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(Is It) The End of the World As We Know It?
190 Plays8 months ago
In a real follow up episode, we first address the U Texas AI conference and the Udacity acquisition. Then we discuss a listener question asking how our current plight in higher education mirrors (or doesn't) some business bubbles that have burst.
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Transcript
Introduction and Today's Agenda
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Online Education Across the Atlantic. I'm Phil Hill here with Glenda Morgan and Neil Mosley and looking forward to our conversation today. And today we actually sort of have, this is almost like a follow-up episode in many respects. We're gonna get some updates on Morgan's conference, see how that
Insights from the University of Texas System Conference
00:00:30
Speaker
went.
00:00:30
Speaker
We're going to talk a little bit further about the Udacity acquisition by Accenture, but then our main topic is going to explore, but at a deeper level, what's happening in higher education. We're talking about so many existential threats. What is the overall threat and where are we going? Is there a bubble involved? So sort of a cheery topic that we'll be taking on today.
00:00:55
Speaker
But it's great to see you guys. And just to get started out, I was listening to one of our previous podcasts and Morgan was talking about heading out to the University of Texas system and there was a generative AI conference. So how did that go? Tell us what your experience was like.
00:01:13
Speaker
Yeah, it was great. I was there at the end of last week at University of Texas System Conference on Innovation. And it was really good. There was an interesting split. And let me back up a little bit to say it was the best run conference I've been in in a long time. And that's even comparing it with Gartner conferences. And that's some serious praise. So it was really well done.
00:01:37
Speaker
You know, there was an interesting split, you know, you had, in a way, some teaching sessions, some administrative sessions, and then some broader policy sessions. You know, the teaching sessions were very, very focused, sort of micro focused about what I did in my class, and I did this, that, and the other thing.
00:01:56
Speaker
it was very specific and hard to abstract away from that. There were some really good administrative sessions and in some ways I think, you know, that's often the sort of thin end of the wedge into or the camel's nose under the tent, you know, getting things into higher education. So I went to a great session which I wrote about in the newsletter about
00:02:19
Speaker
how University of Texas at Tyler is using an AI driven solution to help evaluate transfer requests. And that's where I think sort of a lot of the really useful stuff was coming from me. On the level of general policy, the general consensus seemed to be, yeah, we're not sure what to do. And not to pick on Texas, I think that's where everybody is at the moment. And they're, you know, trying to
00:02:46
Speaker
developed some innovative ways to figure that out. And this conference was a way to try and do that. But I think, don't feel bad if you're not sure how to approach things yet. So, since part of this for me is following up on previous podcast episodes,
00:03:03
Speaker
Did you not have any of the Drunk Uncle conversations that's all about cheating and whether students are cheating or not? Every now and again, the Drunk Uncle popped up from the audience, sort of,
AI Policies in Higher Education: UK vs US
00:03:15
Speaker
what about the cheating? But it was sufficiently squished, I think. You know, somebody changed the topic and off we went. So there was not a lot of Drunk Uncle there, and that was really refreshing.
00:03:26
Speaker
So Neil, I remember you had asked on one of the, yeah, one of the earlier episodes about, are we getting any actual guidance from schools? I guess it's a question for both of you is like, do we have a better answer to Neil's question about whether there's guidance for schools at this point? I mean, I'll answer my own question.
00:03:50
Speaker
I think I posed the question to you guys in terms of the US. I don't think we're particularly bereft of guidance or policies, shall we say, in the UK, whether that's through central agencies that are kind of trying to influence that or universities themselves, you know, being looking through a range of different looking at a range of different universities recently. And, you know, when they're reporting and communicating what they're doing around AI, a lot of it is we've developed a policy.
00:04:20
Speaker
So there's not a shortage of that kind of thing, but I think for me it's more what that policy focuses on. And I think a lot of the focus is the threat to academic integrity.
