Iowa GOP lawmakers signal renewed scrutiny of public universities in 2026 session

IOWA CITY — With higher education coming under a more permanent and scrutinizing legislative lens last session through the establishment of a new standing committee in the Iowa House, chair Taylor Collins promised sustained focus on the state’s colleges and universities when the 91st General Assembly reconvenes in Des Moines on Monday.

“My constituents are no longer interested in paying for garbage like the bachelor of science in social justice or gender studies, for example,” Rep. Collins, R-Mediapolis, told The Gazette during a recent interview about the upcoming session. “That money needs to be redeployed to high-demand fields like nursing, teaching, etc.”

Collins said he intends to introduce more than a dozen new study bills this session addressing a range of issues including what qualifies as core curriculum at Iowa’s public universities, how those institutions pick their presidents, and whether Iowa’s 15 community colleges will be allowed to start offering four-year bachelor’s degrees.

“I expect it to be another session filled with healthy debate, really digging into some very important and at times controversial issues,” Collins said.

During the 2025 legislative session that debuted higher education as a new standing committee, Collins introduced a range of bills aimed at limiting tuition increases, directing universities to investigate three-year degrees, and establishing a new Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa — which just held its inaugural event attended by Gov. Kim Reynolds, conservative activist Christopher Rufo, and many of the center’s 26 founding advisory council members from top-tier universities.

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“What we’re expecting out of this center moving forward is just providing a more balanced approach on campus,” Collins said, “Bringing in different speakers and perspectives we’re not hearing right now at the University of Iowa.”

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But House Minority Leader Brian Meyer, D-Des Moines, said he doesn’t know what the center is or plans to do.

“I think the number one concern is that it's cloaked in mystery and may be shutting us out,” he said. “I'm not sure what the value is that it brings to the state of Iowa.”

He also voiced concern over academic freedom and legislative overreach into university classrooms.

“The concern is that we are mucking into something that they don't completely understand. And when I say we, I don't mean we,” Meyer said. “I think that they need to let the regents do their jobs.”

Rep. Timi M. Brown-Powers, D-Waterloo, a ranking member on the higher ed committee, and has expressed concern about curricular proposals likely to emerge this session, according to Meyer.

“I think that you're really, really getting into kind of a censorship role here, and I'm very concerned about that,” he said. “What exactly are we trying to prove or do here? I don't know.”

Gov. Kim Reynolds declined to be interviewed for The Gazette’s legislative preview series.

‘Say the word: diversity’

In recent sessions, conservative lawmakers passed a handful of measures barring Iowa’s regent universities from spending, supporting or staffing diversity, equity and inclusion offices and efforts.

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Republican Sen. Lynn Evans, of Aurelia, who chairs the Senate’s education committee, said that extensive work has the legislature this session now in a position to “just hold accountable those colleges.”

“It’s about making sure that they’re holding to the expectations of the law,” he said.

Referencing an undercover video aired by Fox News over the summer depicting a UI employee admitting her campus is skirting the spirit of the DEI laws, Collins said, “What happened at the University of Iowa over the interim was completely unacceptable.”

“It was the direct result of the president there not making it clear that this policy was in effect.”

Affirming Evans’ focus on DEI enforcement, Collins said he’s hearing a lot of confusion from students expected to take core classes under a “DEI umbrella” — which have been renamed “U.S. Cultures and Communities” at Iowa State and “Understanding Cultural Perspectives” at the University of Iowa.

At Iowa State, qualifying courses include economics of discrimination; magic, witchcraft, and religion; and culture, sex, and gender. UI qualifying courses include printmaking and politics of protest; music and social change; and performing protest: the body, identity, and the image. UNI courses include introduction to LGBTQ studies.

“We need to review the entire core curriculum and get rid of that,” Collins said. “And so to replace that, I'll be introducing legislation to require three credit hours in American history and three credit hours in American government, and really return our core curriculum the true level it was meant to be.”

Admitting “some flexibility is good” when it comes to a bachelor’s education, Evans described the current situation as a “smorgasbord of courses.”

“There is no baseline that everyone comes out with a common bachelor's education,” he said. “We expect there to be a foundation that's been laid when they come out, and that's not what's going on right now.”

Countering the right’s push against DEI, Meyer said, “DEI is a BS issue.”

“It really is. I mean, come on, give me a break,” he said. “I don't even know what they're trying to do there. But I think when you start attacking diversity — go ahead and say the word, diversity — when they start attacking diversity, I think it causes real problems within our society.”

Appropriations

Granted no increase in general education appropriations last session, Iowa’s public universities heading into this term submitted a unique appropriations request that — for the first time in at least a quarter century — didn’t seek any new general education funding.

Instead, the Board of Regents requested a modest $8 million bump distributed to special purposes across its campuses — like $1 million so UNI can continue offering in-state tuition rates to students from contiguous states; $3.6 million for UI efforts to increase physicians in rural Iowa; and $3 million to Iowa State’s agricultural experiment station and cooperative extension services.

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If approved, the state’s total regents appropriations would increase 1.3 percent to nearly $631 million — which is down from decades ago, when the universities relied less on tuition to sustain their general fund budgets.

“The challenge is that the Republicans have been trying to starve the regents for many, many years,” Meyer said. “And I think that the reason that tuition goes up is because we are not spending the amount of money we need to spend on the regents.”

Asserting students shouldn’t be in debt for the rest of their lives for getting a college degree,“ Meyer blamed flagging state support.

“I think that the underfunding of the regents on many levels over the past 40 years has caused a lot of problems and debt with kids going to college,” he said. “I think it really is an appropriation problem.”

But Collins — while leaving the issue of appropriations largely to the budget subcommittee chairs — said the campuses need to refocus themselves on the broader mission of providing an affordable education that boosts Iowa’s economy.

“Generally speaking, when it comes to university appropriations, I think if they demonstrate a trust in their institutions and really are able to bring results to the General Assembly, they would see greater support from the General Assembly,” Collins said, highlighting the tact lawmakers have taken of late to focus appropriations toward specific programs and initiatives.

“We have moved away from the general fund increases because we don't feel like they were going to productive uses,” he said.

But Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, said she’d like to see more legislative trust in Iowa’s public university system.

“I’m concerned, and I know a number of my colleagues are concerned, with some of the majority party’s more heavy-handed approach with respect to the Board of Regents,” she said. “The Board of Regents is created for a reason — to be able to run our state universities. And they ought to be allowed to do that, just like local governments ought to be able to function without constantly having the legislature taking away powers.”

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Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com