For too long, higher education in Iowa has drifted from its core mission: preparing a highly skilled workforce and anchoring talent in our communities. This next legislative session, we have a clear opportunity to bring reform by allowing community colleges to offer a limited number of bachelor’s degrees supporting students going into high demand fields.

Many Iowa students don’t lack ambition or ability; they lack access. In rural Iowa, the nearest university may be hours away. Working adults and parents can’t uproot their lives for distant campuses, leaving hardworking Iowans shut out of completing their degree. Rural Iowa deserves better.

This isn’t going to turn a community college into a liberal arts college. Instead, it is an opportunity for a targeted expansion of their workforce-focused mission by allowing bachelor’s degree programs in high-demand fields like nursing, education, or business. Twenty four other states have already proven this works – community colleges offering targeted, non-duplicative degrees that complement, rather than compete with our existing four year colleges and universities.

When students can stay in their hometowns to finish their degree, more stay to build careers there, boosting our rural communities. Iowa has a workforce crisis with fewer credentialed workers and rising workforce demands. We can’t wait, and we can’t keep doing the same things expecting different results.

Over the last year the House Higher Education Committee pushed reforms to strip away ideological distractions on campuses and refocus Iowa’s public universities on merit, excellence, and workforce alignment. This proposal extends that vision.

Iowa’s community colleges, with deep roots in small towns across the state, are positioned to deliver these new pathways. We can restore higher education’s mission by better serving students and strengthening our rural communities. That is why this next legislative session, I will be introducing legislation to authorize community college bachelor’s degrees to address local workforce needs. It’s time to allow our community colleges to reach students where they are.

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Rep. Taylor Collins serves as Chair of the House Committee on Higher Education. He lives in Mediapolis and represents Iowa House District 95, which includes all of Louisa County, and large parts of Des Moines, Henry, and Muscatine Counties. Collins is serving his second term in the Iowa House.