00:04:34
Speaker
And to a certain extent, just to pick up on Morgan's point, I find that frustrating, but I think there's a degree in which it's understandable because I
Udacity's Acquisition by Accenture: Implications
00:04:44
Speaker
think when you're external to higher education and you're thinking about the ways in which AI might positively influence things like teaching, it's easy to forget that universities are federated. There's a lot of autonomy there. And so even if you developed a policy,
00:04:59
Speaker
that you were very explicit in the ways that you wanted AI to influence teaching. That doesn't mean that then that's going to, you know, just simply kind of happen. And I think, you know, given, just picking up on another point that Morgan made, I was reading an article, and I can't remember all of the main points, but it's an article in Harvard Business Review, which was basically saying,
00:05:23
Speaker
it's actually understandable if you don't know what you're doing around AI, because it's new and it's developing. So I don't think policy and guidance is a particular deficit thing that we have here, but it's what that focuses on and what it can influence.
00:05:41
Speaker
but yeah I mean it sounds like it was an interesting kind of time for like the administrative side of things and I think that's not spoken about as much. The ways in which you know there's efficiencies and different ways that you can use AI to just move over processes and you know the kind of box standard maybe more mundane stuff that's happening in the university. I'd like to see more around that as well I think.
00:06:02
Speaker
Morgan, you said it was really well run, but are you also more positive about the ability of institutions to give each other support in this area as opposed to just sort of missing the ball looking at the wrong questions? I think people are starting to figure their way forward, you know, so it's still a bit scattered.
00:06:25
Speaker
But, but they're sort of feeling their way forward I think there may be a role for administrators to start to pull some of that together,
Higher Education's Role in Societal Change
00:06:34
Speaker
you know, in a way to, because I think here we have policy as well, but not
00:06:41
Speaker
sort of an implementation plan or a plan or a way to do that. So I think there's a role to pull that together because at the moment it feels a bit like strings. And I think part of the message, you know, the opening keynote was about sort of scenario planning around that is that we've got to do that scenario planning, you know, in the sense to figure out what is coming because we don't know yet and to do that. So, you know, it's always interesting when people who come from a teaching and learning background
00:07:11
Speaker
planned conference as well, because it's like a learning experience and you can really tell, you know, so I think that was the take home message for me. Like, here's the tool. We're not going to give you the answers. You need the tool to actually figure it out, because it's going to vary differently. You know, whether you're in Texas at Austin or Texas Rio Grande Valley, it's going to be different. Yeah. At the risk of further alienating our North Carolina and Kansas City listeners, how was the barbecue there?
00:07:38
Speaker
It was okay, I didn't get enough time really to really explore and to go find excellent barbecue, but you know, it's always good to have some brisket and some sausage and the sausage was excellent. So I was glad to be able to do that, but I need to book more time. I was trying to get out of town as well. There was a weather incident, so that sort of speeded me up. So I think a return visit is in order very soon.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah, it does sound good. Well, since our lead live podcast recording is sort of following through, at least in the July timeframe, maybe we have to set up an Austin live podcast recording in our future. In between slopes of brisket. That's right. Oh yeah, we can take Neil around and show him the wonders. We'll find out if he has the same view as us. You had me at barbecue. I couldn't care less about online education. The barbecue has got me.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah, interestingly, this is just a little side story, but a couple of years ago, I was in London
Financial Strain in Higher Education: A Bubble Burst?
00:08:39
Speaker
and was with my spouse and we met with a guy who was at the British Library who was moving to the University of Chicago. And he was German, but working in England. And he said, when I come to the United States, will you invite me to your house for barbecue? He said, I always hear this is what Americans do, but it's never happened yet. We said, absolutely, if you're ever in town, we will cook you barbecue.
00:09:04
Speaker
We're headed towards a barbecue episode coming sometime soon. We'll figure this out. The other follow-up news story we wanted to go on is last week when we recorded, we talked about the Accenture acquisition of Udacity and what that meant.
00:09:21
Speaker
And while we were speaking, it turned out there was an article that came out that included a quote from the Accenture CEO about this. So of course I got nervous. I'm like, oh, did we botch anything in our discussion that's now out of date? And actually it held up pretty well with one, I don't think we got it wrong, but we missed part of the point from the interview. So,
00:09:45
Speaker
First of all, they highlighted the fact that this was on Julie Sweet on her first day as CEO of Accenture. She had talked about making sure this theme of every employee would get a basic knowledge of key technologies. Now, fast forward five years to this announcement, and the way it was described is interesting.
