The University of Iowa tumbled seven spots in U.S. News & World Report's newest rankings of public universities, and the Iowa City institution’s president is blunt about what caused the slippage:

"Those rankings are a stark illustration of what happens when there’s not enough investment in higher education by the state and by students and their parents," President Bruce Harreld said in a statement to the Des Moines Register.

“We want to provide the best possible education we can, but after a generation of disinvestment in our regents institutions, you get what you buy.”

On Monday, U.S. News & World Report released its 2019 Best Colleges rankings, including top public national universities.

The University of Iowa ranked 38th among 132 institutions; a year ago, UI was 31st.

Iowa State University also saw its ranking slip. In 2018, the Ames university was ranked 53rd among public universities; this year its 56th.

The University of California-Los Angeles was U.S. News' top-ranked public university.

Overall, among more than 250 national public and private universities, the UI ranked 89th and Iowa State, 119th, the new rankings show. A year ago, UI was ranked 78th and Iowa State, 115th.

U.S. News published its first college rankings list in 1983 and began releasing the information annually in 1985.

The rankings, which are determined after assessing data from 16 areas related to students' academic success, have been increasingly popular among students and parents who want in-depth information about colleges and universities.

The rankings show that Iowa's universities slipped compared with peer institutions on measurements such as first-year student retention, class sizes, graduation rates, faculty salaries and average spending on students.

Recent studies have shown an institution's rating in this and other well-known rankings can affect applications and the quality of students who apply.

Last week, Iowa’s three public universities released information that showed a 2.3 percent drop in enrollment between fall 2017 and fall 2018.

And while both the University of Iowa and Iowa State University announced that the grade-point averages of this fall’s freshmen are the highest ever, officials have expressed concern about their institutions’ ability to compete for top students.

Budget constraints have affected the universities' ability to retain and attract top faculty, leaders have said. In addition, officials are worried about class sizes and schools' freshman-to-sophomore retention rates along with graduation rates.

Cuts in state funding have directly impacted several of the indicators used to measure students’ academic success, UI officials said.

To offset state funding reductions, UI officials in July announced plans to close seven centers and reduce funding to five others, moves that will mean job losses for 33 people.

The closures and reductions are expected to save the university $3.6 million, officials said. Savings from the reductions will be funneled back to the university’s general fund to help pay for teaching, research and student programs.

In recent years, Iowa’s three public universities have relied more heavily on revenue from tuition and fees to fund their budgets because of cuts in state financial support.

In 2008, for example, 49 percent of the universities’ revenue came from state aid, and 45 percent came from tuition. This budget year, 30 percent of universities’ revenue is from state aid and 65 percent is from tuition and fees, according to budget information.

"Rankings reflect the decreased investment in public higher education in Iowa," Wendy Wintersteen, Iowa State's president, said in a statement to the Register. "What this ranking does not reflect is the commitment of our faculty and staff to deliver an exceptional student experience and world-class scientific research.”

Iowa Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R-Fort Dodge, defended spending decisions in the Iowa Legislature.

"Our main goal … was getting state spending under control," Kraayenbrink wrote in an email to the Register. Kraayenbrink is vice chairman of the Senate appropriations committee, which handles spending bills, and chairman of education appropriations subcommittee.

"The decisions we made regarding funding for our Regents universities was necessary in order to fully fund K-12 education for our children and Medicaid to support the state’s most vulnerable," he wrote in the email. "Senate Republicans have passed a number of bills to help grow our economy, and as it grows, this will help stabilize and provide predictability for funding in the future."

The new U.S. News rankings show the University of Iowa trailing many of its peer institutions, including the University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin and University of Illinois-Champagne Urbana.

Those universities, in the past decade or more, have put more money into hiring top researchers and faculty, and have provided more resources to retain students and help them graduate, Harreld said in his statement.

The universities of Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois have freshmen retention rates that exceed 90 percent and six-year graduation rates that range between 80 percent and 92 percent, U.S. World and Report data show.

“Our resources, while they’ve grown slightly, they haven’t grown at the same rate as our peers,” Harreld said.

Consequently, student success measures are stagnant, he said.

The University of Iowa’s freshman-to-sophomore retention rate is 86 percent, the same as it was the previous year, data released by U.S. News show. The institution’s six-year graduation rate of 74 percent is two points higher than it was a year ago.

Iowa State’s freshman-to-sophomore retention rate is 87 percent and its six-year graduation rate, 73 percent.

Top 5 public universities

The following are the top five public universities in the United States, according to rankings released Monday by the U.S. News & World Report: