CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) — Forbes handed out grades to private colleges across the country, but some are saying the report card got it wrong.

“The C grade, quite frankly, is not reflective of our current strength,” said Todd Olson, Mount Mercy University president. “I approach the Forbes rating with interest, with respect, but not with a sense that it is the final correct answer on every school. I think that it’s one way of looking.”

Olson leads an institution in transition. Mount Mercy is merging with St. Ambrose University, a move Olson said has been in the works for three years.

Before the merger, Mount Mercy had a $43 million endowment, had operated at a deficit for two of the last 10 years and had cut staff and programming.

Merger aims to strengthen financial position

“We were setting up a responsible, but frankly, fairly challenging road ahead that was constrained in a variety of ways,” Olson said. “We had made moves to make sure we were on a track that was sustainable, but frankly, this track we’re on now with St. Ambrose enables us to be much more innovative and forward-looking.”

Olson said the financial aspect of the merger with St. Ambrose is complete and is expected to become final with U.S. Department of Education approval this fall.

With a combined endowment exceeding $300 million, Olson said the merger makes Mount Mercy stronger than Forbes’ C grade indicates.

“This is a very viable and, in fact, very promising option for many private universities to consider, and the fact is the economics of operating a private university are much easier as you build scale,” Olson said.

Olson said two factors facing all private institutions are lower birth rates and more people questioning the value of a college degree.

Top-rated school emphasizes affordability

Reflecting on its A+ grade, University of Dubuque President Travis Frampton credited alumni generosity, leadership’s vision and the university’s $430 million endowment.

Frampton also looked ahead to the future, saying private institutions need to continually prove their value to the community.

“For so long across the country, the public has been concerned about that with the high cost of higher education. I think presidents and administrations need to be mindful and listen to that public cry, and find ways of making costs more affordable,” Frampton said.

Frampton said the University of Dubuque could have put its proposed College of Osteopathic Medicine at its main campus, but instead, put the school on Main Street.

“By locating the medical school in downtown Dubuque, to me, that demonstrated how it would benefit the business community, generate growth, work on brain drain in Iowa,” Frampton said. “That helps diversify and get out of just sort of this tuition dependency and more in building a community through university.”

Frampton said Forbes awarding the University of Dubuque top marks for its financial situation affirmed his belief that diversifying an institution’s assets makes it stronger, citing the proposed medical school and expansions to its aviation program, moves that took the university years to develop.

“Your financial picture is not done in one snapshot,” Frampton said. “Previous administration, the board leadership, alumni giving to the university have all contributed significantly to our current position.”

Both presidents said a university is worth more than a single grade. It’s about trust built over years, proving why its tuition is worth it.

Coe College received a D grade from Forbes. The magazine did not give F grades and said 27% of private colleges in the U.S. also received a D.

You can find your private institution’s grade on the business magazine’s website.

Coe College told TV9 in a statement:

“We are aware of the Forbes article and recognize the challenges and headwinds that colleges and universities are facing nationwide and Coe is not immune to those challenges. The scope of the methodology behind the Forbes grading scale is narrow. Having the willingness and capability to realign approach is essential for colleges and universities as the rate of change across industries accelerates. At Coe, we have successfully embraced that evolution by putting workforce-aligned strategic initiatives into action.

As just one example, Coe is experiencing great momentum and student interest through the addition of an aviation studies and flight operations program which provides the training necessary to become a commercial pilot or pursue a professional aviation career. This program, among others, has brought interest in the college from new students and constituents.

We’re seeing similar momentum with the addition of an engineering physics program as well as other areas of study. We are at the beginning phase of offering our first online degree program with more to come in the future. Our athletic programs have expanded to include women’s wrestling which will compete for the first time during the 2026-2027 academic year.

In addition, the college has benefited from a number of large gifts from a nationwide donor base to support current operations and growth of our new programs.

The college is continually evaluating and evolving as we see the opportunity to do so to match our educational experience to industry demands. With these additions and assessments, the college is positioned for stability in the present and growth in the future.”

Watch TV9’s interview with University of Dubuque President Travis Frampton:

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP/KCRG) – A team from Iowa has been sent to Texas to help combat the spread of a pest that is threatening to devastate the U.S. cattle industry.

Three more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in Texas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday.

During a news conference, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said a team from the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames has been sent to Texas to monitor for cases. The lab is a key facility for animal disease testing and has been conducting tests in Ames but Rollins said the team could be more efficient and test samples quicker by being on location in Texas.

The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. Females lay their eggs in open wounds of warm-blooded animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans can be infested. The government has a program to breed sterile male flies and drop swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females, which kept screwworm contained at the southern end of Panama for decades.

So far, there are five confirmed cases: three calves and a goat in Texas and a dog from neighboring Lea County, New Mexico. The dog, which the USDA initially reported as a Texas case, lives in New Mexico and was reclassified as the first in that state. The animal’s travel history is being investigated.

