Iowa students have more ways to expedite degrees, save and succeed

IOWA CITY - Adding to the growing number of options college and university students in Iowa have to earn a college degree and save time and money doing so is a new program announced this week for students interested in public health careers.

The University of Iowa College of Public Health has partnered with Grinnell College to develop a cooperative degree program that lets Grinnell students of any major earn a bachelor of arts degree and a master's of public health degree in five years, rather than six.

The public health program mirrors similar degree initiatives that have emerged of late aimed at helping students in Iowa earn degrees faster, saving them time and money and getting them into the workforce quicker. The UI law school, for example, debuted a '3+3 admissions program” last year that allows undergraduate students to shave a year off their bachelor's degree by applying to law school early and using the first year of their three-year law program to complete their undergraduate degree.

The UI College of Law and Drake University Law School are offering the program to students across the state - including for students at Iowa State University and Coe College, which do not have law degree programs.

UI President Sally Mason last year also rolled out a 'Summer Hawk Tuition Grant” program that awards Iowa residents a full-tuition scholarship for up to 12 semester hours of summer study, helping to speed up their studies. And, last week, Mason announced a three-year accelerated degree program that uses the Summer Hawk tuition scholarship to graduate motivated students in select majors in three years, rather than the traditional four, five or six.

‘A way to recruit exceptional students'

To take advantage of the new UI-Grinnell public health degree program, Grinnell students must apply to the UI master's of public health program by the second semester of their junior undergraduate year. To be admitted, students must have a 3.25 grade-point average and completed 80 semester hours.

Students accepted into the program take three UI courses as part of their fourth year of undergraduate studies that will count both toward earning a degree from Grinell and a master's of public health degree from UI.

Students then will officially graduate from Grinnell and take all UI courses on the UI campus in the program's fifth year to complete their master's degree. While enrolled at Grinnell, students will pay Grinnell tuition, and Grinnell will pay expenses related to the cooperative program. After graduating from Grinnell, student expenses are transferred to UI.

Mary Lober Aquilino, associate dean for the UI master's of public health and undergraduate programs, said students who take advantage of the accelerated degree could have an edge on the workforce competition after graduation.

'The goal for students is to save them time and money and provide that tangible professional background that they might not have with an undergraduate major,” she said.

The program also benefits both UI and Grinnell, a private institution located in Grinnell that has an undergraduate enrollment of 1,721 and came in at No. 19 on the U.S. News and World Report's most recent rankings for national liberal arts colleges.

It allows Grinnell to provide more options for its students when they complete their education, Aquilino said.

'And it's a way to recruit exceptional students into our program,” she said.

The program, which is believed to be the first public health program of its kind involving coursework at two institutions, will begin admitting students in the spring.

'So any students who want to apply for the spring semester can do so immediately,” Aquilino said.

Helping more earn degrees

Rising tuition costs and concerns over mounting student debt are driving the push among Iowa's higher education institutions to offer more options and support for students. ISU earlier this week announced it is joining 10 other public research universities in a first-ever project aimed at using 'highly successful, innovative programs designed to help more students complete a college education.”

As part of the University Innovation Alliance, ISU will share best practices from its 20-year-old learning communities program, which enrolls participating first-year and transfer students with common interests or majors in the same sections of key courses.

About 70 percent of Iowa State's first-time students who come directly from high school join a learning community, which are overseen by sophomore mentors and staff and faculty advisers. Last year, the ISU program employed nearly 500 mentors for 5,400 students in 80 learning communities in hopes of increasing the number of freshmen who returned for their sophomore year and thus improving overall graduation rates.

UI Housing and Dining also has been offering living learning communities for more than 30 years and last year expanded the program by making it mandatory for every student living in a residence hall.

At Iowa State, the average six-year graduation rate for freshmen involved in a learning community is 12 percentage points higher than for non-learning community students.

'The innovation alliance is a great way for our universities to share and expand successful programs that help students, particularly those from low-income families, earn a college degree,” said ISU President Steven Leath.