Public Universities in Iowa

Chapanye

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Is anyone familiar with the reason why the state of Iowa only has three state universities, while states like Minnesota and Missouri have over a dozen and less-populous states like Nebraska and South Dakota have 5 or 6? A friend from out of state asked me and I didn't have a good answer for him.
 
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VeloClone

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Is anyone familiar with the reason why the state of Iowa only has three state universities, while states like Minnesota and Missouri have over a dozen and less-populous states like Nebraska and South Dakota have 5 or 6? A friend from out of state asked me and I didn't have a good answer for him.
Every state you mentioned is larger in area than Iowa. Perhaps proximity to a university is part of the issue.
 

cyfan21

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Are you counting community colleges?

Also, all those states you talked about are all tied into the main state university, ie UN Omaha, UN Lincoln, UM Duluth, UM st paul, UW Madison, white water, etc...
 
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Entropy

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I think it has a lot to do with the number of established privates that are around. There are a ton in Iowa, especially compared to WI which has more public institutions.

Well established community colleges also affect that number.
 

Max57

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Protectionist policies regarding private colleges ... of which Iowa has many.

This is actually a guess, I have no facts to back up my assertion.
 

BoxsterCy

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Is anyone familiar with the reason why the state of Iowa only has three state universities, while states like Minnesota and Missouri have over a dozen and less-populous states like Nebraska and South Dakota have 5 or 6? A friend from out of state asked me and I didn't have a good answer for him.

I think the easy answer is we have three major sized universities with connected 2-year community colleges and not one or two and than a whole slew of small four year universities. How many states the population of Iowa have three universities as large as Iowa's three? Iowa has a whole slew of community colleges with options for four year degree via transfer to the Big Three. Seems good to me. Kinda like it better than a four years school in every city needing to be supported as full four year program colleges. Besides, who would want a degree from the University of Iowa Fort Dodge or the I-State University of Mason City? :rolleyes:
 
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Chapanye

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I think the easy answer is we have three major sized universities with connected 2-year community colleges and not one or two and than a whole slew of small four year universities. How many states the population of Iowa have three universities as large as Iowa's three? Iowa has a whole slew of community colleges with options for four year degree via transfer to the Big Three. Seems good to me. Kinda like it better than a four years school in every city needing to be supported as full four year program colleges. Besides, who would want a degree from the University of Iowa Fort Dodge or the I-State University of Mason City? :rolleyes:

I don't disagree at all, was just curious.
With regard to schools like UM-Duluth or UW-Whitewater, how closely are they really affiliated with the "primary" university in their states? For all intents and purposes, they seem to have distinct programs, specialties and identities (athletics)
 

OWLCITYCYFAN

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I think it has a lot to do with the number of established privates that are around. There are a ton in Iowa, especially compared to WI which has more public institutions.

That was my initial inclination as well, but it doesn't withstand a quick internet search:
Wisconsin - 24 significant privates;
Minnesota - 17 significant privates;
Iowa - 24 significant privates;
 

Entropy

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That was my initial inclination as well, but it doesn't withstand a quick internet search:
Wisconsin - 24 significant privates;
Minnesota - 17 significant privates;
Iowa - 24 significant privates;

If you look at it on a per capita basis, WI has almost twice the population of IA (5.8 million vs 3.1 million). That's a lot of private institutions for a significantly smaller population base.
 
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weR138

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Is anyone familiar with the reason why the state of Iowa only has three state universities, while states like Minnesota and Missouri have over a dozen and less-populous states like Nebraska and South Dakota have 5 or 6? A friend from out of state asked me and I didn't have a good answer for him.
My guess is that Iowa is sacrificing convenience for efficiency?

So, for example Nebraska has UNL, UNO & UNK and then also three state colleges. So, six locations.

I don't really know, though...
 

weR138

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I don't disagree at all, was just curious.
With regard to schools like UM-Duluth or UW-Whitewater, how closely are they really affiliated with the "primary" university in their states? For all intents and purposes, they seem to have distinct programs, specialties and identities (athletics)
But this is only true for undergraduate and non-professional programs, right? The Law School and Medical School are in Minneapolis as are the architecture dept. and more specialized engineering. Seems like you can get your undergrad closer to home and then come to the mothership for grad school. So in that sense the state is trying to reach who they serve (the citizens) better?
 

cyfan21

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I don't disagree at all, was just curious.
With regard to schools like UM-Duluth or UW-Whitewater, how closely are they really affiliated with the "primary" university in their states? For all intents and purposes, they seem to have distinct programs, specialties and identities (athletics)
UM-Duluth and UW-Whitewater I believe would get the same research grants and possibly a bigger piece of the state funding pie being tied in with the main university campuses. Compared to UNI, which is getting gutted with state funding (ie Price student ed school and Northern Iowa University High School).

Again, this is my guess so by no means is it what really happens.
 

MK24Cy

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I went to UW-LaCrosse for a year and outside of an engineering partnership they had with a few different schools due to not offering that degree, there was no affiliation to UW-Madison. The UW, UMN, and UN schools are no more affiliated than Iowa and Iowa State, they just use that standard naming convention.
 
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WooBadger18

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I'm a Wisconsin resident and UW-Madison grad, so I was only looking at the numbers for Iowa and Wisconsin, but I did the math, and there isn't that much of a difference between Iowa and Wisconsin in the percentage of the population who are undergrads at a public university. 2.5% of Wisconsin residents and 2% of Iowa residents are undergrads at a public university. Wisconsin just has more people.

I think it makes even more sense when you look at the nature of the universities and the states' geography. Iowa chose to have a separate land grant institution. Wisconsin didn't; the University of Wisconsin is the land-grant school. But now you're down a university and those students have to go somewhere, and they do: to the smaller universities.

Plus, Wisconsin is more remote and rugged than Iowa. While it's easy to get around the state now, it probably wasn't 50-100 years ago. So it makes sense that you would put a lot of smaller schools around the state. And those schools were specialized. Most of them (Eau Claire, La Crosse, Whitewater, Superior, River Falls, Oshkosh, Milwaukee, and Stevens Point) were normal schools. Stout was an engineering school. Platteville is the result of a merger between a normal school and engineering school, and Parkside and Green Bay were two-year institutions which grew into four-year institutions.

So it's not like Wisconsin has 12 Iowa States and University of Iowas. It has one combined Iowa State/University of Iowa and 11 UNIs
 

cyclonestate

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I don't know if this is still true, but several years ago I read that Iowa ranked 2nd in the nation in terms of the number of 4-year colleges per capita. Way too many private!

It's also frustrating that when Iowa doesn't have enough money to adequately support its 3 public universities, our state manages to find $50 million/year to support the PRIVATE colleges in the form of the Iowa Tuition Grant. Without this welfare money, at least several of the privates would go out of business.

Iowa is the only state in the nation that does not have a state funded program to provide tuition assistance to needy students who wish to attend a PUBLIC university.