Higher Education's Next Chapter

Here again at the Milton Globus to talk about higher occasions next chapter. With us today, we have Byung Soo Kim, who's president of the university of Southern California. Have Charles Isabel, who's the chancellor of the University of Illinois. For Banner champagne. We have Bert Kepler, who's executive chairman, CEO of US News and World Report. Sorry. I didn't look down there. We have who's the president College, and Michael Crow's president of Arizona. State University. If you've been here for the last two days, you know we have time for questions, we'll get try to get to them so there's a QR code that will go up which hopefully will show up on this iPad that is sitting next to me. So I've been here for the last day and a half, there are two threads that keep running throughout this conference. One is, of course, AI. And in some areas, it's talked about a very positive development, in other areas, very negative development. For the future of the world. The second one, of course, is education. In higher ed particularly, in its role in innovation, preparing young people. For the rest of their lives. And so higher ed is gonna be central to the future. Kinda curious about what it needs to look like in twenty years. What needs to happen now. So I I just wanna go down the line Beyond, we'll start with you and then go down. Like, what needs to happen now? For higher education to look like what it needs look like in twenty years? So I think we've made a lot of progress. Particular, with respect to really recent how we partner thinking about the challenges created by AI, at USC, and I'm sure every single university and president started focusing on this at least a year ago, set the NIH strategy to accelerate our investment in medical research, business, and security. So a lot of published there think that's issues that I think are still ahead of us. Chose it. How we deal with them, at least to you, I see. So it's clear with the case of change in the jobs market that we really need a a new paradigm. For USC, that's gonna involve really leading into our Trojan family. And thinking about how we engage alone with Nae. And and continue to meet the needs of alumni as they transition Another issue I've just brought out there is maybe a a lot of provocation is I think that our governance model in higher education is not one that is really equipped to deal with the case of change that could we're we'll need to work with these things to work with. So, Charles, when we talked earlier, you said in, like, a European world, no one works in a certain world. No works. So as we think about this future higher education, like, what is the one thing that's just not changing now that needs to change? Well, so first of I I I I will about lifetime and lifetime learning. I think what we are not doing now is actually thinking part about what we had to reflect in the I think the We will be bigger, and we will have more demands to go on this not just for student services, but for social services, we will have to be think of ourselves as true in this pathway. Who are really seized and connected to economic development also this notion of educating people forever. So connecting with our alum is gonna be important, but what does that mean? There has to be a world where our alone can continually come back. And be educated over and over and again. Also can't say, please pay us $45,000 a year so that you can get course every once in a while. So we're gonna have to create some way in which people can get back in my view is that education. We will have brought at least those of us who do well, thought fundamentally about lifetime learning, what that actually looks like, it means to scale in both space controls. And we're gonna have to reorder and structure ourselves So, see, on wood is not changing fast enough right now to prepare for that future firearm? So I think it's very clear right now that higher ed has a charge problem. Seven in ten Americans believe hire is going in the wrong direction. And I think all of them have to be clearer advocacy that are teaching students how to think, not what to think, that we represent views across the global spectrum. And that we're American universities with a global reach, but then our constituents, our customers, are the American people. And it's important that all of us as presidents are taking responsibility for that trust issue. And working to be accountable as well. And it's something that as Dartmouth is an Ivy League university, we're thinking a lot about because what we need to produce the next leaders of our democracy. And you only do that a world that is changing so rapidly with AI with political meetings changing, with geopolitics, going in different directions. You're teaching students how to think and how to learn along the web. Eric? So first, I'm gonna say I I I feel like the child's puzzle, which one is not like the others? That that being the case, I think. I'll reiterate a number of points we've already said. We look at the education landscape in sort of three boxes. Enrollment, education, and then employment. And clearly today, the business model in all three areas are going through a lot of scrutiny and a lot of I think it's look down twenty years, I think as as some of the panelists have already said, it's what's gonna happen in the employment area is where I think there's gonna be the the biggest change. All the universities are now looking at that, but it's really in the first innings right now. Some are offering internships or transcripts on skills that you know, durable skills that you're learning. It's still very early. And so I think when you go down twenty years, you're gonna look at not just not just on the employment and and the outcomes that certificates and credentials but also how are universities partnering with their communities, with government, with with industry, and really getting a sense of what the world is gonna look like and not being not being because you you need those externalities to get a really good sense of what the world's gonna look like. Michael, twenty years from now, what is not changing fast enough to prepare for that? Twenty year Yeah. So first, let me say that I'm gonna look at this as let's say, 2050, just around the So so so so we're we're we're looking at two things that can occur in those twenty or so years that we really apply ourselves one is that after four hundred years in the enlightenment, we actually at a point now where we can actually empower every human being. Learn