Neetu Arnold, a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute, gave a presentation to the House Higher Education Committee about the state’s public university system. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Iowa lawmakers should focus on the bigger picture of higher education and the problems it finds there in order to ensure a better use of taxpayer dollars and return-on-investment for the state, a policy analyst said Wednesday.
Members of the House Higher Education Committee listened to a presentation by Manhattan Institute policy analyst Neetu Arnold, who discussed the problems of higher education in Iowa and how the Legislature can take a more active role in overseeing university offerings and operations.
The Manhattan Institute is a policy think tank and urban policy magazine publisher described by the Center for Justice & Democracy at New York Law School as “extremely conservative” and “corporate-funded.”
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Using a phrase committee chair Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, has pulled out before, Arnold said higher education in the U.S. is having a “crisis of confidence” that the public is becoming increasingly aware of. Arnold cited Gallup data indicating a growing lack of confidence in higher education and its future and said intervention from state lawmakers on the issues they’re experiencing could serve as a model for other states looking to review their higher education systems.
“The growing distrust of higher education institutions derives from political agendas, mission drift and ever-increasing costs for public universities,” Arnold said. “When things get out of hand, it falls upon the Legislature to address the fundamental issues.”
Addressing politics and ideologies in higher education
While Arnold didn’t touch on diversity, equity and inclusion specifically in her presentation, she spoke frequently about “political capture” as well as ideologies making their way onto campus.
She said many universities’ responses to the 2016 election, the adoption of “racial justice initiatives” and a lack of condemnation of Hamas after it attacked Israel on Oct. 7 have caused people to have a more negative view of higher education. No examples were given of these actions from Iowa’s universities.
“Public universities in Iowa are no exception to pushing students into accepting progressive views and ideas as unquestionable truth,” Arnold said.
Arnold used the University of Iowa’s bachelor’s degree in social justice, which the university has announced it is planning to discontinue, as well a course on building DEI skills at Iowa State University and social justice in children’s books at the University of Northern Iowa as examples of her point.
Iowa’s public universities and community colleges have reviewed their diversity, equity and inclusion practices on campus at the prompting of the Legislature, resulting in few changes in community colleges and major changes for four-year universities.
Not all areas of Iowa’s universities are equally in “the weeds of politics,” but those that are, which Arnold said included gender studies, social work and theatre, are more likely to have “activist-bent courses.”
Universities have also “lost focus” when it comes to their missions and what sort of future they should help students achieve, Arnold said.
Another term Arnold shared with Collins was return on investment, which she defined as the “additional income you earn from having the degree, net of the cost you pay to get the degree.” Most college programs have a positive ROI, which is a good thing, Arnold said, but it’s bad to have a low ROI and “appalling” to see a negative one.
Each of the universities have various performing arts majors with a negative ROI, according to the data Arnold cited, and religious studies were on the list for ISU and UNI as well as degree programs in various sciences and language and literature. Some of these programs are “well known to suffer from ideological capture,” Arnold said, using anthropology, gender studies and social work as examples.
While ROI shouldn’t be the only metric to determine which academic programs have worth, Arnold said lawmakers should be concerned with those that are negative. By virtue of them being offered, Arnold said the state government is signaling to students and families that these are good programs, when in reality they could leave students in a worse financial situation after they graduate.
“I recommend that the state target programs with negative ROI, after all, these programs are doing nothing but making students’ lives financially worse over the long run,” Arnold said. “What I recommend against is targeting specific courses or banning certain language for faculty.”
House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, asked Arnold about what evidence Arnold has seen to prove that some of the majors with a negative ROI are known for their political bias, to which Arnold responded she didn’t have the information readily available but would follow up with it.
“It’s a pretty broad statement to say that all of these programs, including dance and English, are well known for their political bias,” Konfrst said.
Costs and the need for state oversight
Arnold also touched on the cost of higher education in her presentation, saying from 1984 to the early 2020s, tuition at Iowa’s public universities has risen by 190% but household incomes have only increased by 40%, creating a large affordability gap. One response Arnold said she gets to this information is that the state then needs to increase its support for public higher education, but she said that method would work like “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” as costs will still continue to grow in general.
Universities are also spending more than ever before, Arnold said, so it’s important for the Legislature to look deeply into where funds are going and figure out where cuts could be made, like in administrative spending. The primary goal of a university is to provide its students with a quality education, Arnold said, and its secondary purpose is to share knowledge, but much of the spending in student services, institutional support in other areas do not support these missions.
Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, asked whether Arnold’s return on investment metrics factor in the percentage of total higher education funding made up by state appropriations, as over the past decades state funding has gone from making up more than 60% of higher education funding to less than one-third. Arnold said she would need to go back over her research and get back to him.
“If we’re saying we have oversight, well, oversight means that we should be the primary funder of our state schools, and if we’re less than 30 percent is our role to control the schools 100 percent,” Jacoby said.
In order to start tackling the issues the Legislature sees in higher education, Arnold said they should start with audits of university programs to see where money may be being wasted in order to help the Iowa Board of Regents recommend cuts or closures. Florida is a state Iowa could look to for methods of scrutinizing higher education, as Arnold said the state is also conducting an audit of certain programs.
If they feel it is necessary, Arnold said lawmakers could also try and change Iowa code to explicitly allow the Legislature to “enact reforms” on college campuses by adding or doing away with departments. Currently, the Iowa of Board of Regents holds that authority, with members appointed by the governor.
While the state is well-suited to making “big picture changes” for higher education, Arnold said lawmakers should stay out of the more granular courses and day-to-day activities of universities. Doing this work will be difficult, she said, but it could help bring more trust back to Iowa’s colleges and universities.
When Collins asked Arnold the “philosophical question” of whether the state is obligated to fund every program at its universities, Arnold said no, if the state believes that it isn’t necessary based on educational, intellectual and financial benefits.
“Public funds equals public accountability,” Arnold said.
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