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Interview Only w/ Paul Glastris - Ranking Colleges By Value Rather Than Prestige · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. three, nine, eight, five. Well,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: joining me now, uh, for some of you, if you've
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: got a college, uh, junior or excuse me, a high
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: school junior or senior, you may be in the middle
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: of the anxiety, especially if you have a, uh, a
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  Speaker 1: high school senior. Uh, I am past this anxiety moment
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  Speaker 1: as a parent. Um, but some of you may still
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  Speaker 1: be in it and trying to figure out how to
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  Speaker 1: navigate what are the right schools and what are good
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  Speaker 1: safety schools or what should be on the list and
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  Speaker 1: why do none of these lists focus on cost? Well,
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  Speaker 1: one of the better college ranking systems that are out
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  Speaker 1: there that I think are more user-friendly comes from a
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  Speaker 1: publication that I think is one of my favorites in Washington.
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  Speaker 1: It may have Washington in the title, but the Washington
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  Speaker 1: Monthly does a terrific job of trying to not get
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  Speaker 1: caught in Washington, not get caught in Beltway drivel or
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  Speaker 1: elite drivel. And the beauty of it and the college
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  Speaker 1: rankings that they do, I think is actually a great
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  Speaker 1: example of this. People might try to paint this periodical
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  Speaker 1: or this publication, this journal in an ideology. What I
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  Speaker 1: think the Washington Monthly is skeptical of elites. wherever the
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  Speaker 1: elite or elitism exists. And when it comes to colleges,
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  Speaker 1: we know that U.S. News ranking seems to favor the
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  Speaker 1: elites and seems to let money do the talking. And
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  Speaker 1: the beauty of what the Washington Monthly does is that
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  Speaker 1: it actually looks at results. It looks at outcomes. It
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  Speaker 1: looks at what did the student actually get. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: doing this again, and my friend, the longtime editor of
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  Speaker 1: the Washington Monthly, Paul Glastris, is here. Because we did
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  Speaker 1: this a year ago, and we got a lot of feedback.
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  Speaker 1: I got just simple thank yous. Like, I didn't know
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  Speaker 1: these ratings existed. I'm so glad it expanded my kids'
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  Speaker 1: search for schools. I now feel– Paul, it reminded me
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  Speaker 1: that you can't ever stop marketing your work. Sometimes you
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  Speaker 1: guys have been doing this a long time, and yet
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  Speaker 1: we got to get more people aware that it belongs
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  Speaker 1: in this ecosystem. Well, thanks, Chuck.
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  Speaker 2: It's been 21 years doing this particular ranking and the
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  Speaker 2: methodology has changed a bit, but only because we get
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  Speaker 2: new data. And it is a kind of revelation to
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  Speaker 2: people because they're so used to going to the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: news rankings or the Wall Street Journal rankings or the
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  Speaker 2: Money Magazine or whatever. And they look at the top 20,
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  Speaker 2: 30 schools and it's, oh, It's Harvard, it's Yale, it's Penn,
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  Speaker 2: it's Stanford, you know, throw in a University of Michigan
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  Speaker 2: or University of Virginia, you know, kind of elite flagship
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  Speaker 2: state schools.
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  Speaker 1: The public eye means to say like to call themselves, right? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And that becomes everybody's idea of what a great college is.
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  Speaker 2: And not that those schools aren't great in their own way.
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  Speaker 2: But look, if I told you if you told me
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  Speaker 2: I want to go to out to a dinner in my,
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  Speaker 2: you know, good dinner in my town and you looked
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  Speaker 2: at the local media and the top 30 restaurants were
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: all located in member only country clubs, you'd say, oh, yeah. Well,
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  Speaker 2: I guess it's possible that the food there is superior.
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  Speaker 2: But what good is that to me? I can't get
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  Speaker 2: into those places. That's US News. That's the Wall Street Journal. 90%, 95%
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  Speaker 2: of people cannot get in to these colleges. And so
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  Speaker 2: more than 70% of people go to college within 50
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  Speaker 2: miles of where they grew up. That's college, right? And
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  Speaker 2: our rankings are for the 90% of people who aren't
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  Speaker 2: from wealthy backgrounds, because that's, frankly, who winds up disproportionately
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  Speaker 2: getting into elite schools. But from people of median income
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  Speaker 2: and below, that's kind of who we focus on.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you added a new set of rankings this year
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  Speaker 1: for rural universities, which I want to get into. But
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  Speaker 1: But let's start with the basics here and start with
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  Speaker 1: the criteria before we get into the schools.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, sure. So to oversimplify, U.S. News and the other
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  Speaker 2: rankings basically reward schools for being wealthy, prestigious and exclusive,
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  Speaker 2: wealthy and they spend a lot of money on their students,
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  Speaker 2: prestigious in that they do a survey and whatever other
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  Speaker 2: college presidents say is elite is elite, sort of like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, electing the prom queen, right? And then exclusive,
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  Speaker 2: how many, literally, how many students don't they let in?
