Iowa lawmakers urged to make ‘big picture’ changes to higher ed

A representative from a conservative New York think tank urged Iowa lawmakers Wednesday to get more involved in the state’s higher education — including by changing Iowa Code to give the Legislature power to eliminate or add departments on its public university campuses.

“I recommend that the state target programs with a negative (return on investment),” Neetu Arnold, an analyst for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, told members of the Iowa House’s new higher education committee. “After all, these programs are doing nothing but making students’ lives financially worse over the long run.”

Highlighting her research that she said has found an increased politicization across college campuses, growing dissatisfaction of higher education among Americans, swelling administrative bloat and spending and declining returns on the investment of a college degree, Arnold urged Iowa lawmakers to take action and make “big picture changes.”

“The kind of changes that would signal a return to merit, excellence and intelligence in our higher education system,” she said, echoing the words of the committee chair — Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, who recently told The Gazette, “The only three letter acronyms the committee will be focused on over the general assembly will be MEI — merit, excellence and intelligence.”

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Arnold — who has en education focus with the institute — said the state of Iowa recently captured her attention because of its newly-created House higher ed committee and the attention lawmakers are paying to things like “runaway costs and mission drift.”

“And they’re doing so with courage,” she said. “If Iowa can implement reforms that actually help with these issues, its approach to restoring higher education could serve as a model for other states.”

Referencing a recent Gallup poll showing growing distrust of universities — especially among Republicans — Arnold highlighted three prime reasons: political agendas, mission drift and cost.

On the political front, she pointed to three major events that have led the public to “sour on higher education.”

“After the 2016 election, many universities did not handle the results well — from hosting cry-ins for students upset by election results to canceling classes,” Arnold said. “For many everyday Americans, they can't afford to attend a cry-in when an election doesn't go their way. They have responsibilities to fulfill.”

In 2020, the year of nationwide protests after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, “universities doubled down on so-called racial justice initiatives, engaging in language-policing through bias-response teams and telling people they had privilege simply due to the color of their skin,” she said.

The “final blow,” she said, came when universities struggled to condemn the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, despite weighing in on other geopolitical issues like the Russia-Ukraine war.

“Universities have communicated that only certain political views matter, certain people are worth protecting,“ she said.

Return on investment

Iowa’s public universities, she told lawmakers, are no exception.

“The University of Iowa offers a bachelor's degree in social justice where students can learn things like how language is at the root of oppression,” she said. “Iowa State University has a course on building DEI skills in university student affairs practice. And the University of Northern Iowa has a course on social justice in children's books.”

In addition to having a political bent, she said, those programs tend to have a low return on investment, she said. ROI, according to Arnold’s assessment, is calculated by additional income a student earns from having a degree minus the cost he or she paid to get it.

Arnold highlighted for lawmakers bachelor degrees at Iowa’s public universities that she found have a negative return on investment. “They left students worse off than if they hadn’t gone to college at all,” she said.

Those programs, she said, include “ethnic, cultural minority, gender and group studies” at the UI; visual and performing arts at ISU; and drama and theater arts at UNI.

“Many of these programs that were negative ROI are well known to suffer from ideological capture,” she said, stressing, “Negative ROI programs funded at state universities should be concerning.”

That’s why lawmakers need to step in, according to Arnold.

"For public universities, when things get out of hand, it falls upon the Legislature to address the fundamental issues,“ she said. “It's crucial in our democratic system of government that the people have some oversight over the programs their taxpayer dollars go to fund. Universities are no exception.”

‘These decisions can be difficult’

Some of the House committee’s Democratic members pressed Arnold on her report — asking her, for example, to share specifics of her research, including whether she talked with faculty and how many people she interviewed.

“I had interviewed 50 students, parents and college administrators across the country, and we talked about a lot of things,” Arnold said.

Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, the Democratic House minority leader from Windsor Heights, asked where Arnold got her data on political bias in certain programs. “It's pretty broad statement to say that all of these programs, including dance and English, are well known for their political bias,” Konfrst said.

To one lawmaker’s question about the role of the regents and their charge to govern the public universities, Arnold said, “Sometimes these decisions can be difficult.”

“The reason I think the state Legislature should have some say on big-picture issues is because sometimes the Board of Regents may not be listening to the people,” she said, noting the fact that lawmakers are elected while regents are appointed by the governor. “And they don’t really have that much of a pressure to do so.”

When asked about other ways to measure a return on investment, Arnold suggested even employers are noting ways the “political capture has actually cheapened some of the programs.”

“They're expecting these students to be able to think critically, but the problem is, when they're coming out of these courses, they're thinking very one-sided,” she said. “I think some of these people, unfortunately, they're kind of unpleasant to be around. And I think employers notice that. That’s part of the reason why the political capture has to be addressed.”

On the same day the committee heard from Arnold, lawmakers introduced 14 study bills — including ones barring community colleges from establishing diversity, equity and inclusion offices and prohibiting any private college participating in the Iowa Tuition Grant program from having a DEI office.

Another bill would require public university students to complete an American history and civil government course to graduate; and one would establish a “school of intellectual freedom” at the UI.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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