Can a 100-year-old Organization Shape the Next Generation of Higher Ed?

This is Future youe with Jeff Salingo and Michael Horn.

Welcome to the latest episode of Future youe. I'm Jeff Salingo along with my co host Michael Horn, and we're really excited to have Ted Mitchell, who's president of the American Council on Education, with us today to talk everything about what's happening not only in Washington, but beyond in terms of higher education and the state of higher education. Great to have you with us today, Ted.

Great to be here, Jeff. Great to be here, Michael. Good to see you guys.

So we start the question, we start with most of our guests is how did you get started in higher ed? You've had quite an interesting career in higher ed, both inside, outside and within institutions and beside the government. So why higher ed for you and how did you get started?

So I can't keep a job, which is the nice path through this. So I went to college wanting to be a high school math teacher and worked on that for a while. And as I got to know higher ed, I really felt that this was an important place where one could deal in ideas and action simultaneously. My focus, through my academic research and through my administrative work and my leadership work, has been about access and affordability and creating an equitable education system. And higher ed seems to still be the major vector for social mobility in American society. And I'm all in about that.

So how would you describe, given that you've jumped back and forth between different roles, institutional level organizations investing in the ecosystem, the government itself, now a membership organization, how would you describe the different advantages and disadvantages that each of those perspectives brings toward that question of access and equity?

Yeah, great, great question, Michael. And I think that each has its own particular leverage points, but then its particular blind spots. When you and I were working together investing in ed tech startups, for example, I think that that was tremendously exciting because we were working with entrepreneurs who were right on the edge of creating tools and processes that were aimed exactly at improving outcomes for low income kids. And that was terrific. And I think, you know, we did a lot of good work together. And New Schools Venture Fund, where I was at the time, did a lot of, a lot of great investing. The problem there was always moving from those proof points to systemic change. And so moving from new schools to the government, it was kind of a, it really was just the opposite, is that we were dealing with things that had multiple zeros, whether those were zeros at the end of dollars or zeros at the end of hundreds of thousands or millions of students. And so the leverage there was about scale, but what was missing was the opportunity to really create new things at that kind of scale. So I think I've moved back and forth and tried to bring the proof point innovation to big scale and to take the big scale and talk to entrepreneurs and institutions about how they can move in that direction.

And of course, now, Ted, you're leading ace, which at times was not always in sync with the government. So how is it moving from government policy that you helped push and institute to now leading these institutions, some of which were not always pleased with the policies that you led or that the Obama administration led a couple of years ago?

So I'm relieved that there wasn't a mass exodus from ACE when I was named president. As I said at the time I was named, there really wasn't a letter that I received as undersecretary that I wouldn't have sent in my current role. So I now get to send those letters that I used to receive. But there's always, and I think a good healthy tension between institutions and the government over issues of regulation. Every institution I know and have been a part of would love to be just, let alone let us pursue our work and. And government is sort of working on the other side. What are the guardrails that we need to put in place to protect and then fill in the blank? Students, investors, taxpayers from potential waste, fraud and abuse. So that's, I think, is a healthy tension. And one, I think that I bring some of that government perspective into ace, and certainly when I went to the government, brought the institutional perspective from my time working at Occidental and UCLA and Dartmouth and others.

So ACE has always been known as kind of the umbrella organization of higher education. The Big Six. Right. They call them, and you have all the other big presidential associations representing the private colleges and the land grants and community colleges and so forth. But it seems to me, in covering higher education for the last 20 years, that there's a lot more divide between. On policy between those groups. Right. So those groups now, it's hard to kind of corral them, I think, on big policies, especially as we're starting to talk about the Higher Education Act. So what's your strategy for trying to find commonality between those groups, but also understand sometimes the land grant colleges might go in their direction and the independent colleges might go in their direction.

Yeah. So I think, Jeff, the question is really also the answer right at the end. I think that we all need to understand that when we can come together, we ought to, and we speak more powerfully when we do. But there are times, and we should acknowledge those, when people need to go their own way. And so when I sit with the other members of the six, that's sort of our basic starting point, is let's see if we can't get to a point of agreement. If so, yay. If not, let's figure out what lanes we're going to go in so that we're at least knowledgeable about each other's positions. But I must say, I've been there a year and four months now, and we really have agreed on far more than we've disagreed about. And I think partly that's because so many of the issues that we're dealing with are less at a tactical level that might divide the presidential associations and more at the strategic or even the values locations.

Could you give an example?

Yeah. So let's talk about daca. For example, the president decided we didn't need DACA on my first day on the job. Right. And so on my second day on the job, you had a letter come out. I had a letter come out. But, you know, that's the kind of thing that really is a. It's a values orientation and not, you know, it's easy to say. But when it's a matter of values, those divisions, those potential divisions really, really disappear. The tax bill similarly. Sure, there were different associations and different categories of institutions that were compromised in different ways by the tax bill, but we all understood the need to come together and stand arm in arm, whether it was on the endowment tax or the potential for taxing graduate students stipends. Those two were value issues that brought the community together.

