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Starting: January 2024
This weekly podcast is unique in higher education. All sides of Issues, challenges, and opportunities from across higher education are presented and discussed in an entertaining style and format.
Dr. Gary Stocker, Dr. Joseph Pellerito, and their guests review, discuss, and debate the issues of the day in higher education.
Gary (00:03)
It's Gary Stocker, welcome to the April 18th College Counterpoint podcast episode. Dr. Pellerito, I am primed, sir, to teach you how to make good points today.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (00:15)
Yes, I'm looking forward to learning all I can. Gary, I appreciate it. It's good to see you, buddy.
Gary (00:21)
We have four topics on the list today. And the first one should be interesting. Are we heading toward a FAFSA induced closing catastrophe this fall? And we'll lead off that here in just a minute. We'll talk a little bit about the topic of academic integrity and plagiarism prevention. We have an education department. A story we can talk about is about the student debt relief program. And then I'm going to be a pretend president of a college.
And Joseph is going to be mean to me. So we'll see what that looks like a little bit later on in our show today. And I'll take the first topic and it's one that needs to be asked more often, Joseph, and really isn't. And the essence of the question is, are we heading toward a FAFSA induced closing catastrophe this fall? And if so, kind of rhetorical question, what do we do really in short notice preparation? And I'll give you two scenarios, Jotis.
What's your name? I'll give you two scenarios. Joseph, that's your name. The first scenario is the education department gets this act together yesterday. That's not going to happen. And this is just a painful memory. The colleges respond, colleges bounce back, students get their financial aid and we're off to the races, so to speak, in the fall. The second is less pleasant. And the second scenario is the lack of financial data carries us deep into the summer.
And the lack of financial aid for not just new freshmen, Joseph, but for returning students as well, results in something like dozens of colleges not being able to survive the calendar year. And I say calendar year because there will be federal funds that go to these colleges that are dispersed typically in early September. And that'll get them through the September, October, November -ish kind of time period. But at that point, when they look at those funds that they get in September, the margins and the cash they see,
will be so small that the closure announcements will start to come fast and furious. Now, the second part, and this is even more important than I think that the scenario in the first part, is what to do with what to do, Joseph, with those impacted students. And you and I both know there will be many ambulance chaser colleges racing to enroll students. And there's nothing wrong with that. But my research shows, and I posted on this, that a significant number of these ambulance chasers will also have.
financial challenges. So Joseph, here's my question. What happens if we start to see hundreds of students or thousands of students impacted by a college that closes?
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (02:55)
You know, Gary, again, I'm not ready to yell fire in a crowded theater. And I think you're frankly a worry wart, my friend. Yeah, this is so unlikely. It's almost not worthy of discussion, to be honest with you. Although I will admit it has caused some consternation among parents and students and others for sure.
I have a daughter who's a senior in high school and you know, we're dealing with this right now, but it's not the end of the world, number one. And I believe, you know, while you know, government deserves some constructive criticism for its mishandling of this, and we should get to the bottom of it so it's not repeated next cycle. I believe in American ingenuity. I think we're going to get it done. It'll be figured out.
And frankly, it's not going to have a major impact on closures. I think schools that are on the precipice would be there anyway, despite the fast -fud debacle. So now I think we need to recalibrate our thinking, Gary, and let's bring it down a notch or two.
Gary (04:13)
You know, there's a project management tool called Red Teaming, R -E -D Teaming, and it's essentially creating a reasonable, though fictitious scenario and planning for it accordingly. And Joseph, you can say, you can call me whatever names that you want, but I think I'm fulfilling a responsibility here that as an industry.
that it's important that somebody start thinking about that. And even though I may grant you the point that it's an unlikely scenario, it's not an illogical and it's not an unreasonable scenario. And if I am right, odds may be small in that, but if I am right and it happens, goodness gracious, sir, what happens next?
