Should the state adopt into law a bill that has passed the Iowa House to restructure the Board of Regents and its powers while capping tuition and diversity programming, Iowa’s public campuses face a multimillion dollar hit.
New positions, new curricula and a review of how the public campuses can cut expenses could cost upward of $3.6 million, according a report from the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency on House File 2558. The bill Thursday cleared the House, 56-39, with only Republicans in support and six Republican lawmakers joining the Democrats in opposition.
That total doesn’t include unknown costs for a new work-study program, a new baccalaureate program, expanded services, and a tuition cap and freeze the bill would impose. “But the freeze is expected to have a negative fiscal impact on the universities’ revenues,” according to the agency’s fiscal note.
The agency reported tuition and fee collection across Iowa’s three public universities this academic year was $298.3 million. Under the bill’s proposed restrictions, according to the agency, that total would have been $280.6 million — nearly $18 million less, or a 6 percent reduction.
“This clearly is a political bill,” House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, said Thursday in urging her colleagues to vote against it. “It clearly is a bill that creates more inefficiencies, increased costs, reduces services and puts the accreditation of our regents institutions at risk.”
The version that cleared the House, becoming eligible for consideration in the Senate, looks somewhat different and more specific than the original proposal.
This bill — as originally proposed — would increase the number of Board of Regent members from nine voting members to 11 total members, including two non-voting members appointed from the Legislature.
While the nine voting regents still would be appointed by the governor and confirmed by a two-thirds Senate vote, the legislative members would be appointed by the majority leader in the Senate and the speaker of the House.
Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis
“Increased oversight,” Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, said when Rep. Bob Kressig, D-Cedar Falls, asked him to explain the need for lawmakers on the board.
The revised bill would shrink the length of terms of voting regents from six years to four and hold non-voting members to two-year stints. The revision also changes the way the board chooses its leadership. Instead of allowing regents to elect a president — like they did earlier this week, choosing Sherry Bates by unanimous vote — the bill would require the board to nominate a president who must then receive Senate confirmation.
Addressing how the board hires university presidents — which it touts among its most important tasks — the bill could incorporate legislative say there, too.
It would require the board to hire an applicant recommended by a “presidential selection committee” made up of “only members of the board.” The bill doesn’t specify the committee include only voting regents — meaning legislative non-voting members could serve.
And where the universities now unveil finalists for president, typically bringing them to campus for public forums, the bill would keep confidential “the identity of a candidate for president of an institute of higher learning being considered by the presidential selection committee” unless committee members agree in writing to disclose a candidate’s identity.
Where the first version of the bill capped undergraduate tuition increases at 3 percent, the revised version maintains that cap for incoming students but also freezes tuition and fees for resident undergraduate students for four years.
For resident undergrads starting on or after the 2025-2026 academic year, tuition and mandatory fees couldn’t increase for their first four consecutive years.
Rates could go up for students who take longer or who come with transfer credits allowing them to graduate in under four years — but don’t.
The board for the current academic year increased resident undergraduate tuition 3.5 percent, and it increased the average combined tuition-and-fee rate for that group of students 4.3 percent to $10,396.30 a year.
“Is it worth it to have a capped tuition rate when we are not going to be able to get what I’m going to the University of Northern Iowa for?” Konfrst asked, using UNI as an example and asking what lost revenue could mean for that institution.
“The problem with the University of Northern, I believe, is enrollment, so we really felt that this tuition cap would serve as an attraction,” Collins said. “More students would go to the University of Northern Iowa, specifically, because of the tuition guarantee."
The revised bill bars the universities from creating new administrative positions — defining administrator as vice president, assistant vice president or associate vice president — without regents’ approval.
And it would codify a list of diversity, equity and inclusion directives the regents imposed on itself after a study group assessed DEI across the campus on the heels of legislative criticism. It directs the universities to restructure DEI offices to eliminate functions not required by law or accreditation; ensure DEI services are available to everyone; and ensure no one is required to submit a DEI statement or be evaluated based on his or her participation in DEI programming.
It would bar the universities from compelling people to disclose their pronouns and require new policies advancing the diversity of “intellectual and philosophical perspectives in faculty and staff applicant pools.”
It also would codify the limited power of faculty senates and committees; allow a university president to initiate post-tenure reviews; and require each university to create an “American history and civics” three-credit course that students must complete before graduating.
“When it comes to DEI … whether they were created with good intentions or not, it has become clear that they now are ideological enforcement centers that suppress the pursuit of truth and, most importantly, merit,” Collins said. “This bill stops the pursuit of these distractions and ideological agendas, reorients the focus of our higher education system back to the pursuit of academic excellence — which should have been the point from the start — controls the ever-rising cost of higher education and gives this body increased oversight over the regent enterprise.”
www.thegazette.com
New positions, new curricula and a review of how the public campuses can cut expenses could cost upward of $3.6 million, according a report from the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency on House File 2558. The bill Thursday cleared the House, 56-39, with only Republicans in support and six Republican lawmakers joining the Democrats in opposition.
