Systems are not in place on the University of Northern Iowa campus to ensure compliance with the 32-year-old federal Clery Act – which governs higher education crime reporting and security mandates – leaving the Cedar Falls-based university at risk of hundreds of thousands in fines and safety breaches, according to an internal audit.
The state education budget lawmakers finalized early Wednesday includes a fraction of the $22.1 million increase Iowa’s public universities sought for the upcoming budget year.
Iowa’s public universities last year used a waiver process to bypass open searches — designed to attract a diverse pool of qualified candidates and ensure all applicants have an equal opportunity to compete for open positions — in more than 150 hires, most of which involved the University of Iowa.
Two years after Iowa’s three public universities made the unprecedented and heart-wrenching pandemic-propelled decision to nix in-person spring commencement ceremonies – a historic rite of passage – all three are resurrecting them this weekend.
Even as total enrollment across Iowa’s public, private, and community colleges and universities fell in fall 2021, Iowa’s institutes of higher education this academic year are educating more students who identify as a minority than last year – at a combined 39,120.
Massive losses in international enrollment have decimated the University of Iowa’s need for English as a Second Language services – compelling big cuts.
After three attempts in four years to eliminate through legislative action academic tenure across Iowa’s public universities, lawmakers this year didn’t propose such a measure.
For the first time since the Board of Regents in 2016 scolded Iowa’s public universities for their regular and — at times significant — annual room and board rate hikes, Iowa State University and University of Iowa are proposing residence system rate increases for next year reaching 3 percent.
As competition for domestic and international students surges following pandemic-propelled enrollment losses, U.S. News & World Report’s oft-cited rankings continue to hold weight – including for Iowa’s public universities, which in new 2023 graduate program lists out Tuesday slipped in some areas and made gains in others.
Fewer international students have been enrolling in Iowa’s public universities for years – even before COVID-19 locked down travel and crippled the campus’ global reach – and lawmakers on Monday probed the Board of Regents for an answer to why.
Instead of granting the Board of Regents’ ask for an additional $15 million in general education appropriations for the 2023 budget year – bringing the state’s total regents higher-ed allocation to $501 million – the House has suggested keeping gen-ed funding flat while putting $12 million into a new “Iowa Workforce Grant and Incentive Program.”
Iowa’s public universities in recent years have drifted farther from a target of one supervisor per 15 employees to a narrower ratio of one supervisor per nine or 10 subordinates, according to a new Board of Regents report.
The pandemic depleted resources across Iowa’s public university residence hall systems in the last budget year – to the tune of millions – and even though the campuses are back to mostly in-person classes and traditional operations, fallout for the dorms and dining halls continues.
A quarter of students across Iowa’s public universities who responded to a free-speech survey in the fall disagreed with the notion their respective campuses provide an “environment for free and open expression of ideas, opinions, and beliefs.”
The percent of students attending Iowa’s public universities who graduate in four years is rising, as is the percent who graduate in six years. At the same time, the collective rate of freshman who returned in fall 2020 for a second year dropped — a likely result of the pandemic, officials report.
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