The Public Interest Institute, an Iowa-based organization, offers some praise and criticisms of higher education in the state.

Its recent policy report, Iowa Higher Education's Third Way (PDF), says that even though Iowa taxpayers keep putting more and more money into their higher education system, student tuition keeps soaring. John Hendrickson, the report's author, suggests that colleges adopt transparency and other reforms, and counsels lawmakers from expanding financial aid further into the middle class and beyond. On the other hand, he praises the development of tax-sheltered plans such as the 529, which allow for parents to save for their children's college education.

Taxpayers get some relief (though not as much as they should) from community (two-year) colleges. These institutions often have to clean up after the academic mess left by high schools: nearly three out of every four seniors in the class of 2007 failed to meet benchmarks for reading, writing, English and mathematics.

On the other hand, the Hendrickson praises the 2+2 system, which helps students spend their first two years at a community college before transferring to the University of Iowa.