In the past several legislative sessions, Iowa’s 15 community colleges have become the fabled red-headed stepchild of the state’s public education system. With a little more flexibility in the fiscal 2006 spending, that should change.

Community colleges play an increasingly vital role in Iowa, supplying businesses with skilled workers in burgeoning fields like biotechnology and information technology, but also responding to worker shortages in established fields, such as health care. At least, that’s their intent. Job-training funding cuts and a failure by the Legislature since 1995 to fund the community colleges on growth have compromised their ability to respond to the needs of business. Des Moines Area Community College, for example, has a two-year waiting list for students interested in enrolling in its nursing program at a time when nearly 10 percent of registered nurse positions in Iowa remain vacant.

With the cost of a college education nearing $50,000 at the state’s Regents institutions and nearly $73,000 at private colleges, many students are choosing to take advantage of Iowa’s comparatively less expensive community college systems for their core requirements. Though still a bargain given the high quality of the programming, Iowa’s community colleges have some the highest tuition rates in the country among similarly structured institutions, and advocates of the system fear it’s being priced out of the market.

Tuition rates have increased 38.5 percent since fiscal year 2000 as a result of state policy that has resulted in community colleges receiving less state aid and local property-tax support than they did in 1990. Money was tight, and the Legislature said in effect that if community colleges want to expand, they’d have to raise their tuition. Lawmakers have even refused to give locally elected and accountable boards of trustees the authority to levy more tax money to support operations. Those levies have been capped at 20¼ cents per $1,000 taxable valuation since 1965, the year Iowa’s community college system was created. At the time, local support funded nearly 25 percent of community college operations; today, it’s less than 6 percent.

Community college enrollments have soared in spite of ill-advised policy decisions. Though still a bargain, community college tuition is 71.3 percent, about $1,000, above the national average. That runs counter to the mission of community colleges to make higher education at an affordable price accessible to all Iowans.

It’s time to reverse the trend. Somewhere in the $5 billion available for appropriations, legislators should be able to find the additional $7.8 million community colleges are seeking.