Latest / Stampede of Truth / Moore Money with Steve Moore - Jeff Yass: Reinventing Higher Education
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Next up is my good friend Jeff Yass, who is
- 0:03Speaker 1: with Susquehanna Capital. He has a great piece in the
- 0:07Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, I believe it ran on Friday, that
- 0:11Speaker 1: is about how you're not going to solve the problems
- 0:14Speaker 1: of the Ivy League schools and the kind of leftism
- 0:17Speaker 1: on campuses by giving them more money. And Jeff is
- 0:21Speaker 1: a great giver to all sorts of causes. But Jeff,
- 0:24Speaker 1: first of all, thanks so much for coming on.
- 0:27Speaker 2: My pleasure, Steve. How are you? Good.
- 0:29Speaker 1: So thank you for coming on. So explain what you
- 0:34Speaker 1: mean by your piece. And because, look, I'm very concerned
- 0:37Speaker 1: that so much money is flowing into these universities, especially
- 0:41Speaker 1: the kind of Northeastern liberal universities. And the kids are spending,
- 0:44Speaker 1: you know, their families are spending two hundred thousand dollars
- 0:47Speaker 1: to get a degree. And then the kids are coming
- 0:50Speaker 1: out without any useful skills. And all they're learning on
- 0:53Speaker 1: college campuses, how terrible America is.
- 0:58Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great parlay for the left. You send
- 1:01Speaker 2: your kids to college. You come out with a lot
- 1:04Speaker 2: of debt. You're taught to hate civil society and free enterprise.
- 1:10Speaker 2: And then you can't get a job. And then when
- 1:13Speaker 2: you're dissatisfied, instead of blaming the people who have been
- 1:17Speaker 2: lying to you your whole life, you blame capitalism. So
- 1:20Speaker 2: it's just win-win for the left.
- 1:23Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's become a racket, actually. So you look
- 1:27Speaker 1: at the the voting pattern of the professors on college
- 1:31Speaker 1: campuses and on, on most of those in those faculty lounges,
- 1:35Speaker 1: as you know, Jeff, you know, 70 to 80 to
- 1:39Speaker 1: 90% of the faculty members are liberal Democrats or socialists
- 1:44Speaker 1: or communists. And it hasn't really improved much in, in the,
- 1:49Speaker 1: even though people are more aware of it than ever before,
- 1:52Speaker 1: it's still a big problem. And then you've got the problem,
- 1:56Speaker 1: The degrees that kids are getting, whether it's philosophy or
- 2:02Speaker 1: sociology or anthropology, are so left wing that the kids
- 2:08Speaker 1: are not coming out with any kind of useful skills.
- 2:12Speaker 2: Yeah, and they become enemies of capitalism. The idea of
- 2:17Speaker 2: the piece was that approximately $ 80 billion a year gets
- 2:22Speaker 2: donated to colleges in America. It's just an astounding number.
- 2:28Speaker 2: And what I'm proposing is to philanthropists, look, if 20%
- 2:32Speaker 2: of that $ 16 billion went to start new colleges, then
- 2:39Speaker 2: we could start new colleges all over the country. They
- 2:41Speaker 2: can have all kinds of different philosophies, different methods of teaching,
- 2:45Speaker 2: different ways of making you pay or not. And that
- 2:50Speaker 2: would change the world. The colleges, in my view, are
- 2:53Speaker 2: absolutely irredeemable. There's no way, like Harvard's not going to
- 2:57Speaker 2: admit they were wrong or they were anti-Semitic or whatever.
- 3:00Speaker 2: They're just going to be quiet until the dust settles.
- 3:04Speaker 2: And their philosophy hasn't changed.
- 3:07Speaker 1: So, Jeff, let me just let me interrupt you for
- 3:10Speaker 1: one second. So I went to the University of Illinois
- 3:13Speaker 1: in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. And what college did you go to, Jeff?
- 3:18Speaker 2: SUNY Binghamton State University of New York at Binghamton.
- 3:21Speaker 1: Now, would you say because I feel like I got
- 3:24Speaker 1: a really good education at University of Illinois. I mean,
- 3:27Speaker 1: it was a little left biased, but it wasn't bad.