That total doesn’t include unknown costs for a new work-study program, a new baccalaureate program, expanded services, and a tuition cap and freeze the bill would impose. “But the freeze is expected to have a negative fiscal impact on the universities’ revenues,” according to the agency’s fiscal note.
The agency reported tuition and fee collection across Iowa’s three public universities this academic year was $298.3 million. Under the bill’s proposed restrictions, according to the agency, that total would have been $280.6 million — nearly $18 million less, or a 6 percent reduction.
“This clearly is a political bill,” House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, said Thursday in urging her colleagues to vote against it. “It clearly is a bill that creates more inefficiencies, increased costs, reduces services and puts the accreditation of our regents institutions at risk.”
The version that cleared the House, becoming eligible for consideration in the Senate, looks somewhat different and more specific than the original proposal.
Regents structure
This bill — as originally proposed — would increase the number of Board of Regent members from nine voting members to 11 total members, including two non-voting members appointed from the Legislature.
While the nine voting regents still would be appointed by the governor and confirmed by a two-thirds Senate vote, the legislative members would be appointed by the majority leader in the Senate and the speaker of the House.
Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis
“Increased oversight,” Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, said when Rep. Bob Kressig, D-Cedar Falls, asked him to explain the need for lawmakers on the board.
The revised bill would shrink the length of terms of voting regents from six years to four and hold non-voting members to two-year stints. The revision also changes the way the board chooses its leadership. Instead of allowing regents to elect a president — like they did earlier this week, choosing Sherry Bates by unanimous vote — the bill would require the board to nominate a president who must then receive Senate confirmation.
Addressing how the board hires university presidents — which it touts among its most important tasks — the bill could incorporate legislative say there, too.
It would require the board to hire an applicant recommended by a “presidential selection committee” made up of “only members of the board.” The bill doesn’t specify the committee include only voting regents — meaning legislative non-voting members could serve.
And where the universities now unveil finalists for president, typically bringing them to campus for public forums, the bill would keep confidential “the identity of a candidate for president of an institute of higher learning being considered by the presidential selection committee” unless committee members agree in writing to disclose a candidate’s identity.
Tuition freeze
Where the first version of the bill capped undergraduate tuition increases at 3 percent, the revised version maintains that cap for incoming students but also freezes tuition and fees for resident undergraduate students for four years.
For resident undergrads starting on or after the 2025-2026 academic year, tuition and mandatory fees couldn’t increase for their first four consecutive years.
Rates could go up for students who take longer or who come with transfer credits allowing them to graduate in under four years — but don’t.
The board for the current academic year increased resident undergraduate tuition 3.5 percent, and it increased the average combined tuition-and-fee rate for that group of students 4.3 percent to $10,396.30 a year.
“Is it worth it to have a capped tuition rate when we are not going to be able to get what I’m going to the University of Northern Iowa for?” Konfrst asked, using UNI as an example and asking what lost revenue could mean for that institution.
“The problem with the University of Northern, I believe, is enrollment, so we really felt that this tuition cap would serve as an attraction,” Collins said. “More students would go to the University of Northern Iowa, specifically, because of the tuition guarantee."
DEI, administrative restrictions
The revised bill bars the universities from creating new administrative positions — defining administrator as vice president, assistant vice president or associate vice president — without regents’ approval.
And it would codify a list of diversity, equity and inclusion directives the regents imposed on itself after a study group assessed DEI across the campus on the heels of legislative criticism. It directs the universities to restructure DEI offices to eliminate functions not required by law or accreditation; ensure DEI services are available to everyone; and ensure no one is required to submit a DEI statement or be evaluated based on his or her participation in DEI programming.
It would bar the universities from compelling people to disclose their pronouns and require new policies advancing the diversity of “intellectual and philosophical perspectives in faculty and staff applicant pools.”
It also would codify the limited power of faculty senates and committees; allow a university president to initiate post-tenure reviews; and require each university to create an “American history and civics” three-credit course that students must complete before graduating.
“When it comes to DEI … whether they were created with good intentions or not, it has become clear that they now are ideological enforcement centers that suppress the pursuit of truth and, most importantly, merit,” Collins said. “This bill stops the pursuit of these distractions and ideological agendas, reorients the focus of our higher education system back to the pursuit of academic excellence — which should have been the point from the start — controls the ever-rising cost of higher education and gives this body increased oversight over the regent enterprise.”
Bill upping regent oversight, capping tuition, curtailing DEI could cost millions
Should the state adopt into law a bill that passed the Iowa House this week aiming to restructure the Board of Regents and its powers while also capping tuition costs and diversity programming, Iowa’s public universities could take a financial hit in the millions.
www.thegazette.com
