(Iowa Capital Dispatch) Representatives of Iowa’s private colleges pushed back Tuesday against the narrative that baccalaureate degrees are sorely needed at community colleges, with lawmakers responding that something must change.
A House higher education subcommittee moved House Study Bill 533 to committee after hearing from private and community college leaders. The bill would authorize the state’s community colleges to offer bachelor’s degree programs, as long as they correspond with high-demand, unmet workforce needs.
Higher Education Committee Chair Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, chaired the subcommittee and was joined by Rep. John Wills, R-Spirit Lake, and Rep. Timi Brown-Powers, D-Waterloo. Community Colleges for Iowa released reports last year detailing the potential pros and cons of adding bachelor’s degree programs to community college offerings and presented findings to the committee during its first meeting of the 2026 session.
Gary Steinke, president of the Iowa Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, told the subcommittee that if this bill passes, some of Iowa’s private colleges would close. If one of these entities does close, he said, it’s not just a bunch of buildings shutting down, but also the shutdown of jobs, health care and more for the community where it is housed.
“Private enterprise cannot compete with tax-supported institutions, entities, stores, businesses, or anything else,” Steinke said. “It can’t happen and the outcome will be bad, and that makes me very sad.”
Steinke said he didn’t come to the meeting to “chastise” Iowa’s community colleges, as “they do great work,” but he rejected the existence of education deserts and said he’s never seen numbers on underserved students in different geographic areas of the state. Private institutions “spend an unbelievable amount of time” trying to learn students’ wants and needs, he said.
Brian Lenzmeier, president of Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, said the private university has been serving students on community college campuses for just over 50 years. They’ve transitioned away from offering face-to-face instruction at most of the colleges in recent years not because they wanted to, he said, but because they were losing students to online institutions like Southern New Hampshire University or the University of Phoenix.
Lenzmeier pointed out one recent partnership announced by Hawkeye Community College in November, which entered into an agreement with Arizona State University. This partnership was not an investment in the state, he said, and he believes there isn’t a big market for face-to-face bachelor’s degrees at community colleges.
Colleges like Eastern Iowa Community Colleges and Iowa Central have private colleges close to them or their satellite locations, he said, offering bachelor’s degrees at no cost to the taxpayer. Iowans deserve to know what the total cost of implementation is going to be, Steinke said, as well as how many institutions will be involved and if there will be any issues with accreditation or articulation agreements.
Jim Obradovich, speaking on behalf of Faith Baptist Bible College in Ankeny, said during the meeting he shares Steinke’s concern over geography, as the college’s two biggest programs are teaching/education and nursing. If this bill were to pass, he said it would allow a community college located a few miles away to compete with these programs — “the ones they’ve invested a great deal in.”
“We just kind of struggle a little bit to see how allowing community colleges to offer four-year baccalaureate degrees is our best use of those finite education dollars we have in the state,” Obradovich said.
Community Colleges for Iowa Executive Director Emily Shields said private colleges concerned about these questions should refer to the reports released last year, which include definitions of education deserts and other data. She added she believes community colleges have talked to their students and understand accreditation policies, “and we believe there’s both a need and an opportunity.”
“We have no desire to compete with the private colleges or put any of them out of business,” Shields said. “In the 24 states where this has happened, no private colleges have closed because community colleges are offering bachelor’s degrees.”
No more status quo
Wills said during the subcommittee meeting he was a nontraditional student who decided to attend Iowa Lakes Community College to start and Northwestern College to finish his higher education. At the time, he would have chosen to attend the private university even if Iowa Lakes offered bachelor’s degrees, but that wouldn’t be the case now with time and other constraints.
Community colleges will target the students who don’t have different higher education options available to them, he said, and he’s saying “yes” to the bill to get at that population.
“This has all kinds of different aspects and I think it’s a great idea, and I think that we should do it,” Wills said.
Brown-Powers has two private colleges, one public university and one community college in her district, she said, and their feelings toward the legislation are mixed. She feels for students who are “code bound,” but she said she’s hesitant to support the bill because there is no funding mechanism included and she’s wary of rumors of barring certain community colleges from inclusion in the legislation.
After hearing feedback from the public and his fellow lawmakers, Collins said he understands where the opposition is coming from but “the status quo is not an option.” Collins said he’s open to the conversation of potentially limiting the scope of the bill, but those who want to see limitations implemented must “be willing to come up to the table and negotiate.”
Bringing bachelor’s degrees to community colleges is not a hypothetical, with nearly half of U.S. states committing to the idea in some form, he said, and a single mom working as an RN in Burlington and a paraeducator in Council Bluffs deserve to have these opportunities.
“I am willing to look at these additional guardrails, but you have to bring them to me,” Collins said. “Until then, we will continue to advance this bill. In fact, we will be advancing this bill out of committee next week at the very latest.”
Photo: Representatives from Iowa’s private and community colleges clashed Tuesday over a bill to allow community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees. (Photo by Brooklyn Draisey/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
