(Radio Iowa) – The presidents of the three state universities held a general discussion their budgets for the next fiscal year Wednesday during a meeting with the State Board of Regents. University of Northern Iowa president Mark Nook says the new nursing program is one area they are trying to help the state. “The nursing program officially launches this fall we have 30 students admitted to that program, the first cohort the initial cohort of nursing students,” he says, “and in the spring we will admit another 48 students into a cohort.” He says they have other areas where they are also focusing on the need for workers in the state.

“We’ll also be making investments in the material science engineering and material science engineering technology programs. Both of these are essential for Iowa’s manufacturing workforce needs,” Nook says. U-N-I has a general operating budget of around 174 million dollars, which is a four percent increase from the previous year. Iowa State University president Wendy Wintersteen talked about the two-point-eight million dollars in additional funding the school received to develop a future ready workforce.”It’s allowed us to invest in 26 faculty and staff who are supporting six initiatives to grow high demand STEM programs that meet the state’s workforce needs and produce innovative solutions for business and industry,” Wintersteen says. She  highlighted one area where they will prepare students to use new technology:

“New Faculty in computer science are equipping students to leverage the benefits of A-I in areas such as automated driving systems, robotics, cybersecurity, data visualization, and machine learning,” she says. I-S-U’s general fund budget increase two-point-five percent from the previous fiscal year to nearly 726 million dollars. University of Iowa president Barbara Wilson talked about the school’s efforts to be efficient. “We spend 11 cents of every dollar on administration and 89 cents of every dollar on instruction,” Wilson says. “And just to give you a sense of what that looks like among our Big Ten peers that’s eight cents lower than the Big Ten average on administrative spending.” Wilson says that allows the university to put more into educating students. Wilson also talked about the retention rate for new students.

“We started the strategic plan at 88 percent in F-Y 2020, and when the plan started, we we were inching our way up and we’re now at 89-point-three percent. Our five year goal was 90 percent, and I suspect we’re going to get there before the five years, and so we’re challenging each other to think about what our new metric should be,” Wilson says. The University of Iowa’s general operating budget also increased by two-point-five percent to nearly 823 million dollars.

The Regents requested a state funding increase of 14-point-eight million dollars, but the Iowa Legislature approved only a 12-point-three million dollar increase, and the Board raised tuition at the U-I and I-S-U by three percent. U-N-I’s tuition was increased by two percent.