at a seal that they've never been learned Right now, there's only a few of us that are in act on this way where we're learning, the way we wanna learn, what we wanna learn. And so AI tools, advanced learning tools, other ways of learning, so forth. So on are gonna be empowered like nothing we've ever seen. Some universities will figure out how to do that and contribute to that. Some won't. Some will be able to scale, and scale doesn't mean size. Means impact. And so some will figure out how to do that, and others won't. Then the second thing in this twenty, twenty five years that I think is gonna be really, really powerful is that we may have a means now with some of the technologies that we're applying to match up our time sales have these differential time So we have society. We have technology and the use of technology at basically, let's use the starter technologies at light speed or warp speed. We have social change and social disruption which is accelerating at very fast speed, so let's call that impulse power. They have universities that are still back in still in And so what I mean by that is that they they're not evolving as quickly as the world around them, and that therefore they are becoming disrupted by the forces around them. And we may be able with the use of these technologies, and I and I don't mean the abandonment of the fantastic traditions at a place like that it Dartmouth, I'll pick on them, are gonna become a leader for the leadership of democracy on a planetary scale, and they use they need all these technologies also. So it's it's each institution has its own way to do this. So two things. We've got this opportunity to really accelerate learning at a species level, We've got this opportunity to take this disparate time between universities the way the world's really evolving to bring that together. Now what what blocks all of us is people are gonna have to allow the universities to have leadership. They can't be run by committees. They have to be run by leaders and formed by committees. And my colleagues that are at universities understand exactly what it means, we have to figure out how to do that. So that's the block. Okay. So I wanted brought up a a transparency trust. Eric, I'm gonna ask you this report from came out a couple of weeks ago. It made a lot of splash in the in the news media. You spent a couple of years kind of in a very public fight with Yale, particularly the law school and Harvard Law School, the rankings and accountability. What was the one thing you took away from that report? So first, I have to say it was it was an excellent report by an important institution. I think it would have been better if it came out two or three years ago. Be be that as it may, The the debate that I had was really with the law school and not not the school. Was many of the things that we have on on on this panel. The point being that the students applying to school that's charging a $100,000 a year, they should have access to all the information to be able to make the best decision that they can and have complete complete wasn't happening Universities now are providing much more transparency. And from the beginning, I mean, if parents and this is just not US News segment. This is from talking to parents and students for many years who feel great anxiety starting with the black box injection wanting to have a much more open process. So you know, the report, I think there's a lot of good there were a lot of good things in the report. Dealing with know, great inflation. As CNN said, not, you know, teaching, just wrong. What did you do? But but how to how to start thinking? How to increase trust. So lots of good stuff. My my big concern is that I think it's always making it difficult to implement. I think there's a lot of institutional rigidity to prevent that be curious to see anyone else on the on the panel disagree with any parts of the the old report, what would you find on your own campus? Yep. Yeah. I would say I disagree, but I would say that I thought that the first was a little bit narrow. I think they were looking at how does Yale restore trust. And I think that there's a broader external perspective that they could have discussed more. It impresses outside the scope of what they were told to do, but there's a larger breakdown in trust in in other institutions, not just how education. I think that that's something important to understand The other thing that I I think we don't talk enough about is that university presidents and chancellors And I think we gotta get over that. I think that there's so much for different pieces of USC, blue known fact, we take more transfer students from community college than many other private universities. Yes. That's great. And I think there are changed then. So do things in a complementary way. So I think that there's an opportunity for partnership among universities between universities and the government and the private sector, that we didn't really discuss, but I think would be would be very important in restoring trust, not just for one particular university, but Okay. I'll just say that it is true that trust in all institutions exception of the military. Yes. On that down, I think it's a cop out to just say that the reason the number one reason why people don't have trust is because there's not clarity around our mission. What we do. And I think a lot of us have lost our way. What producing the next reasons of our We will all become clear about that. It's much easier to So can I just You're going? Okay. Right. Honestly. So I, of course, do not with the other report. If I already have criticism. But it would be that it's too much of the moment. It's thinking about the moment thinking about the fact that this generational Wellston Trust and institutions in general, and particularly with higher education, has been doing, years. At least one time, I'm paying attention to it. And I think there's some underlying causes here that we are not necessarily grabbing. And in particular, I don't view that we allow a shift in the consumption of the fire after being public good. And once we decide that once we allow for public business, do not have to be back, the neighborhood public good, it everything about what it means to So suddenly, the only beneficiary of this university is the staffing, the reports there, the faculty, teaches their the students around degrees in the there, are community that's immediately around it. And it doesn't allow us to more clearly express what our true mission is. We in