00:10:10
Speaker
I'll read this article. It is from Fortune. Although Accenture is one of many consultancies helping clients train staff in the latest technologies, the firm is making big bets. In June, it announced a $3 billion investment over three years to build out its data and AI practice. In Tuesday's announcement,
00:10:30
Speaker
Accenture pledged an additional $1 billion toward expanding LearnVantage, that's their platform for training in AI, over the next three years. The financial terms of the Udacity acquisition were not disclosed.
00:10:46
Speaker
As a leading systems integrator, Accenture has insights on skills gaps as it's helping clients transform. In terms of our strategy suite said, what this is about is continuing to invest. So first of all, it's important for my view.
00:11:01
Speaker
And Udacity is a small part of the strategy. It's really about their learned vantage investment, and they had a real opportunity. Further in the article, it gets to the key point. But why acquire Udacity, a platform that was reported to be an acquisition target for the Indian edtech firm Upgrad just three weeks ago?
00:11:22
Speaker
Sweet cites Udacity's library of content and network of experts, along with its local language offerings and learn-by-doing ethos as key strengths. It's very, quote, it's very different than other learning platforms, she says.
00:11:39
Speaker
Our acquisition strategy is to bring in new skills and to scale. Just as we are a world-class learning organization, they're a world-class education organization," unquote. So for me, first of all, that put a lot more emphasis on the content side of Udacity. I was really thinking about the network and the platform, but it's very interesting that she very much went to the content, the courses and the people involved in those courses already.
00:12:09
Speaker
Any thoughts from you two on you know, do we have did this shed new light on what the Udacity acquisition is all about? I mean it does shed some extra light, you know in reference to what they felt the strengths were of Udacity like it doesn't really change like you said it I still feel like my take on from what I'd heard last week holds up
00:12:32
Speaker
pretty well. I mean like it's just delving into a little bit more of the kind of affordances of the Udacity platform. But the cynic in me might say that, you know, well you would say that, like an opportunity's opened up around this kind of thing and potential for a purchase. I think my one reflection
00:12:54
Speaker
was not necessarily in light of this extra piece of information but was more of a kind of a bigger picture question around this kind of thing because there's obviously an opportunity around upskilling that's you know that's around AI driven change and we kind of see that but I'm just interested in the way in which that's being addressed through courses basically and I just wonder if there's
00:13:24
Speaker
It seems like the need is there, but I just wonder sometimes how much thought has gone into how we address that need. And sure, lots of more online courses, self-paced is one way to do that. But I just wonder if there might not be a little bit more nuance around how we tackle different training needs around that. It seems a little bit like the problem is,
00:13:49
Speaker
we need to upscale and the solution already in our minds is we need a bunch of online content and online courses to do that. Yeah, I think that's a good point. And you know, I think that's a weakness with a lot of these efforts at upskilling. Also,
00:14:07
Speaker
Is the content maybe too technical for a lot of the people that actually need some of the upskilling, you know, in terms of actually building things rather than
Societal Value and Relevance of Higher Education
00:14:17
Speaker
a fluency with the technology and ability to talk about it and understand it rather than actually build your own bot? That would be my concern.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah. And I already mentioned from my perspective, it's the, there was more emphasis on the content and the preexisting courses than I expected, but, you know, Neil's cynical view, while that's what you would expect the CEO to say after an acquisition, you know, a world-class educational organization that's falling apart and sold for a very low amount of money, but just wanted to at least bring that interview back in, see if it shed any light.
00:14:56
Speaker
So for our main topic today, let's get even more negative. Well, one of our loyal listeners and readers, and one of my favorite people to deal with, sent in a note that was basically said, finally all caught up on the podcast. I was alternating between yours and Paul Giamatti's. Well, first of all, that's a good sign. You got my attention right there. I'd love to be mentioned in the same phrase as Paul Giamatti.