- 3:29Speaker 1: It sounds like you got an awfully good education where
- 3:31Speaker 1: you went because you're so successful. So what's different about
- 3:35Speaker 1: you know, 30 years ago or 40 years ago versus today?
- 3:40Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, you know, I remember college. I don't
- 3:42Speaker 2: really remember it being political, you know. Maybe I wasn't
- 3:48Speaker 2: aware of it, but I really wasn't a political kid
- 3:50Speaker 2: at that time. But I think over time, they... You know,
- 3:56Speaker 2: the same thing that happened to journalism. They said, you know,
- 3:59Speaker 2: it's so much better instead of just grinding out a
- 4:02Speaker 2: class and teaching you chemistry or physics or math or,
- 4:05Speaker 2: you know, economics or accounting. I want to save the
- 4:10Speaker 2: world and I want to tell you what's right from wrong.
- 4:13Speaker 2: And it's a much more pleasant experience if you're a
- 4:15Speaker 2: teacher doing that than grinding out the classes. And and
- 4:20Speaker 2: I think just over time, you know, this is 30, 40,
- 4:22Speaker 2: 50 years. Without doing anything overt, people who believed in
- 4:28Speaker 2: free market philosophy just felt uncomfortable. This wasn't a place
- 4:31Speaker 2: for them. So they just gradually dropped out or didn't
- 4:34Speaker 2: go in. So without Harvard putting up a sign saying,
- 4:38Speaker 2: you know, free enterprise not welcome here, it just naturally
- 4:42Speaker 2: evolved that way slowly but surely over the last 30
- 4:45Speaker 2: or 40 or 50 years until it finally reached the
- 4:47Speaker 2: tipping point where it's at now and people are aware
- 4:50Speaker 2: of it and hopefully we can fight back.
- 4:54Speaker 1: So I want to raise a related problem, Jeff, because
- 4:59Speaker 1: you're a good economic mind and business mind, obviously. So
- 5:03Speaker 1: one of the problems seems to be that we just
- 5:06Speaker 1: keep pouring more and more tax dollars into the universities.
- 5:10Speaker 1: And a lot of the people, I mean, I'll give
- 5:14Speaker 1: you a good example. My father was a successful businessman.
- 5:16Speaker 1: And when he died, he left a couple of million
- 5:20Speaker 1: dollars in his estate to Northwestern because he was a
- 5:22Speaker 1: Northwestern grad. And And, you know, people have a fond
- 5:25Speaker 1: memory of their alma mater. And I remember saying to
- 5:28Speaker 1: my dad, I said, you know, dad, look, it's your money.
- 5:30Speaker 1: You can do whatever you want with it. But, you know,
- 5:33Speaker 1: there's no school that needs money less than Northwestern does.
- 5:36Speaker 1: They just spend $ 800 million on a football stadium. So
- 5:40Speaker 1: maybe they shouldn't even be taxed. Why do we even
- 5:43Speaker 1: treat these universities as tax deductible institutions?
- 5:47Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean. The tax deductibility is outrageous. If someone's
- 5:50Speaker 2: donating money to a school whose philosophy we disagree with,
- 5:54Speaker 2: why are they taxing me? If that person's getting a
- 5:57Speaker 2: tax deduction, then someone else has to pay it. Why
- 6:00Speaker 2: is the government forcing me to pay for something I
- 6:03Speaker 2: don't believe in? All those deductions should be eliminated. I
- 6:06Speaker 2: think when you think that 98% of the donations from
- 6:15Speaker 2: Princeton University, which is generally considered like not that far,
- 6:19Speaker 2: not a totally crazy school, went to Democrats. It's like,
- 6:23Speaker 2: what do you think is going to happen? I think
- 6:25Speaker 2: if you went to the faculty of the leading universities
- 6:27Speaker 2: and said, what's closer to the truth, the 1619 Project
- 6:32Speaker 2: or that America is the greatest country ever and the
- 6:34Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are defining moments in
- 6:38Speaker 2: human history, I think the 1619 Project would win. Now,
- 6:43Speaker 2: Imagine if the far right was running the universities in
- 6:49Speaker 2: such an extreme way. The left would go berserk. They
- 6:54Speaker 2: wouldn't let it happen. But we have passively let it happen.