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  Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, rejection rate. It is stunning that that is
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  Speaker 1: such an important metric. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So we don't think that's a good measure of the
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  Speaker 2: value of higher education to people who are paying tuition
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  Speaker 2: dollars and also to the rest of us who might
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  Speaker 2: not have kids in college but are paying tax dollars.
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  Speaker 2: The average person spends, the government spends about $ 1, 700 of
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  Speaker 2: your money, average person, on higher education. So we have
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  Speaker 2: a stake in this thing. And so we asked ourselves,
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  Speaker 2: what do students and taxpayers want from their dollars? And
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  Speaker 2: we said, all right, they basically want A college to
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  Speaker 2: be a place where somebody of modest means can get
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  Speaker 2: a degree that doesn't cost too much, doesn't load them
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  Speaker 2: down with too much debt, delivers a degree that brings
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: in a middle class income or better. And that also
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  Speaker 2: encourages students to be active, good citizens. Open the founding
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: document of just about any college in America, and you're
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: gonna find words to the effect of, the purpose of
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: this university is to prepare our young people to enter
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  Speaker 2: their democracy and take their place and participate. So we
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: actually measure that stuff. We measure whether a college has,
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  Speaker 2: you know, how many people, how many of the students
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  Speaker 2: are on ROTC serving their country? How many are the
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  Speaker 2: Peace Corps? Whether the students are encouraged to vote, whether
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: the university trained students for socially beneficial, but somewhat underpaid
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: professions like social work. And when you do that, you
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  Speaker 2: just get a very different top 30. So as I said, U.S. News,
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  Speaker 2: the top 20 or 30, they're all these elite schools.
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  Speaker 2: About a little less than half on the Washington Monthly
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  Speaker 2: Best Colleges for Your Tuition and Tax Dollar Ranking are
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  Speaker 2: those elite schools. But most of them are schools that
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure your audience has mostly never heard of. yeah
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  Speaker 2: um the you know university of the california state fullerton
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  Speaker 2: right um i'm.
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  Speaker 1: A college baseball nut and they used to be a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: big power in college baseball so i knew yeah but
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  Speaker 1: that whole system yeah yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah no and it's like uh fresno state right good
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: football team but other you know unless you follow football
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  Speaker 2: right you know if these are colleges that may not
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  Speaker 2: be nationally known, but they're revered in their localities and
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  Speaker 2: regions and states. because they serve the local population. They
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  Speaker 2: tend to be not very selective, right? If you have
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  Speaker 2: a high school degree and a decent transcript and okay
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  Speaker 2: scores or no scores at all, you can probably get in.
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  Speaker 2: And the best of them deliver excellent returns on their investment.
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  Speaker 2: And so, you know, the number one college, I think
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  Speaker 2: we talked about this last year, it's the same this year,
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  Speaker 2: Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, A small, academically rigorous liberal
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  Speaker 2: arts college started by abolitionists in the 1850s. First college
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  Speaker 2: south of the Mason-Dixon line to educate both blacks and
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  Speaker 2: whites and one of the first to educate women. And
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  Speaker 2: students there pay virtually no tuition. They work all four
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  Speaker 2: years and they go on to fabulous careers. And almost
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  Speaker 2: all of them are students of modest means recruited from Appalachia. Again,
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  Speaker 2: most people never heard of it. It's number one on
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  Speaker 2: our rankings.
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  Speaker 1: Now, let's go back to them a little bit because
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  Speaker 1: I remember it from last year. And how is it that,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, how do they fund their university? How do
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  Speaker 1: they fund the college?
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  Speaker 2: So it's super interesting story. Part of it is, a
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  Speaker 2: big part of it is, for a hundred years, they
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  Speaker 2: have been raising money from everywhere they can, but also
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  Speaker 2: from their alumni, usually in small increments for an endowment
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  Speaker 2: that is now worth, I think it's a billion dollars.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, they have a billion dollar endowment. That's a pretty impressive-
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  Speaker 1: For a small university, that's a lot of money.
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  Speaker 2: Secondly, they have this work model And there's actually a
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  Speaker 2: federal program, a federal designation of a work school. There's
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  Speaker 2: about a dozen or two around the country. And it's
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: like work study, but on steroids. All the students get
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: work study money. And freshman year, they're mopping floors. By
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: senior year, they're like helping in the data department. And
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: they're doing more sophisticated stuff. And a big chunk of
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: that goes to pay their tuition. And this is just,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: it's a commitment they've made for decades and decades to
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: try to have close to zero tuition, certainly for their
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: poorest students. And they make it work. Look, the elite
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: schools do the same. If you're a Harvard or a
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Yale and you're sitting on a 50 billion or $ 150
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  Speaker 2: billion endowment, And this is something they've been doing more
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: in recent years because of pressure from folks like us.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, from a lot of people. Right, exactly. I think so.
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  Speaker 2: They cover the tuition and in many cases room and
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: board for students from middle class and poor families. And
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  Speaker 2: they define middle class these days by 200,000 a year.
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  Speaker 2: So if you can get in, it's a great deal.