So as you all are looking now out at the future of higher education, ACE is an organization that is both thought of in certain quarters, is very innovative in an umbrella that can push things forward, and in other places, more state and endemic of the system, perhaps. What do you see as the big issues that you would like to push in a proactive as opposed to reactive way?

Yeah, we do. We do have. I did hear once or twice when I was in the government that one Dupont Circle was the Death Star. So we do come to some of this with that reputation. I think that it's critical, and this is one of the things that the three of us have talked about and worked on for a long time together. I think that it's critical for higher education to understand that their monopoly over the creation of content, over the distribution of information courses is breaking up and that institutions and ACE really need to be at the front edge of that to talk through with our institutions what that means for them from a business model point of view, from a student service point of view, and going back to sort of what wakes me up in the morning from an access and affordability point of view, as, as you

see that changing that monopoly and other organizations can create content. Content is in many cases free.

That's right.

How. Where do you think the member organizations, institutions ought to go to be able to take advantage of that? I assume you're trying to shift them to an opportunity.

Indeed, indeed. And I think it's exactly right. I think that many of our institutions are, have some trepidation about that, and some of it comes just from a, hey, you know, that's my business. But some of it also comes from a very valid concern about quality assurance. And so where I want us to be able to move is to have our institutions be more in the domain of quality assurance and collecting opportunities for students, rather than necessarily needing to produce it all. Jeff, you and I have talked about this before, but, you know, a third of students today already transfer courses. More than a third take a course online. So it's happening. Our students are moving in this direction, and the institutions really need to build some infrastructure to manage that, and that's what I hope ACE can help do.

Ted, we've had a number of presidents on this podcast talking about strategy and talking about how they had to change the culture of their organizations on their campuses before that strategy went into place. What you just said was incredibly profound. I never thought I would hear an AC president talk about the possible end of this, the breaking up of this monopoly.

Did you ever see Ted as ACE president?

I've still got a couple blocks to walk back, so we'll see if the key works when I return.

So I would imagine that there's a lot of presidents out there of some institutions who would say, you should defend us at all costs, defend that monopoly. We should hold this. So what kind of culture change do you have to do with your members? You know, membership organizations have always been told to me, you know, they operate at the level of their slowest member. Right. So what do you, what kind of culture change you have to do to say, hey, wait a second, you know, this is happening, we need to be at the forefront of this quality assurance? Like how while at the same time they're trying to just at home deal with keeping their places in business in some cases. So how do you deal with that culture change? Not on a campus like so many presence. We've had on the show had to deal with. But now in this organization that's spread around the country and around the globe.

Yeah, it's the right question. And there's not an easy answer for folks who are listening who don't know ace. So we represent two year institutions, four year institutions, public, private, urban, rural. We are the umbrella for an incredibly diverse ecosystem of institutions. And they will respond individually in the ways that they see fit for their institutions and their institutional mission. And I think with this transformation, as in many others, there isn't a one size fits all. And so I was a president of a small residential liberal arts college. I think that there is a place in American higher education for small residential liberal arts colleges, and I will defend them to the death. There is also a place for the. What did the Chronicle call Southern New Hampshire? The mega university. And Michael Crow has certainly developed a mega university here at asu. So I think that we'll see a spread of institutions taking different approaches to this. I think that ace's role is to say pretty clearly to institutions, it's not one or the other. So you can create a platform at a small place like Occidental where students can still take advantage of multiple resources that may not be domestically produced by Occidental faculty in their classrooms on a daily basis. And finding that place where institutions are comfortable in providing access to a great variety of educational resources that we didn't have 50 years ago, I think is a pure opportunity.

I'd love to push you on this a little bit, just because it seems a little bit similar in certain respects to the healthcare debate over electronic health records, where we said if we had a mega health record, we'd allow people to transfer. And instead Kaiser created their system and Geisinger created theirs. And it sort of trapped people in. It was a way to keep them in and not have them talk to each other. And colleges, it strikes me, have a similar incentive that yes, students are definitely transferring between institutions, but if I don't give you all your credits, I get to make more money because of the credit hours. So how do you shift that?

Yeah, so it's not easy. And I just will say unequivocally, the transfer system in this country, whether it's institution to institution or online to brick and mortar, is broken. It's just broken. And we at ACE want to open that conversation up and try to make it more efficient and effective for students. Average student who transfers loses 43% of their credits. That's not okay. And if you look at the declining public confidence in higher education. There's a lot to answer for in that particular transaction. So it's not easy. On the other hand, I think that if we begin to think about the economics of an institution as throughput as opposed to sort of the stock of student enrollments, I think that those numbers start to even out, maybe even push toward the side of having more students who are doing different things, getting through and completing, rather than getting halfway through and dropping out.