- 6:59Speaker 2: It's been a slow, boiling frog. And now, finally, it's
- 7:03Speaker 2: time to fight back. And I believe the only way
- 7:06Speaker 2: to fight back is you cannot redeem these universities. They're
- 7:10Speaker 2: never going to change their mind. They're just going to
- 7:11Speaker 2: be a little bit more careful. Start new universities. That's
- 7:15Speaker 2: the American way. Compete with them. If we're better than them,
- 7:18Speaker 2: we'll put them out of business. And if we're not,
- 7:20Speaker 2: then we lose. But we just want a fair fight.
- 7:23Speaker 2: And I'm just calling out all philanthropists to please consider
- 7:26Speaker 2: giving money to new schools that can compete with the
- 7:31Speaker 2: old ones.
- 7:33Speaker 1: Yeah, it's counterproductive. And so, and by the way, you know,
- 7:37Speaker 1: Harvard has what, 50, billion dollars or more in their endowment. So,
- 7:41Speaker 1: you know, there's not a great, you know, and it's
- 7:44Speaker 1: a great university, but my God, I mean, you know,
- 7:47Speaker 1: they could give free tuition from now until forever, Jeff,
- 7:49Speaker 1: and not run out of money because they're so well endowed.
- 7:52Speaker 1: So it doesn't make a lot of sense for philanthropists
- 7:55Speaker 1: to give, giving Harvard more and more money or Yale
- 7:58Speaker 1: or some of the, you know, big, you know, highly
- 8:02Speaker 1: prestigious universities because they're, they have so much money. But
- 8:06Speaker 1: I really believe strongly that, Jeff, that we should be
- 8:10Speaker 1: taxing the endowments. I think, you know, this is all
- 8:13Speaker 1: money that was never taxed. You know me, I'm a
- 8:15Speaker 1: flat tax guy. I believe we should have a broad
- 8:17Speaker 1: tax base and low tax rates, but people escape paying
- 8:21Speaker 1: taxes because they give, you know, some millions, in some cases,
- 8:24Speaker 1: billions of dollars to these universities was never taxed. And
- 8:27Speaker 1: that the universities spend $ 800 million on a fricking football stadium.
- 8:32Speaker 1: I don't, it's a racket.
- 8:34Speaker 2: It really is. And I mean, just think of Harvard.
- 8:37Speaker 2: They have– I hate to use Harvest. The other ones
- 8:39Speaker 2: are the same thing, but they have $ 62 billion. Do
- 8:43Speaker 2: they really need the money from the government that they
- 8:46Speaker 2: get for scientific research and stuff? Just do it on
- 8:49Speaker 2: your own, and then you can do all the DEI
- 8:54Speaker 2: you want to do. You don't have to put up
- 8:56Speaker 2: with Trump or people you don't like. You're free to
- 8:59Speaker 2: do whatever you want. You've got $ 62 billion. Separate government
- 9:02Speaker 2: and education, and maybe some of your donors– who hate
- 9:06Speaker 2: Trump so much will step up and it won't even
- 9:08Speaker 2: cost you any money, but at least separate from the
- 9:11Speaker 2: government so that you can do whatever you want to do.
- 9:14Speaker 2: And we don't have this civil war where money's going
- 9:17Speaker 2: to places that other people don't like.
- 9:22Speaker 1: So why, Jeff, do we have tenure? I mean, my gosh,
- 9:30Speaker 1: the only people in this country practically that have lifelong
- 9:35Speaker 1: tenure are government employees, teachers in the cities, and university professors.
- 9:45Speaker 1: You run a company. I run a firm. You fire
- 9:48Speaker 1: people who aren't performing. That's just the way of the world.