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  Speaker 2: It's just that almost nobody gets in and they educate
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  Speaker 2: a tiny, tiny number of students.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting that, you know, one of
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  Speaker 1: the ways that the, you know, it's funny that some
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: of the upper middle class privates are struggling a little
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: bit because of restrictions on foreign students. Yeah. Because this
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: was how they were able to give scholarship money to
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: working class background, kids from working class backgrounds. Essentially, you
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: get your full payers from overseas and you're able to
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: then essentially use that to– and when you can't bring
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the full payers over from overseas, the Trump administration put a–
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: it is– It's been a really– it's been kind of
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: cutthroat between these upper middle class– I'm quite familiar with them.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I've got a kid at– my daughter went to the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: University of Miami. I went to GW. I know these
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: institutions well and they're all like competing for the same
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: students and same money and it's a real– I mean,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: this is a way where the federal government has kind
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: of had an impact on which universities, on all sorts
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: of student recruiting.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. And in fact, a lot of the middle
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: tier state schools, too, the Portland states and the University
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: of Missouri, and they are able to subsidize the education of,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: you know, in-state students with low tuition by charging full
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: fare for foreign students. And that can go too far, right?
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: If it crowds out opportunities for American students. But we're
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: hitting what they call a demographic cliff. There are fewer
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: and fewer 18-year-olds being minted from our high schools because
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: of demography. And now you have the Trump administration squeezing
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: the visas so that the students can't get here. And
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: it's a double whammy. You know, if you think about
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: those foreign students, that's Trump talks about he wants balances
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: of payment. That's a balance of payment issue. That's foreign
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: money being invested in the United States, spent in the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: United States. That's a good thing. And many of those
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: students stick around and start companies that employ the rest
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: of us and pay taxes. So it is really shooting
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: yourself in the foot.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: No, it really is. So what kind of impact has
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that had on some of the schools in your list
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  Speaker 1: this year? Is this made them more popular as we've
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: seen this squeeze? Or what's been happening with the demographic clip?
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: And are some of these schools going to get squeezed
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: out financially completely because they don't have enough students?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Unquestionably. Unquestionably. The schools that are really hurting are private, small, private, nonprofit, non-elite,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: non-selective schools in... out-of-the-way places in small towns in New
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: England and the Midwest, and some of the regional public
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: universities in places that are less, you know, more sparsely
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: populated and are losing, you know, Emporia University in Kansas,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: fantastic school, but, you know, the They're not getting help
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: from the state like they used to. They've had to
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: cut classes. They've had to cut faculty. They do a
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: fabulous job, but they're being squeezed. And these are universities
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: that are providing upward mobility to people who most desperately
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: want and need it and don't have any other.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Source of it.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Because if you're living in a rural area, it's not like, oh,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: the college closed. I'll just go to the college next door.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: The next college is 200 miles away. That's it for you.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: You're done with higher education for your life. And that
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: town has suddenly lost, if you lose a college, a
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: load-bearing pillar of its economy and civic life. You've been around.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: You've seen these small colleges or regional colleges.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: You're describing the voucher fight in Texas at the moment
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: where rural, very conservative rural voters are angry at the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Republican governor. because what school choice exists in some of,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you know, you just described it on a rural university front,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: but this is, you know, this is true. You, okay.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: You've given me a voucher for school choice and now
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: you're cutting my funding. So basically the choice is homeschool.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Is that what you're telling me I have to do?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no. And, and so, so this, so this year
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: for the first time, We rolled out a new ranking.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: It's called Best Colleges for Rural America.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And I'm so glad you did this because maybe this
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: will put a neon sign to certain politicians who claim
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: rural America is being overlooked. And yet they yank all
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: this funding that benefits rural America.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely. What we did is we looked at, you know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: there is no other ranking of rural America, colleges from
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: rural America. Go to U.S. News, you won't find it.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: If you go online and you type best rural colleges,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: you'll get a list of 20 colleges from some skeevy website,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: and it's Dartmouth.