fact, even if people wanna take what I just said, that permission me all that, But unless it were getting And that's why I think it's so important to talk about who our constitutional is. The American public, whether we're private, republic as an institution, given the funds that we receive from the federal government. Our goal is to produce leaders of our democracy, have an impact across the world, and being clear that our our customer our primary customer is not one particular student. Or the faculty, but the American public is American universities, is extremely important in this moment. The general public and also any political decision makers and others are are oversimplifying higher education and There's 1,400 or so institutions that get bachelor's degrees. There's thousands of institutions that offer institutions that offer educational pathways after high school. There's it it it's an unbelievably complicated Most people do not. To residential colleges for higher education. Most people do not live in residence halls. Most people in higher education go commute to school, take online courses, all kinds of other things. So forth. What we have to do is we're gonna probably need some new names, labels. New categories, different kinds of functions. And then holding those institutions accountable for the functions that they're performing within the society, and then realizing that, as has been already been said, people are gonna be going to school their entire life in one way or another. We need to recognize that also as so we just we're just sort of archaic in the way that we're looking at the institutions. We're we're archaic in the way that we're thinking about them, and what we need is a more robust understanding of the sector, how it works, and what we're asking you different parts of it. To be able to. Do. See, then let me go back to the side. You trust because you've been writing and talking about it a lot, you're having an op ed and the in the Wall Street Journal. Couple of months ago where it's it's you said American higher education has a trust problem. We shouldn't pretend otherwise. And it won't solve itself. You've been, again, pretty upfront on this but not a ton of company. On it. So what does it cost you to do that, and why aren't others following you? Look. I I only leave in one way. I of the mission of my institution, and then I lead based on values And we have been out in front of this, anyways, darkness when I got there three years ago, brought back to SAT as part of getting back to a meritocratic way of looking at students coming into the system. And after we did that, most of our IB plus peers followed. So I think there are ways that we can bring issues to bear and being an Ivy League institution there is a lot of focus, even though we serve a small number of students, allows us to have an outside impact in terms of the educational world. I will say another place we push is in terms of neutrality. The idea that we as an institution should be a place where people can debate. Not be the critic itself on issues unrelated to education. We were very clear about that. We were very clear to apply to the leaders, but also our departments as a whole. I want a student to want to take a class in any department and not feel like they're not welcome because the department itself has taken a political position. And it's been nice to see others follow. And so sometimes it's lonely out front. My my mom usually texts me when I have something in the paper at least I get support from her. But what has been so powerful is to see other institutions following the the lead in some of those ways, and Dartmouth will continue to lead. So seeking following, Michael, I wanna move off trust a little bit and talk about innovation. I guess I should say here because I should have said in the beginning that I'm also a special adviser. At Arizona City. And I know since I've been on campus many times, you're chiseled in stone at the entrance The the mission of our ASU, the charter of ASU of ASU. Where part of it is measured by whom it includes in how they succeed rather than who they exclude. And you have said that you need more institutions like that. You've had hundreds of institutions from around the world and in The US visit you But but for the most part, you know, the new American university you've helped create there doesn't have a lot of partners necessarily in in following there. Why not? What is it about American higher education? Is it the culture, business model, the incentive structure, What is stopping other universities from scaling up the way it is to invest? We have an oversimplified methodology by which status can be attained in status through exclusion. Is that the person next to you that has a little to do? No. No. I do. It is what it is. Mean, it it is what it is. What I'm saying is that what we what we what we're shooting for is that we think that new types of universities that new types of colleges and universities have evolved in the hundreds of years that our company has been evolving. Has been four or ways. Why I saw it before? We have great research universities, learning grant colleges, We have these middle arts colleges. We have public universities and so forth. And so what we are arguing for is continue the evolutionary pattern and grow universities that are built around the notion of the way public research universities used to be built, which was you accept every student that has at least a b average. You accept every student that the right courses is gonna be You find a way to get other students into the university who need to make that kind of achievement. And then you make that also a research You make it an institution built on discovery. And that we separate ourselves. And so what happened to us is that the big research universities The US, ASU being a significant exception, keep raising their admission standards year after year after year after year after year because they only have so much space, so much slots, so forth. So forth and so on. Well, that's the model If exclusion is the model by which excellence is ultimately measured, then we're in for some trouble. We need more types of institutions, not to replace but to add them. So we built an institution that went back in time. Took the University of California's admission standards from 1950, and at the same time, we then caught up with UC Berkeley from a research perspective. Creating that in the same institution. That then is what we call the numerical university model, not to replace