(Radio Iowa) -Community colleges in Estherville, Mason City and Sheldon have been notified they’re among 150 U.S. community colleges that can compete for what a former president has called the “Oscar” for achievement and student performance. The Aspen Institute’s one-million dollar prize is handed out once every two years to just one of the country’s more than one-thousand community college. Robert Leifeld, Iowa Lakes Community College vice president for administration, says the Aspen Institute evaluated publicly available data to come up with its list of 150 schools.

“Student retention, the completion, transfer and equitable rates as far as those of low income and students of color — those are the key areas they look at when they did the initial round of selecting the institutions,” he says.
North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City and Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon are the other two Iowa colleges on the list. Leifield says the next step is to fill out an official application. It’s due in early December and the Aspen Institute will then select 10 finalists.

“Of the 10 finalists, then there’s an on-site visit and that will be about in the fall of 2022,” he says. “Then they’ll look at more information and my understanding that information would include employment and earnings data and insight about promising practices that the institution is working on, pursuing or implemented.” The next Aspen Institute Prize for Community College Excellence will be awarded in early 2023. Three community colleges in Florida and one in California have been recognized since the award was established. Leifeld says it’s an acknowledgement that a community college is accomplishing its mission.

“That they’re serving students, they’re helping students and the students are reaching their goals,” he says. The Aspen Institute is an international non-profit that hosts an annual Ideas Festival that draws well-known participants like former presidents, Supreme Court justices and leaders from other countries.

(Radio Iowa) – While many Iowans will keep up the tradition of Black Friday shopping today, it’s predicted even more bargain hunters will be out in force tomorrow for Small Business Saturday. Jayne Armstrong, director of the U-S Small Business Administration’s Iowa District Office, says when you buy an item at a brick-and-mortar store, there’s no worry about it being delayed or lost during the shipping process.

“It’s a great reason to get out and buy from our local businesses, from artisans,” Armstrong says. “There are so many small businesses that need the help and could really use a shot in the arm after everything they’ve been through the last two years.” An economist predicts year-end holiday sales in Iowa will be up ten-percent compared to last year, and it’s easy to believe as so many people were still staying home in 2020 due to the pandemic. Armstrong says COVID-19 may still be keeping some Iowa shoppers from in-person buying, but far fewer than a year ago.

“A lot of small businesses, too, during the pandemic made a shift and they pivoted to look at other revenue streams and they put a lot of products online,” Armstrong says, “so if somebody is uncomfortable with that, they can still support their local small business community by looking online.” Sales during the final weeks of the year may often mean the difference between turning a profit and ending the year in red ink, so Armstrong urges Iowans to “Be Loyal, Buy Local.”

“One thing for people to think about for the holiday season is not just buying products, but buying gift certificates and supporting local restaurants and nonprofits,” Armstrong says. “Everybody was hit hard during the pandemic and it’s going to take all of us coming together to get them through this final stretch of the recovery.” While the pandemic spelled the end for some Iowa businesses, she says it’s been welcome news to see so many new small business start-ups in Iowa succeed in 2021. Armstrong says 97-percent of the businesses in Iowa are small businesses.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Farm Bureau economist, Sam Funk, doesn’t expect all the logistics and other issues to be sorted out and bring food prices down as we move into a new year. “You know I really doubt that the prices are going to decrease going into the new year. I really think it’s going to be a longer-term inflationary pressure that we’re still going to feel,” Funk says. Fertilizer prices have been rising — and he says the cost of all other inputs used by farmers are unlikely to drop. “If you think about just increasing the price of fertilizer for our corn and soybean fields even across Iowa — you’ve got to think that that’s probably going to push more and more areas even outside of Iowa or lower productivity acres potentially in the state, they are going to take a hit because they won’t be able to afford to put fertilizer on those areas. We may take back some of that corn acreage or soybean acres,” according to Funk.

“And frankly, with the demand, we’ve seen across the world, and people want to eat better. We will probably see some more inflationary pressure,” Funk says. “Federal policies, if we have any more of these programs out through there, you could see additional dollars that will make it potentially a higher amount of pressure for inflation to go up yet.” Higher energy prices also figure into the equation. “We’ll probably actually see more pressure because we’ll see somewhat of a decrease in the amount of productivity that we can get out of the ground because we’ve got higher energy prices that just won’t be counteracted,” he says.

He says those issues will go along with the logistical problems the country is facing in getting the inputs in and the products out.