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  Speaker 1: of 2026. Dartmouth is in a, I guess they're rural.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're in a bucolic small town, but they don't.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: you know, serve rural people. They serve upper middle class
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: students from metro areas around the world.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like my buddy, Jake Tapper. There you go. Mr. Philadelphia, Mr.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Dartmouth.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: That's all right.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And so, and so we've got a, I think
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: a very good database on where colleges are located. And
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: we match that with a database with our own rankings
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: criteria and another database that shows where students wind up
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: after they graduate. Because what rural communities need and want
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: is for their young people, and by the way, adults
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: increasingly need to go back to college. They want a
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: college that is nearby, where they can get the training
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: they need to earn a middle class or better income
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: without having to go 500 miles away and pay for
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: room and board and be away from their family and friends.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: And so that they, if they don't want to move away,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: if they want to stay and build their lives near
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: their families and friends, they can do it. That is
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: what America did more so and earlier than Europe. is
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: disperse institutions of higher education geographically such that not everyone,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: but almost everyone in the country is a short drive
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: away from a college.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe it's the Ohio governor, is it Jim
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Rhodes who said, or sort of the governor who's sort
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: of green lit because Ohio's got a lot of these
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: small universities. There's actually a big debate, right? The Republican
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: nominee Ramaswamy is, frankly, among the issues he's dealing with,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: is he just said, oh, we should consolidate these things.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And it was just antithetical to the history in Ohio.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And I believe he said he didn't want anybody to
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: have to drive more than 30 miles to get to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a college. I think that was Rhodes. If I have
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: it wrong, I'll be corrected. I know that.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: In many parts of the country, that's the case. That
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: is how we built our greatness. We provided colleges that
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: are geographically near where people live and that average people
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: can afford to go. Now, we're turning our backs on that.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: We've let the cost of college double. people can't afford
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: it or they think they can't afford it. And now
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: we're under-investing in the colleges in the areas where the
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: people need it the most. So that's what our rankings show.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And let me tell you about the number one school
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: in our best colleges for rural America. I'll bet you've
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: never heard of it. I certainly hadn't until it popped
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: up on the top. University of West Alabama.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: No, and I knew South Alabama. I got a nephew
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that went there. I knew actually North Alabama because I
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: think Florida State had to play them in football. I mean,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't know there was a West Alabama.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: There's a West Alabama. It's in a small town. It's
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: in the Black Belt. And the average income of a
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: graduate of University of West Alabama four years after they
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: graduate is is $ 26, 000 more than they would have gotten
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: had they gone to a typical college given their demographics.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: That's return on investment. That's upward mobility. And how do
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: they do it? They are a first-rate teaching college. And
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: we think of rural America, rightly so, as having lost
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: jobs and hospitals and businesses and population. All that's true, generally,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: not all places. But there are still a lot of
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: jobs that aren't being filled in rural America. They struggle
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: to get teachers, doctors, engineers, people with national resource backgrounds, agriculture.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: So our ranking literally measures that. They give colleges extra
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: points for that. And a job as a teacher in
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: kind of a growing, wealthy metro area isn't considered a
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: high-paying job. In a small town, it's a pretty good job.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: And they partner with the local school districts to put
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: the students in the school so they get the training
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: and different of the colleges that do well in our
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: rankings do that. And so they're very good about knowing
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: what their regions need economically.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: And is that is, you know, it's interesting. I'm looking
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: at your top 20 skews South Southern. Certainly, excuse Sunbelt
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: if you throw in your Oklahoma and Texas. Is that
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: because the New England rural or the Mid-Atlantic rural is
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: less existent or, frankly, too costly?
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Good question. There's a little bit of a trick that
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: we couldn't quite figure out a way around. Hmm. We
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: measure whether students stay in state. But if you're in
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: a small state like Rhode Island, your chances of leaving
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the state are greater.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Sure. So they kind of get screwed by that. You
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: could take a left turn and you leave the state, right,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: instead of a right turn. But let me give you
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: another example. I guess you could probably do 100-mile radius.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Did you guys think– I mean, what were the different–
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: rather than doing state lines?
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: The best we could do is in-state or out-of-state. And
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: we got our numbers from a great group called the– Well,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: I forget what they're from. Michigan State Organization.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's my I bet you it's with the American communities.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it's the it's going to.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Come to me. But the best we could do is
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: in state or out of state. But I'll give you
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: another example of one of these schools in my home
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: state of Missouri. What used to be called the University
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: of Missouri Rolla, our engineering school. It's now Missouri University
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: of Science and Technology. It's in the town of Rolla
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: between St. Louis and Springfield on.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: My cousin's wife grew up in Rolla. I know a
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: little bit about Rolla.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Rolla, yeah. And it's not a place that a lot
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: of us wanted to go spend our four years. It's
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: really quite- not a lot going on there, but it
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: is the kind of engineering school. It's probably 50, 60% engineers,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: but mostly STEM oriented where you don't need to be
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: a math prodigy to get in. You need good, good
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: math scores, but you don't need Carnegie Mellon math scores.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: And yet when you four years out of college, University
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: of Missouri science and tech students make more than Carnegie students.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: And a lot of them are living in Missouri and
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: they're living in small towns because you know, small towns
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: and small cities, they need civil engineers. They need chemical engineers.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: And so I had a very good friend growing up
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: who was smart enough, but not a very good student,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: not focused. He'd like to go fishing. and run around,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: chase the girls. But he got into what we called
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Rolla back then, now Missouri, and he still lives there
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: with his family, loves it, and go canoe on the
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: beautiful rivers down there and have a great life. So
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: these are these jewels of universities that people don't know about.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: And let me tell you, Chuck, we have in this country,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: as you know, a lot of politics around higher ed.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: It really is the thing, if you think about it,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: that is almost at the center of political division in
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: this country. It didn't used to be that way. 10,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: 15 years ago, nobody really talked about higher education as
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: a wedge issue.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: No, it was just it was an aspiration.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: The aspiration in both sides, the average person didn't know
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: what a Republican view of higher ed was or a
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Democratic view. And that's changed for reasons you and your
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: audience probably know, right? The Republicans now disproportionately represent the
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: non-college educated and vice versa with them. But this best
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: ranking for the best colleges for rural America has really
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: hidden positive nerve with conservatives. I was on Steve Bannon's
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: competing podcast the other day.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I love it. So he highlighted that. Well, look, you know,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Bannon puts his money where his mouth is on this
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: anti-elitism stuff. He really does.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: He does. But the Daily Caller wrote a wonderful story
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: about it. I think when you put this lens on
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: higher education and you're talking about schools that serve red America,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: you suddenly bring both sides together.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Well, Paul, this is the, you know, it's always said,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: it's like, look, you know, when I want to say
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: to my liberal friends sometimes on this, you know, when
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the right's upset about bias, right? It's this bias that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: they're actually talking about, which is it's the bias of not–
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: it's the bias of almost ignoring a part of the culture, right?