- 9:52Speaker 1: The one place that you don't have any accountability or
- 9:57Speaker 1: reward for success is in university And, you know, I
- 10:01Speaker 1: I look back at my own life and I think of,
- 10:03Speaker 1: you know, three or four teachers who had an amazing,
- 10:05Speaker 1: profound impact on my life. And they were exceptional teachers.
- 10:10Speaker 1: And I've said this many times on the show. I
- 10:12Speaker 1: believe a great teacher is worth their good worth, their
- 10:15Speaker 1: weight in gold. But you've got a lot of lousy
- 10:18Speaker 1: teachers out there. New York, you know, you you study
- 10:21Speaker 1: this New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles. They never fire any teachers,
- 10:27Speaker 1: even if they're horrible, even if they don't know what
- 10:30Speaker 1: they're doing in front of a classroom.
- 10:33Speaker 2: Yeah, that's– the real tragedy is that teachers are so valuable.
- 10:38Speaker 2: A good teacher is worth 100x what they're getting paid.
- 10:43Speaker 2: But because the teacher's profession, particularly K-12, is so protected
- 10:48Speaker 2: by the labor unions that if you're good, you don't
- 10:51Speaker 2: make any more money than if you're bad. They don't
- 10:54Speaker 2: get rid of the bad ones. If you're a kid
- 10:56Speaker 2: going through K-12– You're almost certain to get a bad teacher,
- 11:00Speaker 2: and that will throw you off track. So you can't
- 11:03Speaker 2: even have 20% or 30% of the teachers being bad
- 11:05Speaker 2: because eventually you'll get one, and you're not going to
- 11:08Speaker 2: learn the next step, and you'll be– you won't be
- 11:11Speaker 2: able to learn the subject. And the bad teachers are bad,
- 11:17Speaker 2: but the good teachers and the really smart people generally
- 11:20Speaker 2: know education is not a place for me. That's where
- 11:23Speaker 2: you go if you want to make sure you'll never
- 11:26Speaker 2: get fired. You just have to show up. It's like
- 11:28Speaker 2: working at the post office or something like that. And
- 11:32Speaker 2: to the teachers who are great, you're the ones who
- 11:35Speaker 2: are really being disadvantaged. But you should be making 10
- 11:38Speaker 2: times as much money as you're making, and you should
- 11:41Speaker 2: be glorified citizens. Instead, you're just a cog in the
- 11:44Speaker 2: wheel of a labor union.
- 11:48Speaker 1: We're talking to Jeff Yass, by the way. Jeff has
- 11:50Speaker 1: a great piece. He's the CEO of Susquehanna Capital and
- 11:56Speaker 1: has a great piece in the Wall Street Journal this week.
- 11:59Speaker 1: about people pouring money into universities in ways that is
- 12:03Speaker 1: not productive. Jeff, can you hold on for one more segment?
- 12:07Speaker 2: Sure. I got it.
- 12:08Speaker 1: Okay. So we're going to take a quick two-minute break, folks.
- 12:10Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Jeff Yass. And I hope
- 12:12Speaker 1: you're having a wonderful weekend. We're back, folks. This is
- 12:15Speaker 1: The More Money Show. Hope you're having a great weekend.
- 12:17Speaker 1: I'm talking to Jeff Yass of Susquehanna Capital. He has
- 12:21Speaker 1: a wonderful piece in The Wall Street Journal this week.
- 12:23Speaker 1: about what do we do about the left-wing drift of
- 12:26Speaker 1: our universities, and why do so many philanthropists give so
- 12:29Speaker 1: much money to universities? In too many cases, it's just
- 12:32Speaker 1: pouring money down the drain. Jeff, thanks again for joining.
- 12:37Speaker 1: You gave a large donation to, I believe, the University
- 12:41Speaker 1: of Dallas. So explain why you did that. How is
- 12:46Speaker 1: that going to be different than giving money to, say, Harvard?
- 12:50Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the University of Austin at Texas.
- 12:54Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry. It's University of Austin in Dallas?
- 12:58Speaker 2: At Texas.
- 12:58Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry.
- 13:02Speaker 2: It's UATX, University of Austin at Texas.
- 13:05Speaker 1: Okay, got it.
