Iowa private colleges have a message for transfer students: Our door is open

A looming drop in high school graduates, who increasingly are heading straight to the workforce, has private universities in Iowa teaming up with community colleges to get more students in their seats and headed toward a postsecondary degree — which experts say is necessary to meet Iowa’s changing workforce needs.

Last year, a majority of Iowa’s private colleges and universities created an “Iowa Private Transfer Collaborative,” which this fall signed an admission agreement with Iowa’s 15 community colleges aimed at simplifying and streamlining the community-to-private college transfer pipeline.

The “Iowa Private Transfer Guarantee” agreement capitalizes on what the 19 participating private campuses already were doing while better communicating transfer options and opportunities for Iowa community college students and qualifying high school students who are considering — or who never before considered — transferring to a private, nonprofit four-year institution like Cedar Rapids’ Coe College or Mount Mercy University.

“I didn’t really look toward the private universities, just because of the cost,” Kirkwood Community College student Audrey Miller, 20, of Center Point, told The Gazette. “I am paying for all of my college, so I knew if I did go private it would be more expensive.”

Pricing was part of the reason Miller started her higher education journey at Kirkwood — having earned credit in high school through concurrent enrollment programming toward an associate degree at the Cedar Rapids community college. Once she got on campus, Miller said, she discovered a range of transfer and financial aid opportunities for after her post-Kirkwood pursuits — including transfer to a private college in Iowa.

“Mount Mercy just kind of fell into my hands,” Miller said of her plans to transfer to that campus’ elementary education program this spring. “Everything they had to offer was what I was looking for.”

Plus, Mount Mercy is providing aid and other transfer assistance to address her cost concerns. “As of right now, they have worked with me very nicely so I won't really have to worry about the money aspect, like I thought I would, which is great,” she said.

‘A simplified message’

Iowa’s private colleges and universities for years have had their own individual articulation agreements and opportunities for community college students wanting to transfer credits toward a four-year degree — varying by program and major.

But, Kirkwood President Kristie Fisher said, community college students didn’t necessarily know about them — either because they always had been in a public education setting, assumed private campuses were too expensive or were the first in their family to attend college and lacked guidance on their options.

“My entire academic career has been public education, which is fabulous, but I would have never even thought that a private school might be a possibility,” Fisher said of her own higher education journey. “So it's really meant to try to make it easier to talk about that … It's one more way to make that path seem approachable.”

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Under the guarantee admission agreement — signed by all 15 of Iowa’s community colleges and 19 Iowa private colleges and universities — transfer students still must apply to a college, meet designated grade-point average standards and provide transcripts. They can have completed an associate degree or be pursuing one.

And each institution will vary in their credit transfer policies — like they always have.

“The (guaranteed admission memorandum of agreement) does not guarantee a general education articulation agreement; that is, it does not guarantee that students who meet eligibility requirements will also satisfy the institution’s general education requirements,” according to the signed agreement. “Many signatory institutions have general education articulation agreements and transfer course articulations, which can be viewed at each institution’s website.”

And while the deal doesn’t come with any financial commitment or automatic aid, most of the private institutions offer some form of tuition assistance to a majority of their students — including through the Iowa Tuition Grant, a state-funded grant reserved just for Iowa residents enrolled at a private college or university in the state.

“Institutions may require additional application materials for select majors, such as performing arts, nursing, or education, but will communicate that information in advance to students,” according to the agreement.

“This really is a way to have a simplified message to cause students to stop and think, ‘Oh, Iowa private colleges are one of my possibilities that I should explore’,” Fisher said.

“It's really trying to make it a more approachable, easier message to say, ‘Hey, we guarantee your admission. Now take time to have a conversation with those privates that you're interested in to understand the articulation, to understand the nuts and bolts that go into making the actual transfer happen.”

‘Enrollment pressures’

The deal comes as enrollment on many of Iowa’s private campuses dipped this fall year-over-year and remained well below counts from five years ago. And while a total enrollment tally across Iowa’s 33 private not-for-profit colleges and universities isn’t yet available for fall 2024, the fall 2023 total was 48,836 — down 6 percent from 51,330 in fall 2017.