anything that already exists but to augment that which already exists. And why is it hard for others to do that? It's because there's huge risk huge risk. I mean, if you go out and all of a sudden, you're you're gonna be admitting more students and taking on more students, it's very complicated. Trying to do research at the same time. So we have high research productivity and high teaching productivity that and that requires us to do something that other universities don't do at much of. And that is the innovate. To use every technological tool imaginable to enhance the ability of our students to be successful. There's risk in that. Because the model doesn't really cover that form. Now there's progress being made on how the universe is it. Evaluate and rank and so forth and so on. But there's it's just it's a risky thing. I was I was a trustee in a little college in in Maine called College for a long time. And there, you know, it was all about, you know, meeting, you know, Amherst and and Williams and schools like that, in terms of admitting the fewest number of students. Was also a deputy provost at Columbia University for a long time. And the fact that they're in there was we call it the HYP problem. Harvard, Yale, Princeton. How many kids could we get to apply now? Columbia and Harvard and Yale Princeton are fantastic, unbelievable. Universities. But they're not built to scale. If all the publics follow the same pathway, then we've got a big problem. Same size as they were in ATV. They made much of the IVV. But I think it also comes back to this idea that there are different types of Yeah. The institutions Right? Yeah. That there's a place for for different types of institutions. It also we need more clear that my You know, we have a problem with trades in this country, with building the kind of people that can help at home health care and thinking about caring for our rural population and Dartmouth, which has the most rural medical school and center in the country, we're very focused on just getting the talent to help with an agent population that might not require a four year degree to be able to help our country successfully age at home with good health outcomes. So so what what we have done is to clarify that way. So so I agree that none of it is going acknowledge. We have about 200,000 BC communities. Campus. We have 500,000 people taking courses from the same content organized in a different way with people that just need nothing to enhance their chance of moving And so but but that's not something that every university Twitter should do. Some universities all four of these universities up here are all elected into the group. Of the highest performing research universities called the AAU. And all four of these universities are wildly different. From each other. And people need to understand that way, that difference in the way that universities need to operate. And what the country needs is more difference and more success in its institutions and more higher expectations. But different are some commonalities that should be there then I will let you speak. We should all be focused on truth. I know you agree with that, Michael. Like, we should all be doing research that focused on the truth, that's focused on getting to root of problems, that's not being led by a particular political vein or ideology. By the way, I am looking at my watch not because I'm like, George W Bush in 1992. I'm not debate, but that's because our clock now. Working. Twenty four hours. So so, anyway, I'm gonna be looking at my at my watch. So Steven of Risk, speaking of risk, you know, institutions like to be like each other. Because it's risky to be different. And beyond that, wanna ask you because USC has made this incredible rise over the time I've been covering higher ed. For the last twenty five years, and now you're in this incumbent position in a place that you weren't thirty or forty years ago. What you know, my ten years of of moderating these panels at Milken, everyone up here about innovation and change. But I always wonder in reality, how willing are they to risk where they sit now in the pecking order of higher ad in order to do that. So what are you willing to think about now? You're you're new president of of USC. What are you thinking about willing to do differently around innovation that given where you sit now in higher ed, it could be a big risk. In a ways, I have the damage that USDA cover. Michael U. S. Someone And in a way, that creates an incredible amount laboratory for innovation and fix and and innovation. So we have a school called the It was started back in 2013. And it was a very different idea No one had thought of a school would be organized around bringing people together across really collaborating with the private sector to solve real world problems, in flipping the classrooms. To really have the students working in cohorts together to solve these problems. Nowadays, those ideas seem pretty accepted, and and I think a lot of schools have been wanting to get And we ran into do that because we have all these schools. At USC. And now I think the opportunity is to learn from those experiments and see the that what's So I think there are ways to just within the compounding of your 52 that you have at any particular institution. We have 500,000 four year residential model and just gonna get rid of degrees and get a certificate. We're not able to do that, but Absolutely. Is it important for all of us to be thinking about it? Or Yes. So speaking of Rich Charles, we first met each other in your area at George Tech. We hope to go up an online master's degree in computer science that has become wildly popular. But that was computer science ten years ago. People should still take that degree. Given AI? Yes. Okay. Short answer for all those you wondering if computer science is still worth it. But I I guess I'm just kind of curious though, about it was so hard to put that degree in place. At a legacy institution. So everybody keeps saying this moment is different. The last couple of years in higher ed have been different, because of the federal government, because of changes in in demographics. Like, what is generally you know, genuinely different about this moment? That it's actually gonna motivate institutions to change. Everyone's paying attention to So I think that's true for a lot of the things that people are talking about. They're nice. They've done this before every we need do these of this the difference. So now we're able to do it. I don't think there's