Iowa community colleges ask for $20M to start offering bachelor’s degrees

DES MOINES — Iowa’s 15 community colleges didn’t reach out to lawmakers asking to start offering four-year bachelor’s degrees like their public and private college and university counterparts across the state.

“This was not a priority we brought to the legislature,” Emily Shields, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy association Community Colleges for Iowa, told the House Higher Education Committee on Wednesday. “But then we studied it for a year, and the need is undeniable.”

For starters, she said, 42 percent of Iowa jobs currently require a bachelor’s degree while only 22 percent of Iowans have one. Behind that gap are the state’s “education deserts” — with Iowa’s public universities serving mostly central and Eastern Iowa, leaving many rural communities 30 or more miles from a public four-year option.

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“By design, we cover the entire state,” Shields said of community colleges. “So there are 15 colleges, but there are 35 individual campuses and over 100 different locations — when you include centers and other physical sites that we have across the state. So in terms of access, that's a big advantage of community colleges.”

Iowa’s community colleges also are open access, accepting everyone, and cost less than Iowa’s four-year public universities and private colleges and universities.

“And we know from national studies that of the students who when they start college say they plan to transfer, only a third actually do,” Shields said. “So that's evidence that we're leaving two-thirds of our potential baccalaureate-degree holders on the table because they don't end up finding that transfer is something that works for them.”

Iowa is far from the first state to consider allowing community colleges to offer more than two-year associate degrees and certificates. Nationally, 203 community colleges in 24 states now offer 736 bachelor’s degrees — neighboring Illinois and Nebraska are considering legislation this session to make it happen.

“So the number of graduates with community college baccalaureate degrees has increased across the last five years or so,” Shields said in advocating for her colleges’ proposal to change Iowa Code allowing them to do the same.

“Our recommendations, coming from all 15 of the presidents and endorsed by our trustees as well, include that community colleges be given the authority to meet the needs of their region,” Shields said. “While we looked at deserts being in some specific areas, every Iowa community college serves rural areas where folks may lack access to the type of institution that works for them.”

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The bill — House Study Bill 533, sponsored by Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis — would change Iowa law to allow community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees that “lead to jobs that address a high-demand, sustained, and unmet workforce need within the community college region, as demonstrated by the current number of related job vacancies and employer support for such programs of study or academic majors, and as shown by the community college.”

Per the proposal, existing instate tuition limitations barring community college costs from exceeding regent university rates will remain — although tuition for residents in a community college baccalaureate program can be up to 150 percent more than for traditional associate degree students.

“That's typically because these are more tuition-driven programs,” Shields said. “Once they get off the ground in most states, the programs do support themselves and sustain themselves with tuition revenue, and this model allows us to do that.”

The community colleges are asking for $20 million over five years in one-time startup funding from the legislature to launch their four-year degree programming.

“Most states have demonstrated that it costs around $300,000 to start a new program, and those expenses come into play before tuition is coming in the door,” Shields said. “So there is some need to front load and be able to hire faculty, get equipment and spaces needed — that kind of thing — in order to be able to get things off the ground.

“And so we would appreciate the legislature's consideration of that.”

When asked by lawmakers Wednesday whether the bachelor’s programming is contingent on state funding, community college presidents present to advocate for the change said they’d still move forward.

“But it would certainly be at a slower pace,” said Jesse Ulrich, president of Iowa Central Community College, which has five campuses in Fort Dodge, Storm Lake and Webster City.

“And we would also be looking at programs that would cost less,” Ulrich said. “But in our region, we have to do something, and that's my job to figure it out.”

‘Workforce bachelor’s’

In investigating the need for bachelor’s programming across Iowa’s community colleges, researchers looked nationally and to other states and found 72 percent of jobs by 2031 will require a bachelor’s degree — or about 388,000 jobs.

Florida, among the states already doing this, conferred nearly 8,000 community college bachelor’s degrees in one year across its 28 campuses, and California is reporting 67 to 78 percent graduation rates.

Among the most popular community college bachelor’s programs are business, health care, education and computer sciences.

Iowa Western Community College President Dan Kinney stressed his campus isn’t looking to duplicate existing programming but rather focus on demand and need.

“I quit calling them bachelor degrees,” he said. “I've called them workforce bachelor's. That's what I'm going to be offering. What are the needs of my businesses, my communities?”

Collins asked about concerns some have raised with what passing this legislation might mean for Iowa’s public universities — which annually receive hundreds of transfer students from Iowa community colleges.

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“I've been waiting for the competition question,” Ulrich said. “And what I would just ask is, if we're worried about competition, can we at least have equal competition? What I mean by that is, why is it OK for Iowa State University to have a clean-cut RN-to-BSN degree where a student doesn't have to move and can do it all in one but they can't do it in Fort Dodge, Iowa? I don't think we should be punishing students based on where their parents live.”

Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Iowa City, said he appreciates the community colleges’ perspective but also worries about the denominator — in the declining pool of Iowa high schoolers graduating into the higher education universe.

“We don't have the numbers,” he said.

But community college presidents stressed their programming isn’t just for traditional high school graduates.

“Look at the numbers of adult learners that are under educated because they don't have access to something like this,” Kinney said.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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