- 13:07Speaker 2: Okay. So the idea was it's a new school. I
- 13:11Speaker 2: gave money so that the kids would never have to
- 13:15Speaker 2: pay tuition. So you go there.
- 13:18Speaker 1: So kids can go to the school and not have
- 13:21Speaker 1: to pay any tuition for it.
- 13:24Speaker 2: Right.
- 13:25Speaker 1: How are the kids chosen?
- 13:28Speaker 2: The kids are chosen. It's just your test scores. There's
- 13:31Speaker 2: no community service. There's no letters from your teachers. There's
- 13:36Speaker 2: no essays. There's no BS. It's just sending your test score.
- 13:41Speaker 2: And if you have a high enough test score, you're in. OK,
- 13:47Speaker 2: so the idea is that, you know, we say to
- 13:51Speaker 2: the kids, OK, it's free, but nothing's free. This is
- 13:55Speaker 2: basically Milton Freeman University here. And you you have to
- 14:00Speaker 2: you know, we're asking you on your honor, no legal
- 14:03Speaker 2: requirements to pay it back. If you pay it back,
- 14:06Speaker 2: the university exists. If we do a great job, it exists.
- 14:10Speaker 2: And you know what? If you don't pay it back,
- 14:11Speaker 2: if you didn't think it was worth it, you just
- 14:13Speaker 2: don't want to do it, then maybe the university will fail.
- 14:16Speaker 2: So we are going to put our money where our
- 14:17Speaker 2: mouth is. We expect to get, you know, the kids
- 14:20Speaker 2: to go out and do very well in life and
- 14:22Speaker 2: then pay us back and perpetuate it without any government interference,
- 14:27Speaker 2: zero government interference. And the whole middle class, if this
- 14:31Speaker 2: method were the whole stress of middle class people saving
- 14:35Speaker 2: up for college education, which really defined their whole, you know,
- 14:40Speaker 2: life from the time that 35 to 55 would go away.
- 14:43Speaker 1: So by the way, Jeff, so, There's going to be
- 14:45Speaker 1: no no federal government money given the University of Boston.
- 14:50Speaker 2: Right. Zero.
- 14:52Speaker 1: So that means they're not going to be subject to
- 14:53Speaker 1: all the regulations.
- 14:56Speaker 2: Right. They you know, they're free to say whatever they want.
- 15:00Speaker 2: We have, you know, rigorous debates all the time about
- 15:04Speaker 2: politics and about, you know, morality and ethics. Right. And,
- 15:08Speaker 2: you know, people know if you go there, you're going
- 15:10Speaker 2: to hear some stuff you don't like. And if that's
- 15:13Speaker 2: not the kind of person you are, then don't go here.
- 15:17Speaker 1: Now, is this school, is University of Austin, by the way,
- 15:20Speaker 1: I see it now, UATX is the acronym, and it's
- 15:24Speaker 1: University of Austin, Texas. And is this school up and
- 15:28Speaker 1: running now?
- 15:29Speaker 2: Yes, it is. This is the third year. It was
- 15:32Speaker 2: basically founded by Joe Lonsdale, Barry Weiss, and Neil Ferguson. Okay?
- 15:38Speaker 2: So it was their... you know, their idea. And I,
- 15:42Speaker 2: you know, thought it was a great idea. So I,
- 15:44Speaker 2: I funded it. But there's 80 kids a class about,
- 15:49Speaker 2: so now we're up to about 230 kids. And we're
- 15:51Speaker 2: going to have our first grad. We are not accredited
- 15:54Speaker 2: by the way. You can't be accredited. Who cares?
- 15:57Speaker 1: I mean, by the way, Jeff, you know, the accrediting
- 16:00Speaker 1: institutions are totally corrupt. Go ahead.
- 16:06Speaker 2: It's just another government scam to keep their monopoly safe.