anything about the world that So I think AI is going to be a a change maker, and she is making us think differently. About of teaching and learning, because of students in the job market, or all of it? All of it. I mean, knowledge is you think of this now the way it before. And so ask what the differentiator is for a large public or a small group is really important. And at Dartmouth, I just so everyone knows, and we actually coined the term the field of artificial intelligence in 1956 at a a summer conference. And seventy years later, I think we have now another responsibility to ensure that our students are prepared to use this technology to augment their thinking rather than So one one thing I think that's really important at this moment and really an intersection of a lot of things. So our economy is 30,000,000,000,000 plus. Our debt is now about the same size as the economy. We're at a moment whereas our because our society has evolved there's always been the income disparity. In the bottom third of personal income, you see that declining lifespan. You see declining educational attainment. See declining everything. And so it's never really occurred before. It's always been the case that all of the thirds of the of the income spectrum have always been improving and accelerating. So what's happened is that the upper third, which most people in this room are a part of, it's like Switzerland for a 115,000,000 people. It's unbelievable. The prime rates, everything. If you look at all this stuff. So what we haven't done is we haven't figured out as we've grown this economy, and I'm not talking about fairness, I'm talking about success of the economy, for the vast majority of the people. We have to figure that out. While at the same time realizing that you and I'm not making a political statement You can't have $30,000,000,000,000 in debt while you've got a third of your population that's not being successful. Because then you don't have a successful model. The model is not yet as successful as it needs to be. So we have to figure out what can we do as higher education. What can we do to affect that impact? And so we're driven like crazy people. Focus on economic growth and economic opportunity to make the country more successful at scale, all higher education needs to figure out how to use AI to use the tools all how to make these things happen. So the moment we've never been here before. We never had right? So why should we trust to do it? Right? Earlier this morning, while Emmanuel was talking about, like, the different big moments in education in this country. Land school movement, World War two GI Bill, space race. All of those things accelerated education, particularly higher ed in some way. Is the next big movement necessarily gonna happen to institutions, or is it going to from outside? Because you've all talked earlier about the need for upskilling and reskilling, but should we trust incumbent institutions to do that? Or should we trust the outsiders? And I would love to hear from all of you on this. Like why should we trust you to do this and not an outside outside entity? No. No, Michael. Sorry. Well, I mean, I don't I have not yet seen the profit seeking education enterprises that are wildly successful. You can, there's a few out there, most are just the And so and so that's one point. And then second, I you know, it's kind of funny the word trust. I mean, but this is 56 people that signed the Declaration of Independence and 07/04/1776 just to years ago. Over 35 of them included a call. Over them design moment for the country. And if you look at the history of the country, it's really been unbelievable what the colleges have been asked to do, what they have done, what the universities have done, It's literally unbelievable. And so has to think about these institutions some of which are almost 400 years old in this country alone, there's no 400 year old corporations. Is they've been here forever. They've met every challenge. We have new challenges. We need everybody to step up and meet the new challenges. So rather than beating the horse that you rode here, let's get the horse to do the thing that we needed to do. So you think you can meet us, Erin? So I would just you you know, I didn't take my daughter to look at at colleges. And you But but you go on to these college campuses, and the amount of talent that you honors on this college is so immense. And so certainly, I think colleges can rise to this to this next challenge. If there's the will, if there's the leadership, there's great leadership on this this panel. But I do think in in this case, it will not just be universities. This is a challenge that I think goes beyond universities, but but that does not mean that universities don't also have a role in working with with industry and working with with with government. This is, I think, the biggest technological change that that we've seen. We will see The universities do amazing things. And harness great talent. But in partnership with with some of the other with government, with with industry, with their communities. Will just say that in addition to training the next generation of talent, universities have also been the seat of major discoveries and basic science that is not necessarily ready for its to to make a profit is so important to all of the medical discoveries and so many discoveries we've made across the world. Dartmouth was the home to some of the first cancer immunotherapies that were not developed necessarily in terms of looking at profits in mind, but have been so important for carrying cancer and moving our population forward. And But even that partnership right now is under threat because of federal government. That I mean, I think the partnership between universities and the federal government is so immensely important. And I think there is a way that we continue it, and it will look different. We do have to take responsibility for what we're doing, but it has produced some of the most important discoveries in the of our country in the world. And I think we have to rethink it. It doesn't mean it goes away, but it looks different. So, Charles, can we need this moment, like, light break movement, high school movement, World War two space race? Yes. So I think we're making a mistake in the view of this moment. At the moment. So I think that universities are ideally set up for this for those systems. is what I think Mike was saying. We are long long Right. But AI right now, as you well know, is moving so quickly. We can't accept that. And