The first two screwworm cases were discovered last week in calves a few miles apart in south Texas. A case was announced Monday in a calf in La Salle County, southwest of San Antonio, and in a goat in Gillespie County, west of Austin.

Scientists expect new cases could pop up in the coming days and weeks, but it doesn’t mean screwworm is spreading rapidly, said Edward Burgess, a University of Florida entomologist who studies the fly.

“When that first case is seen, everyone is being vigilant and their eyes are on it more intensely,” Burgess said. “And when you are looking for something, you are more likely to see it.”

The USDA and the U.S. cattle industry have been racing to prevent an infestation since screwworm was detected in Mexico late in 2024. Screwworm was eliminated in the U.S. in the 1960s, and gets its name from the maggots’ habit of burrowing — or screwing — into a wound, according to the USDA.

So far, its reappearance hasn’t greatly affected beef prices, which are already near record levels because there are fewer cows in the U.S. Although the parasite attacks live cattle, it does not infest meat or fruit. There are also a dozen government-approved medications to treat livestock.

Canada temporarily stopped importing cattle, horses or other livestock from Texas on Friday. The parasites prefer humid areas where temperatures are at least 77 F (25 C), making them more of a summer problem up north.

Burgess said the long-term solution — breeding sterile male flies — is months away. Since wild female flies mate just once, if that encounter is with a sterile male, outbreaks can eventually be halted as the flies die out.

The USDA is working to both increase sterile fly production in plants outside the U.S. and build a massive fly factory in Texas.

The goal is to have enough sterile flies to stop the pests from returning in 2027 after the winter kills off most of them, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said at a news conference at the U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas. She said building the plants is a top government priority.

Scientists are also working on ways to sterilize only male flies to make the program even more effective.

Texas officials encouraged ranchers to keep a close eye on their herds and other wildlife and report anything suspicious to a hotline open 24 hours a day. They also established a website and map to post cases as they are reported.

“This is a highly treatable condition if you act on it immediately,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said.

However, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — who lost the Republican primary to a candidate backed by Abbott — said the federal response will take too long and risks crippling the cattle industry.

Instead, he says a poison bait could eliminate the screwworm problem in a few months, even if USDA and other experts say the bait hasn’t been proven effective and could poison other flies, animals and even humans.

“What the hell is a good fly?” Miller said in an interview.

___

Associated Press writer Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

WATERLOO – It was probably a bit more than two years ago when the hints, innuendo, gossip and speculation started to accumulate.  

In conversations with coaches or administrators or the otherwise well-connected within Iowa State athletics circles, any discussion about the not-too-distant future of Cyclone sports would take a sort of detour. 

‘You know,’ they’d say, ‘Jamie isn’t going to be here forever.’ 

Do tell, I’d ask.  

‘It wouldn’t shock me,’ they’d note, ‘if Jamie called it a career sooner than you’d think.’ 

Jamie being, of course, Jamie Pollard, Iowa State’s longest-tenured athletics director. He is, of course, still Iowa State’s athletic director, and he’s under contract to be so through 2030 after signing a five-year extension early in 2025. Which, given the gathering momentum of speculation about a potential impending retirement, surprised plenty of people plugged in to the Jacobson Athletic Building when it was announced. 

So the rumor mill, as it so often does, began spinning again. This time, with an explanation of why it was wrong the first time. 

Iowa State president Wendy Wintersteen, who would announce her own retirement three months after that Pollard extension, asked the athletic director to extend his record-setting tenure to keep continuity and stability on the university’s front porch while it underwent change at the top. 

Or so the story went. 

“I don’t know that I’d say that’s 100 percent accurate,” Pollard said last month when I presented him with that scenario at the Cyclone Tailgate Tour.  

“It’s close.” 

Whatever the exact machinations, Pollard will enter his 22^nd year guiding Iowa State athletics this fall, but, you know, he won’t be forever. 

“I’ve basically said if this was a game of soccer, we’d be in extra time,” Pollard, 61, told me. “Nobody knows how much time is left on the clock, including the player. 

“A big thing for (wife) Ellen and me, is there is a ‘next,’ and we want to physically and mentally be able to enjoy ‘next,’ but, at the same time, I want to make sure when that day comes, that we hand it off in as good a spot as can be.”  

Which is no small reason why that retirement many were expecting was postponed when Wintersteen told him her career was winding to its end. After being at a place for two decades, what’s a few more years? Especially if it helps keep that place you care deeply about better situated for the future. 

Eventually, though, that postponement will end. That future will arrive – without Pollard. 

“At some point and time that’s going to happen for all of us, right?” Pollard, who recently became a grandfather, said. “When’s the right time to do that? We’ll have to figure that out.  

“It’s a work in progress.” 

That work is complicated by the sheer volume of volatility collegiate sports are currently enduring. When the industry’s leaders become regulars at congressional testimony, it’s a pretty good sign that things are not going smoothly and orderly. And even more locally, Iowa State just had a head coaching change in football, axed its gymnastics program, began a women’s wrestling program, projects a future budget shortfall and has something like a $200 million development underway with CyTown.