Legislation allowing Iowa community colleges to offer four-year degrees in some subjects — an idea strongly opposed by Iowa private colleges — was narrowed Wednesday before passing out of an Iowa House committee.
The Iowa House Higher Education Committee also passed a number of other bills Wednesday to change community college and public university operations, including bills that would tax university endowments and freeze tuition.
A majority of the bills discussed by the committee Wednesday came with amendments, including one attached to legislation that would allow community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees.
Committee chair Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, said House Study Bill 533 would bring about the “most significant reform to the community college system as we know it since it was incepted about 60 years ago.” He said he hopes that those in rural areas without access to higher education can use community college bachelor’s degree programs to fill critical gaps in education, nursing and others.
“I believe we can close these workforce gaps, and this bill does exactly that,” Collins said.
While the original bill would have authorized all community colleges in Iowa to begin developing baccalaureate degrees, the amended legislation would create a pilot program in which only colleges that are 50 miles or more away from the main campus of a public university or the main campus of a private university already offering the same programs are allowed to start bachelor’s degree programs.
These degree programs must also meet certain requirements — they must lead to jobs in high-demand fields that have unmet workforce needs in the area, “as demonstrated by multiple workforce indicators” like job openings, wage data and more, the amendment stated. They also must fall under the areas of nursing, education, information technology, public safety, business, healthcare management, agriculture or dental hygiene.
Community colleges would not be allowed to offer more than three bachelor’s degree programs, the amendment stated, and participating schools would need to submit reports to the Iowa Department of Education and the General Assembly showing enrollment, completion, workforce outcomes, alignment with regional workforce needs, tuition, challenges and more.
Once the first students of community college baccalaureate programs start graduating, the General Assembly would examine the pilot program’s outcomes and decide if it needs to be changed or expanded.
Rep. Timi Brown-Powers, D-Waterloo, called the amendment a “good starting point” in addressing the needs of people who are place-bound and those who don’t work well with online education. The amendment and the bill both passed and will head to the Iowa House floor for debate.
Collins also introduced an amendment to House Study Bill 538, which would make changes to presidential search committees at state universities and make candidate names confidential until they sign an agreement with the search committee. The amendment changed the bill to allow a “variety of stakeholders” to hold a spot on the search committee instead of just Iowa Board of Regents members, Collins said, including “one student member, one faculty senate member, one staff member, one alumni foundation or public member.”
Rep. Heather Matson, D-Ankeny, said while she appreciated the change to allow for “slightly more” shared governance in the presidential search process, she believes the legislation is still too prescriptive.
“I do still have concerns overall of the partnerships — they’re very critical partnerships within communities that are diminished, or could be diminished, and civic engagement possibly being diminished by having this level of micromanagement from the Legislature,” Matson said.
After last year’s search for the new president of Iowa State University, in which two candidates dropped out and one had positive views on lab-grown meat, Collins said he is “no longer willing to roll the dice” on the presidential search process. The legislation passed the committee as amended.
Passed legislation focused on university finances
House Study Bill 531, which would freeze tuition for all students from enactment until July 2031, was amended to strike references to mandatory fees, narrowing the legislation to just tuition.
Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, introduced multiple amendments to the legislation, which failed to pass, including calls to include private K-12 schools that receive vouchers from the state to also have their tuition frozen and to increase the percentage of state support that goes to university operating budgets to help support them through the freeze.
Jacoby said discussions of funding need to focus on investment in students, rather what is being given to universities. He added that other costs of college, including rent, food, transportation and course materials like books, are not included in the amended legislation.
“At a time when our economy is tanking, we need to invest in our students to keep them here and improve the economy upon their graduation,” Jacoby said.
The bill, with Collins’s amendment, passed the committee.
House Study Bill 540, to make public universities responsible for a portion of defaulted educational loans of their graduates, also passed with amendments, and Collins said during the committee he would be open to discussing further changes. The amendment changed the amount of liability from 25 percent of the amount owed to 10 percent.
