Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Students at Iowa’s private colleges and universities were faced with a surprise hike in tuition when they returned to school in January after a state grant aimed at providing them with financial assistance was included in Gov. Chet Culver’s 10 percent across-the-board budget cut.
While lawmakers were able to reinstate some of that funding, the recently passed education budget still cuts $2 million from the fund, and its cash reserve was drained and allocated to other programs.
Some advocates say that while the cuts may help balance the state’s budget in the short run they could cause long-term distress for private colleges, the local communities and their students.
Democratic state Sen. Brian Schoenjahn of Arlington, co-chair of the legislature’s joint Education Appropriations Subcommittee, said lawmakers faced tough decisions but have presented a good budget.The state’s education budget was finally passed last week by both the House and Senate in the closing days of the session.
“We’re doing the best we can for higher education with the cards we’ve been dealt,” Schoenjahn said. “Our priority in the committee was No. 1, what monies affect the most students across the state, and secondly what monies leverage the most federal dollars.”
The committee is charged with designating finances for several state grant and scholarship programs that are essential to tens of thousands of Iowa’s undergraduate students — not only at Iowa’s three regent universities but also other higher education programs within the state. When Culver issued his 10 percent budget cut these programs took a large hit.
For the Iowa Tuition Grant — awarded to resident students who attend Iowa’s private colleges and universities — the cut meant a nearly $4.8 million loss. Students across the state felt the loss directly when they returned for their second semester in January. They discovered that they would owe around $400 extra than they originally owed when they began the school year thanks to the cuts.
The grant, which is awarded on a financial-need basis, is given to some of Iowa’s neediest students, said Gary Steinke, president of the Iowa Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (IAICU).
“It’s the most important financial aid program for needy students that we have,” Steinke said.
According to IAICU, 14,000 students receive the Iowa Tuition Grant each year. The maximum amount for the grant is $4,000, although the award average is around $3,600 per student.
The Iowa Student Aid Commission is charged with issuing the Iowa Tuition Grant, along with more than a dozen other scholarships and grants. In November, after ordering the 10 percent cut,the governor transferred $750,000 in surplus money from the Commission and used it to backfill several scholarship and grant programs, including the Iowa National Guard Educational Assistance Program, the Iowa Vocational-Technical Tuition Grant Program and the All Iowa Opportunity Scholarship Program.
The Iowa Tuition Grant was not among them. The decision left Steinke and school officials across the state outraged.
“I was shocked,” said Jean VanderWert, director of financial aid at Central College. “That has never happened before.”
State Rep. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, co-chair of the Education Appropriation Subcommittee, said the deciding factor for which programs to fund with the surplus cash was how many students would benefit.
“You have to look at where the dollars can impact the most students,” Winckler said. “A few dollars help many more students in some of the other grants than we would have had in the Tuition Grant last year.”
To try to cover some of the losses, lawmakers did manage to increase the Iowa Tuition Grant by 3.58 percent while several other programs were cut. That means that funding for the grant in 2011 stands at $45,118,477 – about $2 million less than the original appropriation at the beginning of 2010, but still more than was available after the governor’s cut.
“It’s a collaborative component in identifying where the greatest need is, but in the last couple years because in many cases we’ve been cutting, we’ve tried to be consistent with the cuts we’ve had to make,” Winckler said. “We’d like to be more systematic, but when you don’t have enough resources, it just doesn’t work out that way.”
Iowa’s more than 30 private colleges educate about 31,600 resident students. The three state universities are home to some 48,000 in-state students.
According to Kathleen Gannon of the IAICU, insuring those students who attend private colleges can afford their education is vital to the health of the state in the long run, because a higher percentage stay in Iowa after they graduate. One reason for this, Gannon said, is because Iowa’s private colleges and universities are dispersed in cities across the state, while the regent universities are concentrated in three cities. Often times that provides students at private schools with better opportunities to find internships, which in many instances can lead to full time jobs that keep students living in the state.
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