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: You're not thinking about how rural Americans live or you're
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: not thinking of– I always say there's sort of an
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: anti-religious bias sometimes in the Acela corridor. Not that it's
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: people are– it's.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: More of Out of sight, out of mind, don't care,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And, you know, I remember running into this sort
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of culture clash where if you're not familiar with how
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: people live their lives in the rural South, then you
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: don't know that Wednesday's church night. Yeah. But if you
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: live in New York City, you're like, what the hell
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: is that? Why do they go to church all the time? Well,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe the church is also the community center. Maybe that's
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the potluck dinner night. Maybe that's, you know, it's, it's,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and it's just sort of, right. And this is one
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: of those for a lot of people when they, when
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: they talk about bias, they simply want to be heard
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and seen. Yeah. And this is what this to me,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: you're just simply saying, These universities exist here too, you know,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and they're pretty good.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, and they're providing value to their students, to their communities,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: and to the taxpayers. You know, we did 15 minutes
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: worth of reporting at the Washington Monthly a while ago.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: We asked Google, how many stories in the New York,
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: non-sports related stories in the New York Times were there
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: about Harvard in a 12-month period? And compare that... to
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: non-sports related stories over a 12-month period in the New
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: York Times about the 10 largest universities in the country.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: There were more stories about Harvard than the 10 largest
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: universities combined. That's how off-kilter the national media is. You
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: can't sell a story to the New York Times about
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: the University of West Alabama, but you can write about
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Harvard all day long, positive or negative. Look, Harvard deserves
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of attention. It is a very important institution.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Hats off to it. A hundred ways, I think Harvard's terrific,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't deserve more focus than the entire other
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: part of the university system that.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Is where 90% of us get our educations. So you've
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: been doing this a while now and you've been trying
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: to make it outcome focused, right? I feel like it's
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: sort of like, are you getting what you asked for there?
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: So now you're stepping back. Give some advice for our
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: policy makers about, okay, you know, I... You know, one
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: of the things that frustrates me is our public education system.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: We no longer want to fix it. We just continue
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: to want to gut it in different ways. Even as
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: we claim we're trying, you know, yes, I think we're
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: trying to empower parents and in theory I'm for that,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: but we're doing it at the expense of everybody.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And I don't know how much, you know, is there
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: an argument to be made if we had a more,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: if we knew we had a more reliable higher education system, system.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Would that settle down these arguments more? I don't know,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: but it is, give some advice at how you would
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: sort of, what should the states roll? When I say
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the state, could be the feds, could be the states.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: When it comes to higher ed, that makes a lot
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: of sense here. And what have you learned over these
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: last 20 years?
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I am so glad you asked. Because in this issue
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: of the Washington Monthly, our September, October college issue, We
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: have an essay by my friend, Kevin Carey at New America.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: It's called a radically simple plan to fix higher education.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: And I mean, simple, it's simple. And I think it
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: addresses precisely what you asked. The basic plan would have
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: the federal government go to colleges on a voluntary basis.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: No college would be forced to take this deal. And
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: here's the deal. We're gonna provide a subsidy of let's
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: say $ 10, 000, which is about the average cost of educating
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: the average student at the average university in America today.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: And so we're gonna give you $ 10, 000 for every student
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: you enroll. In return, you're going to not charge that
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: student any tuition if they are below the median income
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: and modestly higher tuition, but up to a cap if
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: they're more affluent. Number one. Number two, you're going to
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: accept credits from, that student can bring credits from any
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: other college in the system, and you're going to accept them.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: You're not going to give them a hard time because
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: students lose a lot of money and time.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Because the credits- It doesn't quite match. Our math department
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't like their math department.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the great scams in higher ed.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: And number three, you're going to be part of a
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: nationwide research effort to improve teaching at the college level.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: If you did those things, and that's it. You can
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: stay owned by the state, owned by a private entity.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: It could be not for for-profits, but any other kind
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: of college, big, small. What you would have at the
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: end of that is if enough colleges signed on to
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: the deal, A network of basically low price to free
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: colleges all over the country that are of higher quality.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: And who's going to take that deal? It's not going
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: to be Harvard. It's not going to be Michigan, right?
