Editorials: Terrible college idea

Iowa’s private colleges have enough troubles without the state legislature piling on. They are major components of our economy, and the death of Iowa Wesleyan in Mount Pleasant is a grim reminder that we must do everything we can to help preserve and grow institutions like Buena Vista, Briar Cliff, Morningside, Dordt and Northwestern.

Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, taught at Iowa Wesleyan. He should know. Collins in a letter last week to 15 community college presidents told them to prepare a study on offering baccalaureate degrees (generally four years) in high-demand areas like teaching and business. Cranking out teachers historically is what Buena Vista does. Business degrees are Beavers’ bread and butter.

What’s more, Buena Vista has built partnerships with community colleges like Iowa Central in Fort Dodge and Iowa Lakes in Spencer to offer two-plus-two degrees — two years at a community college followed by two years of instruction by Buena Vista on the community college campus. It has been a critical revenue source for BVU through the decades, and has kept it strong.

Collins puts forward a terrible idea that will hurt private colleges like Mount Mercy in Cedar Rapids, which offers nursing degrees, and which has been forced to merge with St. Ambrose in Davenport because of the shrinking pool of students.

Collins attended Iowa State University in Ames.

Drake started a two-year program named after Johnny Bright. Is this some sort of perverse response? Are they trying to kill private colleges?

Since the legislature has been paring back its appropriations to the Board of Regents, which oversee Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa, you can predict where the funds will come from for this ill-advised scheme: from property taxes. Iowa Central levies a property tax on your home. This will only make ballooning property taxes balloon some more.

With all his smarts and good intentions, Collins should figure out a way to reduce and not increase our property taxes.

What is in demand today is not in demand tomorrow. Pressmen and computer coders are disappearing. We may need more teachers today, but we recall there was a glut of teachers in the 1970s. What happens then with the supposed Iowa Lakes Community College teaching program in Estherville? If there was a market in Estherville or Emmetsburg or Algona, Buena Vista or Northern Iowa would have tapped it already.

Of course the community colleges will come back with a plan that undercuts the Regents universities and the private colleges if it means more tax revenue.

BVU will give you all the teachers you need if legislators, for once, would fully fund the Iowa Tuition Grant. Briar Cliff and Mount Mercy will have nurses hanging out the hospital windows if you give them the financial aid. You can already get a four-year degree within an hour’s commute from your home, if you really want it.

Collins should direct his attention to making government more efficient, not expanding it, and in so doing increasing our already insufferable property tax load. We do not need to kill another college.

Stupider by the year

Legislators appear to be on track to offering local school districts allowable budget growth of 2-2.25% for next year. The inflation rate remains at 3% or greater, and is likely to rise with Trump tariffs. Again, K-12 schools will lose ground so the legislature can cut income taxes.

Test scores are on the decline. Iowa’s education ranking continues to fall into middling territory. State aid has not kept pace with inflation, generally, since about 2010 regardless of who is in control in the statehouse. Also, public college students shoulder higher costs and debt in a state where prospects are limited. Stupid is as stupid does, Forrest Gump said. Iowa is dumbing itself down.