- 16:10Speaker 2: So the kids know they're going there and that the
- 16:13Speaker 2: school's not accredited, whatever the hell that means. If a
- 16:17Speaker 2: business wants to hire these kids who've gotten great internships
- 16:20Speaker 2: with Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, et cetera, you can't get
- 16:25Speaker 2: accredited until after the first year. Class graduates. So hopefully
- 16:29Speaker 2: in two years, we'll be accredited. But ultimately, we try
- 16:32Speaker 2: and do a free market approach. We don't really care
- 16:34Speaker 2: if we're accredited. You know you go there. The marketplace
- 16:38Speaker 2: knows the kids come out educated and enthusiastic. And they
- 16:44Speaker 2: want to work in a free market system. So if
- 16:46Speaker 2: businesses hire them, who cares if you're accredited?
- 16:48Speaker 1: Oh, I love this. And by the way, I do
- 16:51Speaker 1: know something about the accreditation process. It is totally corrupt.
- 16:55Speaker 1: And the only reason the universities need to get accredited
- 16:58Speaker 1: from these corrupt institutions, they were just an insider game,
- 17:02Speaker 1: is because student loans, you can't get a student loan
- 17:07Speaker 1: if the school isn't accredited. So it's just another one
- 17:09Speaker 1: of those rackets we're talking about. So it sounds like
- 17:12Speaker 1: then that kids who go to University of Austin are
- 17:14Speaker 1: not going to be getting student loans. No.
- 17:18Speaker 2: Well, there's no tuition, so they wouldn't need student loans. Oh, right.
- 17:21Speaker 1: They don't need it.
- 17:22Speaker 2: Right.
- 17:22Speaker 1: OK.
- 17:23Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't need it, but they couldn't get it
- 17:24Speaker 2: if they couldn't get it anyway. Right.
- 17:27Speaker 1: You know, and so this could be the model. Is
- 17:31Speaker 1: your hope that we would see more of these schools
- 17:33Speaker 1: being developed over the next 10 and 20 years?
- 17:36Speaker 2: That's what I was saying. You know, there's 80 billion
- 17:39Speaker 2: a year going to colleges. If we had 16 billion,
- 17:42Speaker 2: you know, you can start a school for a couple
- 17:44Speaker 2: of hundred million dollars and we can have hundreds of
- 17:47Speaker 2: them around the country.
- 17:48Speaker 1: Oh, that'd be amazing.
- 17:49Speaker 2: A thousand flowers bloom. We'll see who's who has a
- 17:52Speaker 2: good approach and which people want to go to. And
- 17:54Speaker 2: the kids are happy and they're productive. And let's, you know,
- 17:57Speaker 2: let's do it like if it was in a free market.
- 18:01Speaker 1: And so that's going to give opportunities to a lot
- 18:03Speaker 1: of kids. And it's going to, it's, you know, the,
- 18:05Speaker 1: all the, crap and the political correction, the correctness that
- 18:08Speaker 1: goes on in universities, which by the way, today is
- 18:11Speaker 1: as bad as ever before. You're going to circumvent that
- 18:15Speaker 1: by sending your kids to one of these schools, which
- 18:18Speaker 1: is going to provide them with real lessons for real life.
- 18:22Speaker 1: By the way, you hire a lot of, you know, mathematicians,
- 18:26Speaker 1: computer scientists and so on. And you were saying that
- 18:30Speaker 1: you have to get foreign students a lot because they're
- 18:33Speaker 1: not teaching our kids these Yeah.
- 18:37Speaker 2: That's absolutely right. I mean, there's not nearly enough kids
- 18:41Speaker 2: coming out of American colleges with STEM majors. I would
- 18:45Speaker 2: say 60 to 70 percent of the new hires we
- 18:48Speaker 2: have coming out of college are foreign born or, you know,
- 18:53Speaker 2: they might have been born in America, but their parents
- 18:55Speaker 2: are foreign born.
- 18:57Speaker 1: Amazing. I mean, it's just an indictment of our education system.