00:15:25
Speaker
Plus, she recommended, hey, you need to go listen to Paul Giamatti's podcast, so I have a new thing. All right, but she was saying, finally caught up on the podcast, and I have to say it's excellent. So kudos. I appreciate the feedback. Question for you all. I know we don't like to say it, but higher ed, especially in the US, is a business. Do you think that bubble has burst or is about to?
00:15:51
Speaker
with large schools showing some truly remarkable deficits, the cost hitting all time highs, the student loan relief and the closures. It all looks a lot like the housing bubble burst, crypto and others. So that's sort of the setup and it clearly takes somewhat of a financial picture. Part of the reason I'm interested in talking about this is it exposes a bias of mine.
00:16:18
Speaker
I tend to be, particularly in the consulting side, more of an incrementalist. I've worked with higher education institutions, and I believe the greater impact is you want these institutions to make improvements, to add capabilities, change some things in order to improve themselves.
00:16:36
Speaker
But that does raise an inherent bias that that is the best approach for a lot of higher education to change as opposed to the disruption mindset, you know, alternative providers, students finding things completely different, workforce training, et cetera, et cetera. So I appreciate the question. For me, it sort of says, hey, look at this right now and say, are we actually in a situation where the system and the institutions are we dealing with a bubble?
00:17:06
Speaker
That's starting to burst and this is not just a matter of how do we improve? But you know, do we need to accept some outside approaches in a more aggressive way is part of the way I'm internalizing the question But let me get some initial thoughts from both of you. I mean even when I shared this as an idea What were your initial thoughts about the value of the topic? I
00:17:29
Speaker
I thought it was, I thought it was really interesting. And, you know, I come into it with the bias as well, out of personal experience, you know, I'm the youngest of five children, three of them left school when they were 15. And I'm the only one to go to college, both my parents left school when they were 14. So, you know, higher education has made a vast difference for me. And I like to joke that because I was the only one of five to go to university, I felt I had to get a whole family's worth. So I stuck around for many years.
00:17:58
Speaker
I used to frighten small children by telling them I was in the 27th grade. So it's deep-seated for me to want to believe in higher education. But when you mentioned the topic, I was thinking, you know, what is a bubble? You know, it's irrational exuberance. It's belief in something that doesn't really have an underlying value.
Pressures on Educational Institutions to Evolve
00:18:23
Speaker
And that was a tough one for me to really think about because I think maybe because of my biases, colleges does have a value. But I think there are other things that are starting to unravel that you're bare thinking about. But I'll come back to those later. Neil, what do you think?
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it was just incredibly timely when I think about the UK context because just thinking about the challenges, you know, I'm doing a bunch of research on different institutions at the moment and just
00:18:56
Speaker
I really worry for what comes next year because the ways in which institutions have sought to bring in income as relief is becoming more and more of a bit of a kind of cul-de-sac or just not as big an option. So there's really big existential challenges. I mean, I take Morgan's point as well that if we're talking about
00:19:20
Speaker
similar things in a commercial realm, then that does feel like it's driven by different factors and it's more about hubris and maybe greed. And I don't think that's a parallel to higher education. I think I definitely have a lot of time for what you're saying around the incremental side of things. I think for me, that's a pragmatic thing having worked with and in universities, it feels like an incremental approach is
00:19:50
Speaker
know just just the pragmatic nature of working in institutions like that it's very hard to kind of make big wholesale dramatic change so the kind of incremental thing is kind of part of that i think i think the one thing that this all makes me reflect upon is probably a little bit of a frustration that i certainly felt when i worked in universities about
00:20:13
Speaker
spotting opportunities and areas to evolve that put you on a better footing. And I think if anything good comes from the real predicament that universities find themselves, it's that they have to confront some of those things that they wouldn't have
00:20:35
Speaker
Have to confront otherwise and that might be beneficial in terms of the routes that they decide to take forward from there So yeah, there's some of my kind of initial initial takes I am ecstatic. We finally have a flat-out disagreement we can get into
00:20:51
Speaker
You don't think that hubris has a parallel in higher education? I think that's the core of the problem, to be quite honest, is how do you deal with the changes we're going through and what is most likely to make this into a bubble, at least in terms of the collapsing of the bubble, is hubris. I look at the University of Arizona Global Campus and the University of Arizona. You have people there. They made a big bet on online education.