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: They can get $ 50, 000, $ 60, 000, $ 70, 000 a year from their
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: wealthy students, families and foreign students. And they don't need
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: the money. So the elite schools just won't be part
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: of this. But for a lot of these students, these
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: universities and colleges that, as we talked about, they're on
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: the margins, right? Their business models are being undermined. They're
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: providing fantastic educations or trying to, but their business models.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: This is a business. This is a way to keep
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: the doors open, provide for their communities, provide for the students,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: and have a higher quality outcome. I think it's a win-win-win,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: and I don't see why both parties wouldn't support it.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Well, and you could see because of the geographic benefits, frankly.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Right. As you pointed out, a lot of these colleges
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: are in the South. A lot of these colleges are
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: in the West. Yeah.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: What would you anticipate as the impediment to that?
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: I can't think of a reasonably good reason, right? I
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: can think of all kinds of– arguments people would throw
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: up to block it. But I think cost would be
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: an argument. This is going to cost hundreds of billions
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: of dollars. I don't think it will. And let me
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: tell you why. Right now, we've got, what, about a
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: trillion dollars in student debt that the government backs. And
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of that we're going to eat because
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: students are going to colleges, borrowing too much, not graduating,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: not able to service their loans.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: So this is shifting that cost then. Yeah, that cost.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: We might be saying this is not new money. It's
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: just radically changing the financial aid relationship between the federal government.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: So would you get rid of Pell Grants? No, you've
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: got to keep Pell Grants.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: And here's why. Pell Grants used to cover 80% of
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: your student costs. Now it's like 20% or 30%. And
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: most students who are from modest backgrounds, it's not just
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: the tuition that's killing them. It's the books. It's the
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: room and board. So you keep the Pell Grants, but
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: that provides for the room and board and for the
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: books and for the transportation.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: You know, this... It is hard to get an education.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Four years of school is hard work. You're breaking rocks.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: The thing we should be trying to do is not
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: make it harder, right? Students have to work hard to
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: get their grades to graduate. Not everybody can do it,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: but we can make it easier. You know, the students
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: who drop out, they tend to be students. They've got
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: kids at home. They've got jobs. They've got parents they're
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: taking care of. And they... It takes them too many
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: years and things go wrong and they just can't make it.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: So we can get more.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: As I always say, life happens. That's usually what happens
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: is that life happens and colleges usually haven't been able
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: to adapt to that very well.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: If you get a BA degree in this country, on average,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: you're earning 75% more than somebody with a high school degree.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: That number has been very stable for a lot of
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: years and maybe going up a little bit. When you hear, oh,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: we need fewer people going to college, people who say
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: that want their kids to get a BA. So even
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: with AI, we now have a couple of years of
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: experience with it. I mean, it's very hard to know
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: what AI is going to do. But so far, I'm
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: not seeing the evidence that people with BAs are going
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: to be wiped out by AI.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. The president at SMU, my son
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: goes to SMU. I know he's a sophomore. Hartzell's his name.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: He was at UT Austin. And look, I'm not going
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: to speak for him, but I think it was the
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: politics of being the president of the highest profile public
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: institution in the very hot potato politics of Texas, right?
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: That he wanted to go to a go to a
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: private university, right? Especially when you're in the state's capital,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: those politicians can come to your office and you had
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: to do it. His theory of how AI, what he's
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: betting on, and I'm curious if you saw any of this,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: if you've seen any of this in any of your
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: other research, is that he's trying to beef up classical
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: education departments. His theory of the case is, okay, if
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: all of our technical you know, the tech, frankly, the
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: STEM degrees might not be as valuable as the classical
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: education degree, humanities degrees. Is that, are you seeing any
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: trend like that beyond what I just spoke to you about?
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Again, I'm going to be very humble here and say
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: none of us really know. This is new territory. But
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you know the fellow Paul LeBlanc.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Paul was the president of Southern New Hampshire University He
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: took a sleepy regional public university and turned it into
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: the biggest college in America.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Online powerhouse, right?
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: So he's a technologically adept... innovative college president who left
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: and spent the last two, three years thinking about and
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: researching how AI will affect jobs and universities. He's got
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: a book that just came out and an essay in
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: this issue of the Washington Monthly called How to Pick
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: a College in the Age of AI.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: And Paul says exactly what you say. Among the many
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: good pieces of advice he offers students is that and
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: universities is the asking the most bold and profound questions
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: and being able to be fluid in a variety of
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: disciplines from literature, to math, to science, to social science,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: to history, to geography, that capacity to move through disciplines
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: and pull information and communicate and think through not just problems,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: but matters of ethics and values and philosophy, that those
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: are the people who will be the masters of AI
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: and not mastered by AI.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Right. I mean, it's really trying to help people, right?