TED Last question, so you mentioned public confidence. You're leading ace at a time when it seems public confidence in higher education is at all time lows, or at least it seems that way. In every poll that comes out, people just think, you know, college costs too much, students can't get jobs, professors are too worried about pushing their own political agendas. Nobody believes in free speech, you know, go on and on and on, no matter who's whether it's Gallup or Pew or or anyone. So why is this? Maybe it's all the reasons I just listed, but more than that, what do you need to do about it? What does the sector need to do about this?

Yeah, it's the big question for us. And if you look at our strategic plan over the next three years, this is item number one is addressing the public confidence issue. So we do need to remember that the public confidence in institutions writ large is as low as it's ever been. And you know, it's kind of the military, the police, higher ed Congress is at the bottom, as it always as it always seems seems to be. So a part of it has to do with this national narrative about confidence, about institutions. But I do think that the higher ed narrative about it costs too much, there's too much debt, you go to school, you don't get a job, you're going to live in your parents basement forever is not healthy for for us. And so we need to do two separate things, but they're connected. One is it's not true. And so we need to kind of get out there with a different fact pattern that says higher education still is the shortest path to the middle class. It is an engine of social mobility. People do get jobs, people do pay off their loans, and the exceptions are not the rule. So that's one. But then second, I think we need to look hard at our practices and we need to own up to some of the things that we need to do better. I mentioned transfer earlier. I think that that certainly is is one of them. We are coming, we're getting better at thinking about completion rather than just access. But the completion problem is a, is a serious one. And the fact that affects low income first generation students of color from urban areas and rural areas alike, that's a big deal. If you're running a business and half of your customers leave without buying anything, you got a problem. And so I think we need to own up to that. We need to work on tools and techniques, practices, policies that make it easier for people to succeed.

Well, Ted, it's great to have you here as always. We could have gone on as usual with another 10, 15 minutes, but appreciate your time being with us today and thank you very much for your service also to higher ed.

Thank you. Thanks Jeff. Thanks Michael. Great to be here.

This episode of Future youe was made possible with support from the Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership. The Academy is a partnership between Arizona State University and Georgetown University and is the premier training ground for those who aspire to senior leadership positions in higher education and those who want to lead organizational change at colleges and universities in the future. This episode was also made possible with support from Entangled Solutions. If you want to shape the future of education, Entangled Solutions would like to hear from you. Entangled Solutions is hiring smart, mission driven team members interested in helping world class institutions solve their most vexing challenges in learning and education. Learn more at Entangled Solutions.

And we're back on Future. You off a really great conversation with Ted Mitchell that I think, as you said, could have gone much, much longer. Maybe not just 10, 15 minutes longer, but an hour or so. But I thought as the president of ace, Ted made a very bold and perhaps historic statement on, on the podcast, Jeff, and you've obviously been covering higher education and seen ACE through lots of iterations over the years. I'd love you to dive into his comments and parse them on, on how he sees the role of ACE and institutions in the future.

I mean, the fact that he said, you know, you know, the monopoly is, is breaking up in higher ed and how do you, how does AC help institutions not only deal with that, but what role do they play? I thought was a pretty profound statement because ACE historically has defended that monopoly, you know, most presidents and I think the choice of TED as president really points to a new direction.

Right.

Most presidents were essentially most presidents of ACE were on kind of retiring presidents of their institutions. And this was kind of their third act. And the whole goal was to kind of protect higher education as we knew it and to bring together those presidential associations that he mentioned.

Right.

Whether it was the land grant, college or the independent colleges. So the fact that you have the president of ACE who are saying the monopoly on content is essentially potentially coming to an end for higher education. And what is the role then of traditional colleges and universities, I think is absolutely critical. And that means, I think ACE can play a role in helping us transition to whatever the higher education system looks like next. And I think the biggest piece of that is how do you assure quality? Now many institutions I think use quality as a crutch and they say, well, we just want to maintain quality. And really what they do is they just want to maintain kind of monopoly and they don't want new players to come in. And they, and they, they kind of frame it as a quality assurance issue. But you know, I think institutions in general need to call out bad players, whether they are institutional players that exist today or institutional players that are going to exist.

Right.

The entrepreneurs.

Right. And I think higher education for the most part doesn't call out, they call out bad players of the new players, but they do not call out historically the bad that have operated in the system for generations and they tend to look the other way. And if we could come up with a new quality assurance metric or framework that allows us to know who's of high quality and who's of low quality, and if you're of low quality, you know, you should go out of business or you should not at least be supported by government dollars. Yeah.