00:21:19
Speaker
buying Ashford, turning into UAGC. But the problem is hubris. The way they do that, anybody who's going to give pushback on this has bad intentions. And we just need to manage the message and not actually question whether our assumptions are correct or not. And they're killing, I mean, that's just, that's a disaster that's happening right now at University of Arizona.
00:21:47
Speaker
Idaho and the University of Phoenix we talked about this as well. It's not to the same level I think we'll find out we'll talk some more about the hold my beer moment, but There is the way they're doing the acquisition and keeping any
Adapting Universities to Modern Needs
00:22:02
Speaker
kind of debate away from it That's hubris in my mind and it's preventing effective change might prevent the acquisition We talked about University of California. So for me
00:22:13
Speaker
hubris is everywhere and it's very strong in higher education. So let me see if I read you correctly in my zeal to say, hey, we have a good disagree. I would say those are somewhat outliers, you know, driven by particular kinds of things. You know, certainly it's that search for a more stable base and some really boneheaded leadership.
00:22:36
Speaker
in the case particularly of Arizona, where I sort of, you know, and you would say that's two institutions out of 4,000 odd in the United States. Where I perhaps see your argument is more in that argument that, oh no, they're cutting academic programs. And it's the end of the world.
00:22:57
Speaker
And I find that to be a boneheaded argument. You know, I understand it's done badly, but it's like the minute you make a cut or a change, it's the end of the world and that is not a viable kind of situation. So I see maybe hubris there, but I would argue that the Arizona and Idaho are somewhat outliers in a way, but
00:23:23
Speaker
There is a way that universities sort of seem to believe that their purpose for existence is their own continuation. Yes. And that worries me sometimes. Your purpose in life is not to keep going. And so you get sort of rent-seeking behavior. And maybe the Arizona and Idaho are just extreme examples of that. But places really need to think about what they're doing and how they're doing. And it's hard, I understand that.
00:23:51
Speaker
All right, Neil, your time to be the counterpoint here. Yeah, I think there's definitely that element of protectionism. Maybe that's maybe to Morgan's point and being overly self reverential around higher education. I understand what your point is. I wouldn't necessarily use the word hubris, but maybe that also speaks to a little bit of a difference in terms of kind of context between US and UK.
00:24:20
Speaker
not wishing to suggest them in the US you're more proper into hubris than the UK certainly not but we actually welcomed that comment okay okay fine fine fine um i won't i won't keep digging i i i think in terms
Engaging Listeners and Future Topics
00:24:37
Speaker
of some of the examples here like you could frame certain moves as being shaped by hubris like an assumption that
00:24:48
Speaker
I was talking to someone recently about a provider who's moved into online and it feels a little bit like they haven't considered their place in that space and their strategy is slightly off in terms of things like pricing and those kind of elements and that speaks to that could speak to an element of hubris.
00:25:08
Speaker
that we're so confident about what we offer that we're going to put this out there at this price point and this kind of entry requirement. I think there's, I would frame that more as a kind of sense of like naivety and I think where that comes back to the bigger point that I was making is that
00:25:27
Speaker
opportunity commercial mindset and it's always that tension isn't it and you know whenever you always feel uncomfortable whenever you talk about something or even I do anyway whenever I frame something that's a bit more commercial in higher education but I think
00:25:44
Speaker
You know, that's one of the frustrations and one of the missing elements for me. I think you can still have the purpose that you have, but be a little bit smarter about the commercial aspect, the opportunity and the way in which you might need to evolve. And maybe that
00:26:02
Speaker
Maybe that resonates a little bit with what Morgan's saying, is if you're so protectionist about, we can't have this close, we can't change in this way, then you're more close to evolution as a probably nicer way of putting it than disruption.