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: You don't want AI to teach you. You want to
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: use AI as a tool. And you have to learn
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: the larger instruction manual to the human species, frankly, and
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: how we interact and how we colonize and how we
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: settle disputes and how we settled disputes 10,000 years ago,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: how we settle disputes now. You have to understand that.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: And then- AI only enhances your ability to find better examples,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: make better arguments, all of those things.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Correct. And, you know, it is a bit of a
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: misunderstanding that humanities degrees, sort of arts and sciences degrees,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: pay poorly.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: We just spent a generation convincing those that wanted to
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: go to higher education, don't do that. Yeah.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: And it's just not true. Humanities majors start out at
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: pretty low levels.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Wages.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: 20 years in, they're earning pretty decent wages and their
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: wages keep going up. Whereas, you know, STEM degrees, they
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: start high and then they kind of flatten out.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: So over a lifetime, you make more money. You become
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: technologically obsolete. Exactly. Exactly.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So yeah, humanities majors, arts and sciences majors have
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: an ability to learn, to adapt, to communicate, to think
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: creatively that, you know, according to Paul LeBlanc and many,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: many others is the path forward. And universities are going to,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: your son's college president is right to say, bring back
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: classical learning, bring back, you know, study the Greeks and
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Romans because through that, you see it, you see all
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: of life.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: What, um, let's go to, let's go to the, the,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the most, you know, the, the main rankings that you do,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: cause it's always fun, um, that you have Yale at
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: number 20, right. And you have, uh, you know, UT
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Rio Grande Valley, number four. How does that happen? Explain
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: why in your rankings, UT Rio Grande Valley. And, you know, we,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: in some ways, I think we've been talking about these,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: these nice regional and rural universities. Um, Why that? What
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: did they do?
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: So UT Rio Grande Valley is a relatively new university.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: The state pulled together three different colleges in the Rio
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Grande Valley. I think these statistics are not exactly right,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: but I think something like 90% of the students are Hispanic. Um,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: you know, two thirds of them are the first in
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: their families to attend college. Um, you know, the tuition
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: is not expensive. It's under 6,000 a year. Um, the students, uh,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: earned annual incomes of $ 54, 000 a year, which is $ 1, 300
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: more than they would have earned considering their backgrounds had
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: they gone to a typical other college. That is real value. Now,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: you go to Yale, you graduate Yale, you're going to
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: earn a lot more. But Yale is educates a tiny
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: fraction of what UT Rio Grande Valley does. And, you know,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: maybe 10% of its students are the first to go
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: to college and from lower middle-class backgrounds. So Yale does well,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: does a great job for the students it lets in
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: who are of modest means. It just doesn't let many
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: of them in.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: What is the highest ranked elite university? Is it Brown
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: or what did you have as the highest ranked of
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the so-called elites that people would accept as elites?
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I think MIT is at number five.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: No, Duke.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Duke is number two. Duke does well. But look, the
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: difference between number five and number two is pretty marginal.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: But give these colleges, these elite colleges, Harvard's number six,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Princeton's number seven, University of Chicago's number eight, but number
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: three is California State University, Northridge, right? And nine, 10,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: and 11 are California state schools, right? And Western governors.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: You ever heard of Western governors?
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: So I have, but I have always thought it's an
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: online only university. Is it not?
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: It is mostly only online. They do have brick and
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: mortar facilities, but it is a university.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Where is it located?
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I think their headquarters are in Utah. They were
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: started about 30, 40 years ago by a group, a
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: bipartisan group of governors, hence governors.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: In the name.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: And the idea was to provide a college for adults
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: who don't have a lot of time, don't have a
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: lot of money, are stuck in their jobs, need an
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: education to move forward. And we're going to give them credit,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: college credit, for things they already know. to life experience. Yeah.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: And so if you've been doing the books at a
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: grocery store for 10 years, but you don't have an
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: accounting degree, they're going to test your bookkeeping capacity. And Hey,
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: it turns out you're a third of the way to
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: an accounting degree. Boom. You've just cut, cut one third
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: of the cost of your education out. Right. And Oh,
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: it's going to be mostly online, but with tutors always
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: available live tutors. So you can study, you put your
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: kids to bed at nine and then between nine and 11,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: you can do your, do your work. And by doing that,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: I think they have over 100,000 students a year. It's
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: just insane.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: And what's been their return on investment? So their graduates are,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: I take it, that must have scored pretty well.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't have the figures in front of me,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: but like I said, they're 13th of 1,400 colleges, right,
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: in our rankings. So we did the first profile of
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: them 15 years ago. I'm a big fan. Because it
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: was structured for the students– the average student, right? It
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: was not structured for the kid, you know, from a
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: upper middle-class family in, in Montclair, New Jersey, you know, who,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: who got SAT prep and mom and dad, you know,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: put them into the best high schools and all that.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Those kids are going to do fine. It's, it's for the,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: it's for the rest of the country.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Um, quite a bit in our conversation, we have, you've
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: referenced a Cal state, um, something in the Cal State system.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: We've spent some time in the UT system. On your list,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: you have the city university system and the state university
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: system in New York. We've talked about Ohio, which has
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: in many ways built its own impressive system. Are those
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the states that stand out here that have like really–
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: or what's– Am I making too much of an assumption
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: on that? I mean, that Cal State system seems to be,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, some of these are just incredibly well-run state-funded systems.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: You are 100% right. And this is something that struck
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: us years ago, that the same colleges in the same
