For the first time in more than a decade, Iowa’s 15 community colleges in the last full academic year saw a collective bump in credit-seeking students — although the total number of hours they took continued to fall, sustaining a trend of students taking lighter course loads.
Given its long history training educators, University of Northern Iowa — called the Iowa State Teachers College from 1909 to 1961 — is working to address the shortage, including through a new “fully online teacher preparation program” that allows working paraeducators with associate degrees to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education, with a special education minor.
Once again, fewer students enrolled in Iowa’s 15 community colleges this fall — continuing a decadelong slide that COVID exacerbated, driving a 7.5 percent drop from fall 2019 to fall 2021.
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