Iowa’s community college enrollment, meanwhile, made some gains last year to a total 85,362, following substantial losses — dropping from 90,531 in fall 2017 to 81,251 in fall 2021.

Those local losses mirrored national trends, with total undergraduate enrollment dropping across all sectors — including for community colleges, which lost nearly 9 percent in 2020 and 7 percent in 2021 before all sectors made up ground this fall. Those increases were strongest in the community colleges sector, at 5 percent, and weakest at the private nonprofit level at 1 percent.

In response to national projections showing an anticipated enrollment cliff threatening a big drop in Iowa’s high school graduates in 2027 and again in 2029, the state Board of Regents this month shared its own high school graduate projections indicating numbers will begin dropping — but less severely than originally thought — in 2026.

At the same time, demographic data show the number of white high school students in Iowa will dip to its lowest in at least two decades by 2036, countered by increases across the state’s Hispanic and Black student populations — which historically have pursued higher education in smaller numbers.

Other potentially consequential trends include the shifting intentions of Iowa high school seniors — as reported to the Iowa Department of Education. Where just 8 percent said they were going straight to the workforce after high school in 2005, 18 percent said that was their plan this year.

At the same time, just 10 percent said they were headed to a private four-year institution after high school this year — down from 14 percent in 2005.

And then there’s the gap between what students say they’re going to do and what they actually do — exemplified by the more than 9,500 students who said they were going to enroll at a public university this fall and the about 7,300 who did, according to the regents report.

“The enrollment pressures that higher ed institutions are feeling are real,” Fisher said, pointing to that among the reasons private colleges want to make sure their message is getting to students.

“They don't want a student to feel like a private college may not be a fit for them without exploring it,” Fisher said. “I think this is really a wise way for them to be able to articulate to community college graduates that you fit here at our four-year private, and we want you.”

‘A little bit of a journey’

While many Kirkwood students enroll for associate degrees or certificates that will launch them straight into the jobs they want — like dental assisting, aviation maintenance, carpentry or the culinary arts — some also use the community college as a launchpad to a four-year degree.

Kirkwood’s articulation numbers — tracking students who were enrolled one year but didn’t return the next and became enrolled at a four-year university — show transfer to a public university is the dominant path.

In the 2022-23 academic year, 103 Kirkwood students articulated to a private college or university and 719 did so to a public. Both of those numbers were down from five years ago, when 176 Kirkwood students transferred to a private and 998 did so to a public — although the private articulation drop has been steeper at 41 percent.

For Ivy Jo Staab, 21, of Cedar Rapids, articulation to a private university wasn’t necessarily on her radar when she enrolled at Kirkwood straight from high school during the worst of the pandemic — given the uncertainty across higher ed at the time, the lack of resources and the confusion around aid options.

“I'm also a first generation student, so no one in my family has navigated those channels before,” Staab said.

But she thrived at Kirkwood, completing her degree in a year and a half and jumping into a semester program in Washington, D.C., while looking around for her next academic step. Calling transfer to a public university the “more conventional track,” Staab said her own investigation led her to Coe’s new “transfer+” program.

“It was a little bit of a journey to find that private institutions were creating those opportunities,” she said. “But once I started to realize that the door was open, I started to see how many friendly faces were there holding it open for me.”

Coe announced its Transfer+ program in May — allowing students with an associate degree to bypass general education requirements and engage immediately with their field of interest. Staab, through that program, enrolled at Coe this fall — studying political science — with plans to graduate after four semesters. And she said the recent collaboration and admission guarantee could steer more of her community college colleagues toward private institutions.

“Here in Cedar Rapids, especially with us being lucky to have Coe College and Mount Mercy, I think more students are starting to see that there's opportunities nearby.”

Participating privates

Here is a list of the private campuses signed onto the admission guarantee:

Briar Cliff University, Buena Vista University, Central College, Clarke University, Coe College, Cornell College, Drake University, Graceland University, Grand View University, Loras College, Luther College, Morningside University, Mount Mercy University, Northwestern College, Saint Ambrose University, Simpson College, University of Dubuque, William Penn University and Wartburg College.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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