Vanessa Miller

If Iowa’s 15 community colleges are allowed to start offering four-year bachelor’s degrees — as Republican lawmakers have said is necessary and likely to happen — some of Iowa’s 27 private colleges and universities will shutter.

Transit systems across Iowa recently landed $77.2 million in Federal Transit Administration grant funding, including $20.8 million to make the University of Iowa and Iowa State University bus systems more environmentally-friendly.

Among nearly two dozen higher education-related study bills dropped in the first week of the new legislative session is one looking to reshape the Board of Regents — which for more than a century has governed Iowa’s three public universities.

At the center of a legislative proposal to require undergraduate students at Iowa’s public universities to take courses on American history and American government is the question of what role lawmakers should have in a public university classroom.

Two years after changing Iowa Code to strip presidential-selection power from members of a university community, Republican legislators want to rewrite that amendment to clarify their intentions -- after a recent Iowa State University search concerned some lawmakers.

“This was not a priority we brought to the Legislature,” Emily Shields, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy association Community Colleges for Iowa, told the House Higher Education Committee on Wednesday. “But then we studied it for a year, and the need is undeniable.”

The State of Iowa has agreed to pay $600,000 to a Peosta woman who accidentally shot herself in the leg during an August 2015 firearms training at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy.

Countering a bill the Iowa Department of Administrative Services prefiled in December to eliminate the mandate in Iowa Code that it maintain a historical resource center in Iowa City, a bi-partisan group of lawmakers Tuesday introduced a measure to ensure historical centers remain staffed and open in both Des Moines and Iowa City.

University of Iowa Health Care has agreed to a $3.5 million settlement with the family of an infant who — following days of intense labor a decade ago — was born with brain damage and physical impairment, making her “permanently dependent upon others for her care.”

A deal the State of Iowa reached with the University of Iowa last month to maintain public access to historical society documents in Iowa City — as required by Iowa Code — is only in place for six months, if not fewer, helping the state to comply with Iowa law just long enough to change it.

With higher education coming under a more permanent and scrutinizing legislative gaze last session with 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 on Monday.

The University of Iowa’s Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology is not aligned with policy and best practices in how it administers and monitors grants, accounts for spending, and handles cash, according to an audit that found “unacceptable weaknesses” that could expose the institution to “unacceptable risks or liability if not corrected.”

The Iowa Department of Administrative Services has determined that it did not violate the portion of state code requiring it to “maintain research centers in Des Moines and Iowa City” when it closed the Iowa City Research Library on Dec. 31.

Two years after the U.S. Department of Education botched its rollout of a new “Free Application for Federal Student Aid” meant to grow participation by simplifying the process, the revised FAFSA seems to be doing its job — including in Iowa.

Twenty years ago, most undergraduate credit hours at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and University of Northern Iowa were taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty -- topping 55 percent at UI, 56 percent at ISU, and 72 percent at UNI.