00:26:18
Speaker
I want to jump in here as well and post another thought, which is part of the challenge, I think, with thinking about higher education is that we came of age or we came of age soon after. We lived through a period when higher education went through unprecedented growth.
00:26:37
Speaker
But that was really an outlier. So through the 60s and even into the 70s and 80s, there was just growth in higher education. And it was anomalous. And now we're reverting back to the mean in a way. I heard the other day a statistic that in the 1960s in the United States, they hired more faculty than they had hired in the 300 years prior to that time altogether.
00:27:02
Speaker
So, you know, it really is an outlier and we're going back to a more normal kind of world. And I think that's, to me, that sort of gets at that truth more than the bubble idea. Yeah, I think there's a tension as well, because like in a way, like the way you're presenting it is a kind of a reverting back to
00:27:21
Speaker
to how things might have been in terms of maybe numbers and demand and things like that. But I also think there's a way in which society is changing and that's really causing a lot of friction for the way that universities do things. And in some ways universities are slightly unwilling to accept
00:27:39
Speaker
the necessity of changing because of the friction around the way things are changing. And in some ways, they just kind of struggle to respond. So I think there's that sense of a kind of falling back
00:27:54
Speaker
in terms of kind of demand based on what we've seen in previous decades. But I think there's also something that's kind of more about a kind of progression and things, society changing and that kind of influencing and causing friction for universities and how they do things and the need for them to confront that, I think.
00:28:14
Speaker
I would add in the, especially in the returning to the mean idea, the zero interest rates is that we have had effectively zero interest rates since, you know, the late 2000s. And we live with it and started to just accept it. And that didn't just affect edtech companies and investment. It also affects the general inflation and the cost of running an institution.
00:28:42
Speaker
And so part of what we're dealing right now on one hand, it's like, oh, it's the inflation of the past three to four years. But there's a strong argument saying, well, that's also a case of we're returning to the mean. The anomaly was the effectively zero interest rate over the past one to two decades. So layer that on top of what you're saying, Morgan, and I'm sure it's related.
00:29:05
Speaker
the growth of higher education. And I wouldn't say that we're returning to previous years of dynamics, but we've been in a special anomalous period and now there's a lot of pain because we're not going to be going back to the 2015 era even. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I think where that cuts in with the UK is kind of around student funding. You know, there's a big question mark over how
00:29:34
Speaker
there's a sense that needs to change because numbers have increased dramatically over the decades, but there's, you know, feels like there's less viable, not a lot of viable solutions out there for the way in which we do student finance and student funding here. So that certainly speaks to that kind of coming out of that period and then facing the challenges on the back of that.
00:29:58
Speaker
Something that hasn't been mentioned that I think needs to be part of it, and it's complicated because we're talking about macroeconomic things, and this is a different one, but higher ed lost the PR battle, and probably deservedly so.
00:30:15
Speaker
There's been a strong drumbeat of higher rate is not useful higher rate is not useful higher rate is not useful and one should not underestimate the impact that that has on people until it eventually becomes part of how you think and maybe again going back to my childhood I grew up in a weird place but
00:30:33
Speaker
When life eventually changed, I grew up in Zimbabwe, and when independence finally happened, there were a bunch of whites walking around with t-shirts on that said, I'm a member of the mushroom club, I was kept in the dark and fed on shit. It was really powerful in a sense that
00:30:53
Speaker
what you hear over and over again becomes your reality. And I think higher ed sort of lost the PR battle and allowed that drumbeat of news about higher ed is not useful to become sort of the dominant discourse and somewhat deservedly so because I think they didn't pay attention to the needs of folks for a while.
00:31:17
Speaker
Well, actually, this is a wonderful segue. I have five browser tabs open to this point. So I'm loaded, ready to go. I've lost the PR battle and completely mismanaging it now. And I think there's an awareness now of what you said. Hey, people are questioning the value of education and we didn't do a good job.
00:31:38
Speaker
Unfortunately, I think the way that higher education as a ecosystem is handling is awful. So just this past week, you start getting, there were two different studies, one that came out, college pays off. This is coming out of EdSource. College pays off, according to new research. An analysis of the incomes of 5.8 million Americans found that completing a college degree is a good investment, according to a study.
