After much give and take during the just concluded legislative session, Iowa’s lawmakers moved to do the right thing for the state’s community colleges.

The lawmakers approved $7.5 million in additional state money for those colleges for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

But getting that funding to the colleges wasn’t always a sure thing. The House of Representatives had proposed $8 million in additional money for the 15 community colleges. Initially, the Senate and Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed no new money for the colleges.

On May 3, The Messenger called on the governor and the Senate to accept the $8 million increase proposed by the House. When all the budget negotiations were finally over, the compromise figure of $7.5 million was approved.

We like to give credit where credit is due, so today we are thanking the representatives, the senators and Reynolds for providing this essential increase in funding.

The community colleges are a good deal for state taxpayers and they train people who by and large stay in the state.

The Regents institutions – University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa – together educate about 65,000 students.

To help them do that, under the state’s 2024-2025 budget the universities receive about $600 million.

The community colleges educate about 123,000 students.

To help them do that, they are receiving $235.8 million from the state’s 2024-2025 budget.

So the community colleges educate about twice as many students for less than half the cost to the taxpayers.

Community college graduates tend to stay in Iowa and fill key jobs in factories, health care facilities and just about every other business and industry.

About 90 percent of community college graduates stay in Iowa.

About 70 percent of Iowa Central Community College graduates not only stay in Iowa, they stay right in Webster County and the surrounding eight counties.

We have yet to see any figures from the Regents institutions showing that so many of their graduates stick around Iowa.

A state investment in community colleges truly is using Iowa tax dollars to train Iowans.

Therefore, it just made sense to give the community colleges the extra $7.5 million.

We are grateful that this increase was approved. We give credit to the elected officials, including state Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R-Fort Dodge; state Rep. Ann Meyer, R-Fort Dodge; and state Rep. Mike Sexton, R-Rockwell City; who made it happen.