6 million request for a community college collaboration.

Iowa State University got $1 million more for its agriculture experiment station — shy of the $3.8 million increase it requested for that — and none of the $6 million it requested for a new veterinary early acceptance program and manufacturing workforce program.

UNI was the only of the three universities to request an increase in general education dollars — $2.5 million, which would have brought its total gen ed funding from $101.9 to $104.4 million. Although lawmakers denied that, they did appropriate $1.5 million in support of UNI’s aim to offer instate tuition rates to students living in neighboring states — half of the $3 million UNI had requested for the initiative.

  Buy Photo

Community colleges, on the other hand, received a $7.5 million increase in general state aid — bumping their total up 3.2 percent from $235.9 to $243.4 million, above the $240.6 million the governor recommended.

And funding for the Iowa Tuition Grant — offered to students attending a private college or university in Iowa, making it the main way those campuses get state appropriations — saw a 2-percent funding increase, per the governor’s recommendation.

‘Front line issues’

Aside from the typical funding debate, lawmakers this session — through a new higher education committee in the Iowa House — spent more time and attention on higher education-related legislation.

They considered dozens of bills that would have — for example — restricted diversity, equity and inclusion in the classroom; mandated more civics education and course offerings; imposed more transparency mandates; and limited tuition increases.

“One of the biggest things that I even talked about in the beginning of session, that I think did play itself out when it came to the creation of that committee … was more talk this year about higher education instead of kind of a number two, three, four issue,” House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, said over the weekend on the “Iowa Press” television program. “It was one of the front-line issues that we were discussing.”

Among the key higher ed measures that passed were a bill creating the UI Center for Intellectual Freedom; one giving medical residency priority to Iowa residents; another barring accrediting bodies from taking adverse action against the public universities; and one requiring the Board of Regents to study new tuition impositions.

Reynolds already has signed House File 295 — known as the “Accreditation Autonomy Act” — and House File 440, known as the “College Affordability Act.”

The affordability act requires the regents to take final action on upcoming tuition and fee rates no later than April 30 in the same calendar year of the fall in which the new rates would apply. It also bars the board from approving tuition and fee rates during a meeting when classes are on break — as has been the practice for years.

The board this year, for example, will cast its final vote in mid-June on tuition rates that start in the fall. However, the new April deadline will force regents to approve tuition rates while the Legislature still could be in session.

HF440 also requires the universities to “begin efforts to offer at least one baccalaureate degree program that can be completed in three years,” and it requires the board to study the impact of enacting a tuition policy that would freeze the cost for resident undergraduate students at the rate charged their freshman year.

The bill charges regents to study how much the policy — which would freeze the rate for incoming students for up to four years — could “increase enrollment,” along with its technical feasibility and cost to implement.

The accreditation act bars accrediting agencies — like the Higher Learning Commission — from taking adverse action against a university or community college based on the institution’s compliance with state law, like those barring DEI-related spending.

  Buy Photo

The bill — which hits at an issue central to regent concerns in recent years — expressly authorizes the universities and the Iowa Attorney General to sue any accrediting bodies that take adverse action based on the campuses following a state law.

When former regent David Barker recently was nominated for U.S. assistant secretary for postsecondary education, the U.S. Department of Education said Barker will be charged with “helping to lead reforms to accreditation, improving federal student aid programs, and ensuring its grant programs are invested in agency priorities.”

‘The committee stands ready’

Although not all the proposed higher education legislation passed, regents took internal action themselves on some of the proposals — enacting policy changes in April that require the campuses to start posting all syllabus information for each class online, for example, and another capping undergraduate tuition increases for instate students.

“I think the committee showed the ability to get things done,” Grassley said of the House panel. “It put us in a position where I think we had a better level of cooperation and communication with the Board of Regents.”

If the Legislature couldn’t get bills passed, he said, lawmakers worked with regents to enact internal policies.

“They were able to work with the regent institutions to look at things like tuition," he said, with the goal of giving students more predictability and security around what they’ll have to pay.

“Making sure that when you enter into one of the universities, you know what school is going to cost you as you move forward, making sure that they’re setting their tuition earlier so that way students and families have the ability to make some of those decisions,” Grassley said. “A lot of that came through good conversations between that committee (and) through bills that we had worked on that maybe we thought that they could try to do themselves.”

If they don’t, Grassley added, the committee could come back and pass legislation next session.

“If we put faith in them to do that, we’re hopeful that they’ll follow through with that,” he said. “But I think the committee stands ready, if not, to pass further legislation.”

Erin Murphy of The Gazette Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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