I was pointing in the 19 but the nineteen eighties were forty years Right? This is an all the long time ago. That was the Internet. That was something that came out of the If you go back and you think about this moment, if you think about not this moment, they are, but this moment they are as being an actual consequence of something that happened thirty or forty years ago. You realize the actual moment of change when we got compute to everyone, and we connected everyone's human dated to everyone. Almost none of the algorithms are used in the AI. This is what I do for a living. So the almost none of the algorithms Yeah. Charles, this is on the title of your dissertation. All of almost all of those really did It keeps Right? It was this is something that came as a moment of a whole host of things. Well, that's why people understand. That Well It's not like there's, like, a flash, and then this is, like decades and decades. And decades and decades. And so we think about AI as the moment, what we're actually missing is what AI is gonna set up. About twenty or thirty years ago, not what's happening in the what feels like chaos to us right now, because this was set up the nineteen nineties. Know at this point, I also obligated to mention a marvel wall. '19 mention Does everybody know who tomorrow's law is? No. Does anyone not know what Mars law is? So you Is simply that we overestimate the impact, the short term impact technology and underestimate Right? So the example that I think makes sense here, and I think into the AI moment, is was the Internet and the creation of what we now think was the modern Internet world or web. You go back and read, oh, SEP. It's gonna change everything. Go for middle aged men, teenagers who are, you know, bullying each other over know, Facebook or TikTok or whatever the hell it is they're doing with me. And all of these things are happening. Radically changed the world. None of us all that have that. And as a consequence of these decisions, it is not the new thing that is changing it. So in other words, we might be just estimating, like, what is really tough. Yes. The world but but the question I was why should the public trust higher education in our track record to really meet these evolving needs? And look, trust has to be earned. The second thing I'll say is I think it's possible to over index on the trust model. I think it does hit different parts of it. Higher education differently. Community colleges don't have the same kind of trust problem as simply the idea that it has. So, you know, there are differences there. But when I would say in addition, to the points about research, the incredible The educational kind of reframe that Sian articulated so beautifully, that's really important. But I would say that there is something very special about the four year residential experience. When people can't meet other people, from across the world, and discover all the differences between them and all of the things that they have in common. And that is a beautiful, beautiful thing they learned to talk to each other, engage, These are students now in college who've had a really lost time in high school. Due to the pandemic. And we're able to for four years, really kinda teach them what it means to engage in a simple and constructive conversation dialogue, empathy, And those human wants, you can kinda say, oh, those are just soft skills. My belief is that those soft skills, those human skills are going to be even more important as term whatever we're doing. And and despite the trust problem in the hierarchy, so want to get their children into the institutions. So it's still happening. Every every day. Right? Like, I so even just all these headlines about lack of trust in higher ed, I did tell you a lot of time over for my most recent book in high schools. And everywhere I go, people want to get into Well, every time I said, moods were gonna change everything and that the pandemic would get rid of the four year residential degree I can tell you, anyone who had kids home during the pandemic, the kids want wanted to go them to go back. Mhmm. And the parents wanted them to go back. So one one of the things that all these headlines are missing because the people are not gonna be listening to people or whine or they're missing frustration, and then they they, of course, go with the negative emotions come to campus, so we have about a 100,000 people on campus that are taking every day 80,000 to 20,000. Staff. 30,000 staff that support them. And and what I would tell you, those kids those people come a 166 countries. Physically located with us. From every faith based group you could possibly imagine, every political perception every political group, everything you can possibly imagine. You wanna know what the dominant thing is going on in campus? Is there aspirations for the future. We've never seen anything like it. Complete changes in behavior. So those of you that were in college in the seventies like I was, you know, drunk and alcoholism, everything you could possibly imagine. I mean, it's just a lot of that is gone. It's it's it's at a much lower level. I mean, the the kids that are at our school now, the 80,000 on campus with us, have these unbelievable views of where they want the world to go, the way they view each other, the way they work together. So but the thing like, one thing that's interesting to me is that there's this vape going on about higher education, which is written by a series of people who largely don't know anything about what they're talking about. They they haven't spent any time on campus. Haven't they don't know what's going on. They don't know what the aspirations of the kids are. They don't know what they're dreaming about, what they're working toward. Down on the ground, I've never I've been in this job for twenty four years. I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen people with the drive and the motivation to make a better future. Charles, quick, I do wanna say a a big thing is if you is that we want to be And if you talk about it in terms of just trust and just neutrality, you're actually missing The point is that we need to be honest brokers to create knowledge, honest brokers to provide place the action at the price that they had to pass. The truth will come out. And it's very easy to get caught up in the lanes that we all have been using right now, and then we slide past what's actually going on. Presidents and chancellors who voted. Was about Douglas. And whether that is in our way. And I look