Collins said this legislation is addressing the lack of responsibility from universities “for the consequences of providing degrees that do not lead to viable employment” and ensures they will provide a quality education focused on “student outcomes and achievement.”
Matson echoed concerns she shared during the subcommittee meeting on the bill, saying there are many high-demand jobs that don’t pay very well, such as direct care work for children and older adults, and universities could be on the hook for outcomes they can’t control, like varying pay rates. She added that guardrails should be placed in the legislation to address the different reasons someone may default on their loans.
“I would just say that making something less bad doesn’t still make it OK,” Matson said.
The thresholds included in House Study Bill 544, which would establish a tax on certain university endowments, were raised through amendment from $250 million to $500 million. Collins said during the meeting the amendment would also lower the tax rate from 15 percent to the current highest corporate tax rate and ensure it applies only to unrestricted funds within endowments.
Funds collected through the tax would go to scholarships for students studying to enter high-demand job fields, Collins said.
Brown-Powers repeated her point from the subcommittee that this bill would be “stealing from Peter to pay Paul” and set a precedent that could lead to fewer donations going to impacted universities. Instead of a tax, she suggested trying to work with universities to move endowment money “in a more proactive way.”
Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, said he’d like to see a study on how the tax would impact universities before it is implemented, as Iowa State University has at least 60 endowed faculty positions.
“I still think it’s kind of funny that you want to tax stuff when you are usually anti-taxing,” Brown-Powers said to Collins.
Collins said the funds in university endowments shouldn’t just sit there idly, “but actually be used for the benefit of Iowa students,” especially those hoping to enter high-demand fields.
House File 546, as amended, would require that continuing education requirements for licensed professionals, including those in Iowa Supreme Court and Iowa Board of Educational Examiners, relate directly to their work.
Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, said amendments would add in language excepting continuing education courses required by state or federal law and stating that the Iowa Supreme Court must adopt rules “so that a person is not required to graduate from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association Council for their education prior to taking the bar exam.” The amendment was approved by the committee.
While he was initially “a little skeptical about the bill,” Holt said after reaching out to people to discuss the legislation he heard from people who feel like their time is wasted by a lot of required continuing education courses.
Wilburn expressed concern about potential subjective ways of taking the legislation, in which some people believe something isn’t necessary but professional boards maintain it is.
“I prefer us to lean towards the folks that we have in the professions on these boards to help determine what that criteria is,” Wilburn said.
Holt said Wilburn raised good questions during the committee meeting, and he is currently working to meet with people in the judicial branch and other areas to discuss the legislation and its potential impacts further. Professional boards would make the decisions about what continuing education courses are directly related to the job or not, he said.
He said during discussion of the amendment that he’s not sure if the legislation is a “finished product” at this point, and he wants to hear from people to make any changes for when the bill goes to the House floor. Both the amendment and legislation were approved by the committee.
Few bills with no amendments
One piece of legislation moved ahead without amendment was House Study Bill 541, which would have the board of regents study how it could implement a performance-based funding model for state universities and submit a report to the Legislature.
Both Matson and Jacoby pointed out situations where performance-based funding has not worked out, including in K-12 education, where Matson said it pits teachers against one another and reduces collaboration in addition to being very complicated. Jacoby said he’s experienced “creaming” before, where institutions focus only on their top people and ignore lower-performing groups.
When asked by Matson where the idea behind the bill came from, Collins said “many other states have moved in this direction” or have considered it, citing Texas as an example. He acknowledged Jacoby had a point in asking about the potential challenges and negative aspects of a performance-based funding model for universities, but said this bill would do nothing more than charge the board with creating a report on the topic.
“The establishment of a performance-based funding system for Iowa’s regents enterprise, I believe, represents a forward-thinking approach that we certainly have to consider as a committee,” Collins said.
House Study Bill 530, which would implement an 80 percent residency requirement for the University of Iowa’s nursing bachelor’s program, also passed without amendment.
Brooklyn Draisey is a Report for America corps member covering higher education for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this story first appeared.
