Iowa community colleges, private college network enter agreement to streamline transfer process
Iowa’s 15 community colleges have entered into an admission agreement with the Iowa Private Transfer Collaborative (IPTC), a group of 19 private, nonprofit colleges and universities across the state. The Iowa Private Transfer Guarantee admission agreement will provide Iowa community college and qualifying high school students guaranteed admission to any IPTC member college, a news release said. The presidents of Iowa’s community colleges met Sept. 25 in Des Moines to approve the agreement. The IPTC received a $350,000 grant to support this initiative from the Arthur Vining Davis and Teagle Foundations. The release said the funding will be used to help community colleges and four-year institutions ensure seamless transfer of academic credits and place a greater emphasis on the retention rate of transfer students. The grant will also be used to help private institutions adopt existing statewide transfer majors and redevelop iowaprivatecolleges.org to centralize student transfer information for private colleges and universities. The two nonprofit organizations facilitating distribution of the grant money are the Iowa Higher Education Loan Authority and the Iowa Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.