forward to all my other colleagues being We're gonna get back to that. We're gonna it. But I wanna get to something that I've also been visiting campuses with my oldest And one of the things I see on every campus where we go on is talking about jobs. And Eric, I wanna ask you this because I know US News over the years has been criticized for focusing on inputs. You focus much more on outputs in in in recent years. One of them being jobs. Right? And and I'm I'm amazed when I go on only stores. Everyone talks about ninety. Are in graduate school or jobs after after graduation. I have not been on a campus yet that is under 90 So I would love to know Keep hearing about all these all these students employed during graduate school. Eric, what don't we know yet? That would be useful to know about junk in colleges? So I'll I'll say a few things. I mean, yes, you're criticized and you're putting more emphasis on inputs, but we were because we put emphasis on inputs. And on outcomes. Then we move to outcomes and we're to doing outcomes and not way your son said mom said, only thing worse than we talked about is not being talked about. So and and and by the way, Michael, you're giving me so many more ideas for rankings. Just on this But but but but it also is just outcomes, when I think about what we know. Mean, first thing, and and some of this does not apply to the colleges that are on this stage, but first of all, colleges need to do what what their that students want them to do, which is graduate them. And not just us starting four years and six years, across all of the colleges, 67% graduate. So then we sold a third that we're sending a college that we're not not graduating, and really, the statistic that really gets to me is in this country of 40,000,000 Americans that have some college, no decree, and debt. So these are 40,000,000 Americans that have been totally disbansed by the college system. So we think about outcomes, we've gotta think about putting those students through and having the experience that that Michael talks about. Second of all, when you talk about some of this, you know, sort of data, we know and it's just a really interesting study that came out on level, that certain degrees have higher lead to higher age income. That's not surprising when you're going to, you know, specialty. Now when you come back and you think about it on for for colleges, we actually measure whether or not going to college will provide more income you know. Had you not gone to college when you had made more income. So we measure that. But but I'm very leery about looking at that, you know, statistically in saying, you know, shouldn't we be measuring the outcome, and should we be measuring that outcome based on financial success? For for for a few different reasons? I mean, first of all, maybe at this conference, people will promote more private equity analysts. But think society is much better when you have more teachers, and more people in nonprofit, and we need to make sure there's a lot of anxiety on these college campuses about your job and your outcome. But it's also important that we're as he says, the leaders of tomorrow and not for anyone filled, because we're gonna need incredibly diversified population to continue to promote our democracy, to, you know, continue to create the economic system that that So, Sam, I'm I'm kinda curious about that because I think the the stat at Dartmouth and much of the IVD is that a third of graduates go into essentially three fields. Right? Banking, consultancy, and technology. Like, how can you change that quote among these very important institutions? Mean, I talked a lot about ROI, and I agree with Eric that you can't measure that just in terms of financial terms. I want our students to explore their passions and their potential believe it's important that they land and that they are effort actually through a $100,000,000 campaign to raise funds about every student that goes to Dartmouth can have an And the whole idea is that I want students to have internships in the heart in DC in different fields where they can explore and actually do something that they don't like. So they learn what's out there. And I want to open the aperture to what is out there, especially for the next leaders of tomorrow. And so we're focused on that. Don't believe your major dictates your career path. And I believe that students, especially at a place like our ness, where we are educating the best and brightest are exploring different fields from teach for America, after they finished, to being in our organizations to journalism, to news, to all of the places that might not just be in consulting. We've but him is left. So he's still bringing your questions that are coming into the IPad. I wanna end on as we into the the home stretch here, talking about over jobs and leadership. Because as Charles mentioned, I've known mentioned this idea of governance, of all the stakeholders that you have, I've been watching some of these panels with CEOs at this conference the last few days. And I always think about their stable among public companies are children. It's pretty easy in some ways. They're complicated jobs, and I say they don't have complicated jobs, but your stakeholders are all over the place. Right? You have students, you have one, you have parents, who are in the mind among the public, You have faculty, you have staff, right? And everyone has different ideas. Bored. Bored. Sorry. You know, so we've talked about innovation, but what what really needs to change about the university presidency? You know, and how you're prepared of you are fairly new to the job, Charles Amiens. Some of you have been in this job for twenty five years, but how many colleagues do you have who have done it for twenty five years? There's probably, like, two or three of you out there. Yeah. So how how do things need to change about the university presidency so that all the things that we've just talked about for the last forty five minutes can actually happen. And the uncertainty, Charles, may I because you're kinda new to this role Just kinda curious about what you're seeing even in this first year. Being the president chanted, you know, see, is extraordinary for And so people are always asking, oh, this you've got such a difficult job. The way I look at it for Snippet, in in America because we have such incredible What I will say, I not only do you have extraordinary extraordinarily diverse stakeholder rooms and demands from within the university. Perhaps something that has