Iowa Regents to tackle next three ‘efficiency’ suggestions

IOWA CITY - Based on recommendations from a sweeping efficiency review of Iowa's public universities, the Board of Regents next week plans to discuss three new systemwide changes, including creating a common application portal and standardizing its scoring system for student applicants.

The board at its monthly meeting also will discuss establishing a clearer policy for the size and structure of professional and scientific staff search committees that could save more than 37,400 hours in staff time.

A consulting firm being paid $3.3 million to conduct a 'transparent, inclusive, efficiency review” of Iowa's public universities identified those opportunities - and 14 more possible cost-cutting or revenue-generating efficiencies - earlier this summer.

The Board of Regents at its last meeting agreed to move forward with the consultant's first suggestion - to improve sourcing and procurement practices by, among other things, entering the three universities into master contracts to help lower the costs of consumables they all buy.

Deloitte Consulting LLC projects its suggestions to the universities' sourcing and procurement practices, when implemented, could save $16 million to $40 million over the next 18 to 24 months. The board is planning to further contract with Deloitte to implement those changes.

Regents next week will consider taking action on another three opportunities, including one to standardize the manual calculation of the board's Regents Admission Index.

The index - enacted five years ago to gauge the potential success of incoming students and qualify them for automatic admission to the three public universities - weighs ACT or SAT scores, cumulative grade-point average, the number of completed high school core courses, and class rank.

The system recently came under fire after Board of Regents officials realized the universities were using different methods to calculate scores for students without class rank - a growing body of applicants. In fact, according to regent documents, 31.6 percent of all freshmen across the three universities in fall 2013 did not have a class rank.

Each university has its own way of either calculating an alternative score for those students or using another method to assess students for admission, according to Deloitte. And alternative calculations might be using outdated information, the consultant reported.

Suggestions include creating consistent alternative equations for applicants without class rank, developing a cross-university system that can be used periodically to reconfirm parameters for the alternate equation, and occasionally analyzing student success to make sure the index is working appropriately.

The new system also could help inform admissions decisions for students with scores below 245, which is the threshold for automatic admission.

Consultants did not list a cost savings associated with the change, but instead listed benefits as improving customer satisfaction for prospective students, increasing transparency to high schools on admissions, simplifying alternative scoring processes, and bettering admissions decision making.

The consultant recommends convening a task force to develop the updated regents admission index and alternatives.

Regents next week also will explore the possible creation of a common application portal for prospective students interested in applying to any or all of the three regent universities. Through a common or universal application, students could save time and money.

'The three application forms are mostly similar with respect to the content they require, hence, causing duplicative work for these students,” according to regent documents.

Between 10 and 20 percent of prospective total undergraduate students cross-apply between the three universities. Suggestions include implementing a common application portal for in-state or out-of-state students while continuing to run in parallel the common application portal for two to three years 'to minimize change management concerns.”

Possible benefits include improving customer satisfaction, saving time and money, and increasing collaboration between the university admissions departments.

Although the Board of Regents is contracting with Deloitte to help implement its sourcing and procurement suggestions, it does not intend to use the consulting firm to implement these next three efficiency-related changes, said Jeneane Beck, state relations officer for the Board of Regent and spokeswoman for the efficiency review.

'We believe the regents and each university can implement these on their own,” she said.