And I think, I mean, Ted spurred that when he was at the Department of Education as the undersecretary, he was overseeing that when they launched the equipment initiative, which was basically to partner boot camps with traditional four year institutions and have not just accreditors sign off on the partnership, but then also introduced what they called a qae, a quality assurance entity whose job it was to look at the programmatic outcomes and say, is this a high quality? Does this clear our bar for student outcomes or not? And the way they did it at the department when Ted was there is they said, we want to see outcomes along a few different metrics. Learning outcomes, completion rates, not just for first time full time students, but all students. We want to see placement rates in that case into jobs, but you could also imagine into further education or wherever your path may take you. They wanted to see salary data in theory. And then at entangled we obviously added another metric was we wanted to know after you were out a year or two, knowing what you now knew about the experience and in the context of what it had led you to be able to obtain in your life Is this something you would choose to repeat? And we've obviously at entangled taken it to develop a set of quality assurance standards that builds off of ted's platform really for this conversation, I'm very curious to see will ACE in some measure adopt some of those quality assurance standards because they've always been a place that allows for transfer of credit and for courses to be approved. They've done this with straighter line with other groups to allow outside organizations that are offering courses, not programs, but courses to count as credit for college. And if ACE gets serious, I think about a student outcomes conversation which is markedly different to your point from where higher education has been or where accreditation quite frankly has been, where it's focused much more on markers of what we think lead to quality or are you programmatically teaching the right things? In the case of abet, which is the engineering and business accredited accrediting body and one of the most forward thinking, I think of the accreditation bodies. But even for them, they're not looking at actually individual student outcomes. They're looking at programmatically is this focused on what it should be? And so it'll be interesting. Can ACE as a membership organization, can they meaningfully move that forward? What do you think, Jeff?

Well, I think they're going to have to. I mean, I think most organizations, membership organizations now are under pressure to create more value for their member organizations. And I think there's many members, not only of ac, but these other organizations who are struggling and they want to know what's the value of this. But I also think it ties back to what he was talking about at the very end about the new strategic plan for ACE, around kind of the public perception of higher education. And if ACE can make a mark anywhere, I think it's helping to turn around this kind of growing national negative perception of what higher education is. We know, you know, both you and I know the statistics. We know that, as he said, it's not true that higher education does not help you in your both economic life and life in general. Right. We know if you complete it is the biggest differentiator on so many things, on life expectancy, on your economic outlook. And we also even see it's now even dividing the electorate in terms of particularly Republican voters, Republican voters versus Democrats. And so we've, you know, it seems to me that higher education's always was held in high esteem. As he said, you know, organizations and institutions of all kinds are falling in public perception. But I think it's AC's role that's as the umbrella organization, they're better positioned than almost anyone else to try to change this. And what better way to change it by saying we believe outcomes are important. We believe that good players should be held in high esteem. We think that bad players should be either they need to be remediated or put out of business, that we no longer prop them up in any way, whether they're non profits or for profits. And I think that if, if he, if the quality assurance work that he wants to do at AC gets, you know, goes to a place where it, where it should go, I think it's going to end up helping this public perception because the public cares much more about the outputs of higher education than the inputs. Yeah, right. There's always going to be a group that cares, you know, where you're ranked and things like that. And we know most of those rankings are based on the inputs. But you know, the, when public, when the public goes to colleges now, whether they're 18 or 30, 35 or 50, they want to know, is this worth it? Am I going to get a job out of this? And how much debt am I going to get into to pay?

Yeah. And you know, look, he's, he's right also. The debt narrative has taken on its own life and gone out of control in the sense that yes, there is a lot of debt in the books, but most students have under $10,000 in debt. It's, it's, you know, it's skewed because you've got those students that are often graduate students that have lots and lots of debt. And so that's part of the narrative. But the other piece that he said, and this goes to, what your point is, is the conversation can't just be around access. It has to be completion. And I would add completion with a purpose. Right. Completion towards something. And that shift, I think will, if they're able to make that shift and help their member institutions graduate a far higher percentage of students. And he's actually able to navigate that transfer change where people stop seeing it as well, I have to husband my credits because that's how I make my money. But it's actually now I see it as a way to boost graduation rates across the sector because we can help many more people complete. That'll do a lot to changing the narrative because as we also know, the flip side of the narrative of if you go to college complete, you're more likely to get a good job and have all the positive life outcomes you just described is if you don't complete, you're probably worse off than if you hadn't gone in the first place. And it's not because there isn't a modest premium for some college, but no degree. There is. But there is also a huge opportunity cost. There is debt that will be harder to pay off and so forth. And so if they can shift that and dramatically boost completion rates, that'll do more, I think, to change the narrative than anything else he said.

Well, thanks, Michael. And it was great to have Ted on the show this week. And so thank you for joining us again on Future youe. And no matter where you're listening to us, please rate us and tell your friends to listen to us on the various platforms that you can listen to future you on. And we look forward to having you come back and listen to us in the near future.

Thank you.