changed over the last two years is the extraordinary pressures from the external environment. That need to be managed as well. Those could include funding sources. You could involve reputational issues. It could be private partner opportunities. And so many other perhaps one example of a university that really thought we need someone who not only has to profound respect for the internal academic vision, but who also has the So before this job, USC has a huge academic medical I worked in government. And for better or for worse, that's my back. And I think it's been very helpful for me in terms of being able to manage some of these sustainable environments. And I'm not saying that the universities should or have to go towards a nontraditional candidate like myself. But I think that the skill set now has to include the ability to manage those external environmental factors. So, Charles, does that mean we need to prepare Maybe. I'm not entirely sure. Like, I I think I'm can take my job. Okay. I think the the slightly different presidents or chancellors are good. But whether the institutions themselves are. And I think I I agree with them. Was just said. I think if I were gonna summarize it, and maybe this is just for my experience that I understood exactly that this job is and I think that's the line with what you said. But, man, it really is Sense of the word it not. You really are managing all these concerns. You're a part of particularly for the government ecosystem that has all kinds of things that go with it. I think what's difficult difficult about the shop now than it was is there's pressure to make things happen right away. On the individuals, which means it's churn, which is not a good thing for the sector to be there. there's a question about whether beyond the presidency or the chancorship, it looks the it means institution has to be able to be more people more aware. Of this place. In the world. So I'll wrap this up with you at something we think instead of the beginning. You know, the biggest mistake that everyone makes in these jobs or regional is And that's a real skill to figure out who your audience actually is. It isn't clear to me that the different constituencies of the university inside the university itself. Always appreciate Okay. So we have five minutes left. I have a couple of prior questions a few came in. So was a question that came I was here ten years ago, that is still stuck in my mind. Somebody got up during the q and a and said, why does college cost so much It just continues to cost more. What's the one thing we can do kind of bend the cost curve in the next decade or two? Anybody else? One thing. Depending on the curve. Accelerate innovation. Same. We have you. You don't don't have to answer the question. Say that we're really on making sure that our resources are at the students. The academics, through the faculty, rather than additional administrators. And we are it costs so much at a place like Dartmouth because we are people intensive place. We spend most of our money on salaries for faculty. And that's what you get in a place like Dartmouth. You get one faculty member from every seven students And I don't think that should change at a place like Hermit, but we need to make sure that we are putting our resources towards the students, towards academics, towards that experience, and towards the research. And and again, right, I mean, but there are 85 colleges now that charge over $90,000 sticker price. Again, not every day sticker prices will You know, your institution and a lot of other well endowed institutions make a lot of money for your institutional financial aid. So Yeah. There's still a big concern, especially among the middle class about college. I totally agree with the sticker is not what you should be looking at. It's cheaper to go to now than it was ten years ago for lower middle income students. And for families making up to a 175,000 a year, it is free to vote in government. Dharmit does not give loans. We only give grants. We're very fortunate be able But you're very fortunate to do that. Not a long time. Very fortunate. But I think it comes back to something Eric said, and I'm assuming that Michael said, a lot as well, is ranging between 60, 65% of only four year college students graduate. Like, that is a problem. So I I just wanna you know, we're we're at a moment right now where the cost structure, as you say, Also, the revenue model is also under pressure relief. Less foreign students, federal government. So so there are lots lots of things going going on to ensure a great education. I think the the constituency that's most important. Is is is the student I just wanna go back to the last question. I think that's important. You're seeing some of the most talented leaders in academia here I I think that because you're now having to, as a leader, of the university, manage finances, think about real estate, raise money, do PR, think about being a politician, I just think that it's sports teams that I just think we need to the the the scope of the leaders that that we're looking for. I mean, there's lots of people that that not come out of academia. You remember Eisenhower was president of, you know, of yours, you know Columbia. Columbia. Mitch Daniels, former EI governor of Lincoln Pune. So there's lots of good talent there's gotta make sure that we continue to put these institutions you know, top of mind and doing the best they can for our country. It all starts at the top. Okay. Charles opened the door for his athletics, and that was one of the questions we got. Is the transfer portal on the NIL rooting college sports? Awesome. Wow. I'm pretty run of time. I vote yes. We must fix this. Just absolutely have to The the all the incentives in the structure wrong for everyone involved, every single person. Whether it's the student athlete, whether it's the coaches, whether it's the university's whether it's the public, all of the incentives are wrong. We have to fix this. It's a I don't mean effective here, but it's it's basically the prison's dilemma. It's and and we need an outside reversal to Okay. So minute and a half left. Let's just go down the line. As we look at this twenty years out, What's the one thing that gives you hope for the one thing that's really keeping you up at night? As you think about these next twenty years each Michael, start with you. Hope hope for me hope for me are the are the as the mindset of the people coming to be to move the country forward is unbelievable. Eric, move forward of word. Hope