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: states kept doing well. And in a way, we're not
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: measuring individual colleges. We are measuring states.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Right. You're measuring sort of which state government's are invested
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: in having good higher education that's affordable.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: You know, your home state of Florida does quite well.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Florida International University.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: By the way, FIU brags about their ranking on your list.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: They put that in there.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: I've seen their posters in the airport.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, they're very excited about it.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: And as well, they should. Florida has a century-long history
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: of governing their university systems very, very shrewdly. I'll give
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: you an example. Remember we talked a little while ago
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: about how students lose a lot of credit when they
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: move back. My son's going through this now. In 1967,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: the Florida Board of Regents, the governing body of Florida said,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: every school, every course has to have a number and
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: those numbers have to be, have a curriculum behind them
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: And every English 101 course at every public university in
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Florida has to transfer to every other university. Because they
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: do that, Floridians, young Floridians, can go to a community college.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: They can go to Miami-Dade or whatever. Spend two years
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: studying and getting college credit at a very low cost.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe you live at home. And then move to Florida
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: International University or University of Florida and finish out their
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: last two years. And all of that credit transfers.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: You can't do that. You're describing the path to college
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: for half of my friends that I grew up with,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: which is either, you know, if they didn't get into
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: where they wanted, you had Santa Fe Community College near Gainesville,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Tallahassee Community College near Florida State, Miami, Dade near both,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: you know, FAU, all that. And that's how they handled this,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: the community college system. Now, those are colleges now. We
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: don't call them– they don't call them community colleges anymore.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: They've given them– it's Miami Dade College. I want to
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: say it's Tallahassee State now. I think that's what they
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: refer to it. You know, they're doing these things.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: Because they're increasingly getting into the BA space. But we
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: measure them as the federal government does, and it's percentage
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: of two-year versus four-year degrees. So to me, they're still
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: community colleges.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: You still call them a community college.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: But again, that's an example of Florida- And they keep
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: a lid on costs and their focus has been quality,
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: low cost college for in-state students. California is the same way.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Texas has a pretty good, very good system.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: They have a couple of them, right? They have both
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: the A & M system.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: The UT system, yeah.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: What Florida does is it wraps it all into one.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: California has different systems. But again, they put money into
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: the system, and they manage it in a way that
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: maximizes student success. The CUNY system in New York is
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: another one. Pennsylvania, kind of a terrible system. They've always underinvested. The-
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Pay attention, Josh Shapiro. We're watching, buddy.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Come on, man.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: He's doing what he can. And he's had a smart
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: guy in there trying to work it. But, you know,
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: these are you know, I wouldn't say my home state
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: of Missouri has particularly good system. What's the hallmark? What's
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: the hallmark of it? I mean, is there a is
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: there a pattern here? I mean, look, is there just
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: or was it just timing or they just had the
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: right governor at the right time?
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, what's your explanation? Is there is there a
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: good explanation?
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: I think each evolved a little differently. And I'm not
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: a full expert in the history of the evolution of
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: all these systems. But a lot of it goes back many,
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: many decades. A lot of it goes back to when
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: in the 50s and early 60s, every state was building
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: out its system of higher education.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: They were you know, go ahead and be honest. Well,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: this is post-World War II with the GI Bill, right?
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, that was the incentive, right? Hey, we're going
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: to have all these people ready to go to college.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: We need to build colleges for them to go to.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, and they expanded that under Eisenhower with training for
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: STEM students. And then in 1965, they had the Higher
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: Education Act. And so states built out community college systems.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: They built out branches of the university flagships. And some
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: of them had them managed centrally and well. Some of
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: them had them where each university was its own fiefdom
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: and the state coordinated, but had no teeth. So they're
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: all competing. And each has a law school. Each has
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: a med school. Each has a football team. And pretty soon,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: the costs are up. And you can't transfer credit. And
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: the governor throws his hands up. And the legislature says,
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: we're not going to fund you because you're throwing money away.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: And you get a kind of toxic system. New Jersey
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: is that way a little bit, honestly.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: But in California, they revere their system and they've kept
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: their eye on the ball. Quality education for average people,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: for low income families at a price they can afford.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: And that is what Kevin Carey in the Washington Monthly
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: in his story is basically saying the federal government should
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: help do. Not as a mandate, but on a voluntary basis.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Well, and again, you want to inject some investment in
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: rural America? We just came up with it.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Paul, like I said, first of all, your passion comes through.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: But this is– it is– in some ways to me,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: you've depolarized. But what you do is you're depolarizing this debate.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: This is not a debate about weather. It's a debate
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: about how we do this. we should want all of
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: our citizens to have an opportunity to be better educated. 100%.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: 100%. And I appreciate you having me on. I appreciate
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: you seeing that what we do with higher education is
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: a very good sample of how we can apply what's
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: gone wrong with the country generally and why I think
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: there's an opportunity to fix a lot of it.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Well, look, the world still wants to get educated here.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: So let's I hope that's still the case, to be honest.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: That was a badge of honor. I took that as
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: a badge of honor. If everybody wants to get our education,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: then I think we're winning. At least that's what I
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: used to think. Anyway, Paul.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: I think we will.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Good to see you, brother.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: Thank you, sir.