State
Many bills from the past legislative session took effect on July 1, 2025.
New Trustees and other elected officials are now required to take open meetings training within 90 days of being elected or appointed to office. The Iowa Public Information Board will be offering this training quarterly. We will share that schedule when it becomes available. Fines were also increased for open meetings violations.
Other updates from the past session are available in our Legislative Summary Report.
On July 9, 2025, the State of Iowa opened its application window for NOFA #9, which is a grant opportunity that includes $400,000,000 to provide broadband service to unserved and underserved locations across Iowa and Community Anchor Institutions. The application window will remain open through July 30, 2025 at 5:00 PM CDT. All application materials and a map of eligible locations can be found on the NOFA #009 webpage.
Federal
The budget reconciliation bill known the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed Congress and was signed by President Trump. In all, the bill was largely positive for community colleges. Pell was funded, the family farm exemption was restored, Workforce Pell was created, and proposed changes to Pell eligibility in earlier versions were ultimately not adopted. See full bill summaries from AACC and ACCT.
On June 30, the administration announced a pause on previously awarded funds, including Adult Education and Family Literacy Act grants. These grants fund important work at our colleges that cannot continue unless the pause is ended soon. We are working with our congressional delegation to help resolve this issue as soon as possible.
Additionally, the administration released a letter on their interpretation that all education programs (including adult literacy, Perkins CTE, etc) are considered a “public benefit” and therefore non-citizens are not eligible to receive them. They are expecting citizenship verification processes to be put into place for these programs. We are discussing and awaiting further guidance.