- 19:02Speaker 1: I shudder to think how it got this way. Do
- 19:05Speaker 1: you think that the donors, in other words, Jeff, what
- 19:10Speaker 1: has been the reaction to the piece that you wrote
- 19:13Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal? Because we need more people
- 19:18Speaker 1: of financial means to be supporting these kinds of initiatives,
- 19:22Speaker 1: and yet too many of the millionaires and billionaires are
- 19:24Speaker 1: just giving money to Harvard and Yale and Stanford. A,
- 19:28Speaker 1: they don't need it. B, they've become more and more corrupting.
- 19:31Speaker 1: And so this could be the start of something big.
- 19:33Speaker 1: But have you heard from others who want to get
- 19:37Speaker 1: involved in this?
- 19:38Speaker 2: Just anecdotally, as I was getting out of my car
- 19:42Speaker 2: in the driving range today before golf, a guy said
- 19:44Speaker 2: to me, I read your piece. I went to Harvard,
- 19:47Speaker 2: but it really shook me up. I think you're right.
- 19:50Speaker 2: And maybe I'll stop giving to Harvard. So that was great.
- 19:53Speaker 2: The bad news is, you know, Peter Gettler of the
- 19:56Speaker 2: Cato Institute, you know, emailed me that he's just amazed
- 20:00Speaker 2: how many people he knows who went to these Ivy
- 20:02Speaker 2: League schools who are sort of free market people, but
- 20:05Speaker 2: not diehards. And they just continue giving. So what makes
- 20:10Speaker 2: me optimistic is that there's so much wealth created thanks
- 20:15Speaker 2: to you guiding Donald Trump for free market policies. We
- 20:19Speaker 2: thank you. America thanks you, Steve, for that $ 40 trillion
- 20:22Speaker 2: you got us. And there's so much wealth that Michael
- 20:27Speaker 2: Dells of the world, certainly Elon Musk of the world,
- 20:31Speaker 2: They can start– they could really disrupt the college world.
- 20:37Speaker 2: They can start a lot of new colleges or a
- 20:39Speaker 2: lot of big colleges. And the great thing that Ken
- 20:42Speaker 2: Griffin did, $ 2 billion for Carnegie Mellon to start one
- 20:46Speaker 2: in Miami. I'm just hoping that other philanthropists follow his
- 20:50Speaker 2: lead and say, we've got to disrupt. We've got to
- 20:53Speaker 2: do this. We don't need any more art museums or
- 20:56Speaker 2: maybe one or two.
- 20:58Speaker 1: So Jeff, we just have two minutes left. I'm talking
- 21:01Speaker 1: to Jeff Yast from Susquehanna Capital. Great piece in the
- 21:03Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal. You know, hopefully what will happen as
- 21:07Speaker 1: this movement continues to evolve and as large donors stop
- 21:12Speaker 1: giving to the Harvards and Yales and Princetons and so on,
- 21:15Speaker 1: is that it will force these schools to reform themselves
- 21:20Speaker 1: and to go get back to educating and not indoctrinating.
- 21:25Speaker 2: Well, I mentioned that in my piece. It was Johns
- 21:27Speaker 2: Hopkins that in 1880 started graduate programs. And by 1900,
- 21:34Speaker 2: they had more graduates, more people in their graduate program
- 21:39Speaker 2: than Harvard did. So the University of Chicago was the
- 21:42Speaker 2: same thing, you know, by Rockefeller. And then Harvard changed
- 21:45Speaker 2: their ways and they became, you know, much, you know,
- 21:48Speaker 2: they copied it and they had much more graduate students. So,
- 21:51Speaker 2: you know, the competition does help your school. So, you know,
- 21:56Speaker 2: I wrote that if you love Harvard, give them some
- 21:59Speaker 2: competition and maybe they'll perform. So I'm not going there,
- 22:02Speaker 2: but I'm not telling you not to go there. But
- 22:05Speaker 2: couldn't they use a little competition?
- 22:07Speaker 1: Well, Jeff, thanks for what you've done. Thanks for what
- 22:10Speaker 1: your wife, Janine, yes, has done for Harvard. providing literally
- 22:14Speaker 1: tens of thousands of kids opportunities to go to the
- 22:16Speaker 1: best possible schools. And this could be the start of
- 22:19Speaker 1: something big. Jeff, yes, thanks for coming on the show.