00:32:05
Speaker
published in the American Educational Research Journal. By the way, that study, it's painful to read because it's such the academic style images at the end. You don't even title the graphics. Oh, it's painful to read.
00:32:19
Speaker
But then we have another one inside higher ed. Doubts about value or deterring college enrollment. Now, this one, they did a study. It was funded by the Gates Foundation. Edge Research did the study along with HCM strategists, blah, blah, blah. But basically, they did. It was more focus groups and some light survey work, but about that there's real questions about the value of education.
00:32:46
Speaker
74, the 74 reported, looked at the same report. And they, I think, did a better job. They said, here are four key takeaways why this is a real problem. Number one, high schoolers and non-agrolled adults value on-the-job training the most out of all post-secondary options.
00:33:05
Speaker
four-year degrees and two-year degrees were ranked, you know, down in number four and five. So I don't think that type of change is just from bad media discussions or negative media discussions.
00:33:22
Speaker
I think there's real questions there. So I go back again, sorry for throwing out three different reports, might be hard to follow as far as a podcast, but the UNC study on the return of investment came out at the end of last year. And the studies, you know, it's covered in the level of saying, hey, there's a study from UNC that proves getting a college degree is worth the investment.
00:33:48
Speaker
But if you look at the data, it's got things for 94% of majors. There is a return on investment. However, that means 6% of majors or disciplines, I believe it was. It's not worth the money. Objectively, not worth the money. Financially, you don't pay off your income. That's a real problem.
00:34:11
Speaker
Furthermore, they didn't take into account student debt, so they just took the cost of the education. They didn't do the future value of money and how long it takes to pay off a loan. But my point is, the way higher education so often is trying to combat what you're raising, Morgan, is saying, nuh-uh, college education is worth it.
00:34:33
Speaker
as if the problem is the concept of whether colleges should exist. That's not what individual students are choosing. Individual students are, is it worth it for me to go to college? Do I see a clear path?
00:34:48
Speaker
And if somebody's telling me just a general, nuh-uh, it's worth it, or they're saying, trust us, by the time you're 50, this will have paid off. That's not good enough. So these studies that colleges and universities are using to justify, no, we are worth it, this is a poorly thought out topic, I think are a huge part of the problem. And it's part of the avoidance of dealing with the problem.
00:35:15
Speaker
Which is why we're at risk of a bubble collapsing in my mind There i've thrown in three studies for you. Yeah. Yeah, i'll let morgan digest that and i'll Have a have a go. I mean it's interesting. You should mention that sense of value because there was I haven't watched it yet, but there was a program on the bbc and it was funded by a comedian over here who was basically
00:35:37
Speaker
questioning the value of university on the basis that he has a either a son or a daughter that's due to go to university and he was framed as you know should they go to university I studied I think he studied English literature now I'm a comedian that maybe doesn't have a good you know a good kind of representation of it you know should my my son or my daughter go and learn a kind of a trade or that kind of thing so you know that is very much
00:36:05
Speaker
around here and we've had a really combative government around universities and my feeling really in terms of how universities are responding is that you know they are trying to put out you know the stats around look the value of international students to the UK or the kind of value later down the line of kind of value of higher education. I think it feels in very general terms
00:36:35
Speaker
like handling a sort of a PR embarrassment. It's a bit like, you know, if I could look at an example, you know, we had the thing recently with Kate Middleton and the photo and the PR thing, you know, best thing on the internet and the best thing on the internet. So you know that the stone is rolling down the hill, and your strategies are around stopping the stone roll that rolling down the hill. And
00:37:00
Speaker
I almost think if you're fighting the battle around the value of higher education, and we can question the ways in which universities may need to change to increase that value, you have to play a different game than a report and stats. And I just don't think that that is the sort of game that higher education is used to playing, if I can put it in those terms.
00:37:25
Speaker
So is the take home that universities just need to get better at actually making it worthwhile for people? There's an idea. Yeah, actually take so Ted Mitchell spoke at the conference I went to the post OPM conference Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education.
