Greater collaboration, good internships, comparable job offers and encouraging professors – not tax credits – are needed to keep young people in Iowa, state education leaders said in a discussion about the future of the state’s higher-education programs.

Gov. Tom Vilsack’s tax credit plan is not enough to keep young people in Iowa after graduation, the state’s top university administrators, leaders from private industry and media representatives decided at a meeting in Cedar Rapids Monday night.

“If we can get them to come, most want to stay,” said Catherine Dunn, president of Clarke College in Dubuque. “I think we can do much more. I’m not sure a tax credit means much to an 18-year-old. It may mean something to their parents, but not to them.”

Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Iowa, said since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, people may want to go to school in a safe place and closer to home.

“Places people feel safe are much higher on people’s lists,” she said. “Iowa is a safe place, and we need to promote what we’ve got.”

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy stressed the importance of student internships, joint research projects and intellectual stimulation to keep students at their colleges and give them a quality education.

“Joint-share facilities where students benefit, not only at the time but are also hired after graduation, are important,” he said. “It has to be the right match, though. There are some work-development programs that community colleges can certainly do better than us.”

Dunn said lifelong learning is an important emphasis for universities that want to best serve their populations.

“All of us have a variety of programs to serve a variety of students,” she said. “As we educate people today, the emphasis is on lifelong learning more so then it was 10 years ago.”

Robert Koob, president of the University of Northern Iowa, is not only worried about providing a quality education for students, but how Iowa’s economy will be affected if students continue to leave the state after graduation.

“The real purpose is to not to get an education, but to learn how to learn,” he said. “We’re educating more people than almost anywhere in the country and doing a really good job. But our future depends on more people staying in Iowa and building the economy.”

Geoffroy said the university needs to keep quality professors.

“The number of faculty has been dropping, and at some point you need to stop,” he said. “The student-to-faculty ratio has increased from 15-to-1 to 18-to-1 in the past five years. I think we’re really at our limit.”

Coleman said there is no room to make changes, and the only thing left to do is raise tuition or cut programs.

“There’s no part of the organization we haven’t looked at to make changes,” Coleman said. “We are so efficient that I worry about these people doing too much and wanting to leave. The notion that we haven’t done something and we just sit there is ludicrous.”

David Maxwell, president of Drake University, said Iowa colleges need to make news when positive things happen.

“Every one of us have a moral and ethical responsibility to make sure each one of those dollars is used efficiently,” Maxwell said. “We don’t make our story very well heard. We seem to only make the papers when regents increase tuition or we kick a basketball player off the team. “