Hunter
03/10/24
A new State Board of Regents and Student Clearinghouse report says that Iowa has the highest six-year graduation rate across its public universities in the country.
The Gazette reports that students who started at a public four-year university in the state and earned a degree at any college or university — even if it wasn’t the one they started at — Iowa again has the highest rate nationally at 82 percent.
The three universities….the University of Iowa, Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa…continue to work on improving that number through stronger retention of students as they complete their college studies.
The Regents say about half of its university graduates who get full-time jobs are still working in Iowa 10 years after graduation. The University of Iowa is the lowest of the three with 38 percent of their graduates still working in the state a decade after graduation.
The numbers are troubling for employers.
The Gazette says a 2023 Workforce Needs Assessment for Iowa — produced by Iowa Workforce Development — found “finding qualified job candidates” as the top workforce challenge, according to over 11,000 employers who responded. A close second challenge was “lack of applicants.” And 26 percent of the respondents reported employee retirements within the next two years as a concern.