00:37:42
Speaker
And the topic, they did deal with some touchy topics, including anti-Semitism on campus. It didn't go into in-depth, but the point he made was he first looked at which elements of these criticisms are true and how can we actually do better and acknowledge the problem, and then
00:38:02
Speaker
deal with, okay, this part of the argument isn't valid. And that approach of at least some, if not a lot, of these arguments are valid, let's deal with it and make changes. And as you said, actually improve the value instead of what I'm saying is finding the nuh-uh argument of shooting down the criticism and the studies that show some problems.
00:38:30
Speaker
But you said, what's the takeaway? I'm hearing all three of us, and I don't know that we represent all of Western education. Quite a bit of it, but not all of it. But I think we're all describing something of, the question goes back to, is there a bubble? There are absolutely megatrends.
00:38:51
Speaker
reverting to the mean on enrollment, the financial support, zero interest rates and inflation. We have challenges in so many ways. If higher education continues to not learn the actual lessons and make the changes needed, then yes, we are in a form of a bubble. I don't think higher education goes away, but it's going to be massive evolution. I don't want to use disruption term. That's a great point Neil had.
00:39:21
Speaker
But it's the reaction to these challenges that I keep hearing the three of us talking about. That's the real risk item. And this is kind of almost where I feel positive. Sorry to bring it positive. But the fact is, whether it's universities or anything else, when you're confronted with an existential problem,
00:39:45
Speaker
You know, that compels you to change in a way that nothing else does. And so, you know, if we're saying that higher education needs to change, to put itself on a better footing, to be more valuable, to reflect, you know, modern day needs rather than past needs or whatever, however you might want to frame it. You know, we're at the nexus of that being a kind of fundamental necessity rather than a nice to have. So that's one positive for me, I think.
00:40:14
Speaker
Yeah, it could drive change. Yes, a positive change. Morgan? I think it's very difficult for universities to change for a number of reasons. One, because it works for some people and those people run the place. And so they keep sort of circling the wagons. You know, it's like tenure is not a common feature anymore, but you wouldn't know it in some ways because it's the people with tenure who
00:40:42
Speaker
are essentially saying, hey, it works and this is what's important there. So I think it's difficult for universities to change without there being some sort of really dramatic shift. And we're seeing those dramatic shifts as one argument that's going to lead to more and more schools, not every school is the same, obviously.
00:41:04
Speaker
But we're also seeing the circuit, the higher education circular firing squad. Wait, why are you dealing this by making this situation even worse than it needs to be?
00:41:15
Speaker
So we're in a chaotic period. But for me, I do think it's positive. I agree with your standpoint that, you know, this is this is the best chance. I'm sort of rephrasing in my view. But this is the best chance for higher education to make some fundamental changes and dealing with things like we talked about recently. Rethink how we do assessment in a much more ongoing way that benefits learning. And there's so many changes we know and we want.
00:41:45
Speaker
this type of disruption really is the best chance for that to happen. But I just, I do think that there's, it's a great question to get this started because I, as I said, I just come in with that bias of how do you help institutions become better? That's been my business for 25 years, but this is a good, good question. And certainly there's a lot of institutions that's not going to happen. And,
00:42:12
Speaker
There's a, you know, so it's a good question. So I guess I wouldn't phrase it as a bubble, but I would say that it's got a lot of the similar tendencies of a bubble bursting. Although we know ahead of time, there's no way education is going away and, you know, higher education institutions will go away. I don't even think the four-year degree is going to go away, but massive change. But that's sort of my
00:42:37
Speaker
summary of what I'm hearing and thinking about. How would you guys summarize what you're hearing? The same, yeah. I was still obsessing about the four year degree is yet to arrive in the UK, but. For some programs we have it. Well, great. Hey, well, thank you for the listener request and forcing us to sort of get out of our comfort zone and think about some tough questions.
00:43:07
Speaker
Send more. Yeah, keep sending us more. We appreciate that. And anybody who wants to compliment us by comparing us to Paul Giamatti or his equivalent, we will always take those compliments as well. But thanks, and we look forward to talking again next week.