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (05:01)
Well, you know, I don't think the fast food debacle is going to last beyond the summer. I think we're going to see in the next couple of months this resolve and we'll be on to the next topic du jour that you're, you know, concerned about and wondering if perhaps where there's smoke, there's fire. And I'll be reminding you that no, it was resolved and we're still dealing though with
The other matters that are a lot more serious, including declining enrollments and the impending enrollment cliff, you know, so I think we need to stay focused on the real issues that have long -term impact. And we have to reassure, I think the public that, you know what, the fast food debacle is going to be managed. It will be resolved. And really what.
individuals need to focus on is making informed decisions as to where the best place that they can go in terms of their money and how they can reduce the likelihood that they end up at a school that closes while they're in midstream. That's really what it's all about.
Gary (06:13)
And so you heard it here first, Gary is saying, let's think about that. Joseph is saying, Gary, take some antacids and let's move on.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (06:22)
Yeah, or maybe a sedative. But let's transition. I want to talk about, you know, I just mentioned that making informed decisions is really the most important thing. And one way to do that is accessing the college viability app. How much should you invest to compare your college to its competitors? $10 ,000? $5 ,000? How about $1 ,000?
The 2024 college viability seers of apps is available at a price point much lower than that. How about $46? How about $33? Maybe $9 .80? That is how much each full IPEDS report costs for the executive analysis version, the faculty and staff version, or the student and family version.
For each app version, users get access to thousands of private and public college reports for the last eight reported years. This is amazing. Go to collegeviability .com. I'm urging you to do so. I've already done so. And it's helping me help my daughter make an informed decision as to where she's going to go this fall. And once you get there, click on College Viability Apps.
You will see purchase options for every combination of college types and user needs. Do it today, your competitors are.
So let's talk about another topic that seems to be very top of mind these days in many institutions across the country. And that's academic integrity and plagiarism prevention. You know, I am so excited about AI, Gary. When we look at the revolutionary and evolutionary advancements over the past 500 years, beginning with the printing press and going all the way through,
you know, the computer and information age and transistor and not in that order necessarily. AI is going to be, and already is in many ways, as impactful as all of those advancements. The problem is many people in higher ed view AI, students using AI, as tantamount to cheating. And that's just ridiculous. It's absurd.
It's kind of like telling an individual, hey, you've got to dig a hole, but you can't use a shovel. Otherwise it's cheating. And the shovel is AI. I remember back in the day, Texas Instruments, remember when they came out with a calculator? And for those of us like myself with a math allergy, it was a godsend. I could do complex math equations and get them done. But I remember in the beginning, way back in the day where we were told, well, you can't use those in the classroom. That's cheating.
I think it's pretty absurd and what do you think, Gary?
Gary (09:29)
I'm giggling here as you're going through that. I remember my first calculator, $90, Joseph, for five to six functions. And I remember, I think I used it mostly for a chemistry class or something like that. So your point is well -made. And sadly, surprisingly, I'm with you on this. And it's easy. These are tools. These are efficiency tools. Just like your great example with the shovel is an efficiency tool. Same thing as for cars and airplanes and boats. They're efficiency tools.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (09:58)
Absolutely.
Gary (09:59)
let's take the academic part and let the efficiency tools play their role and moved on from that. And I think in our pre podcast discussion today, I was talking about I use chat GPT to create 40 higher education topics for you and I to talk about because our list was getting kind of small. And it would have taken me a long time. I don't know how long to create that list of 40 some odd topics and took chat GPT a few seconds to do that. Now I can look through the 40 topics.
and choose the ones that I think will be best for you and I, that's where the value comes in, letting us think and letting a tool, letting a resource do the manual labor, I guess, for lack of a better word, do the manual labor for us.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (10:42)
Yeah, well, you know what, what higher ed needs to do, Gary, is not have a double standard where faculty can use AI to help themselves with their lesson plans and so forth. But then in the student handbooks tell students, well, you know, you can't use AI for developing outlines or whatever it might be. I understand the pushback. We want students to learn, you know, critical thinking, but we need to...
help teach and mentor students on how to use AI ethically. And there are great companies out there that are leading the way, like Grammarly among others. So, no, I'm all in on AI. I think it's actually a godsend because one of the things that I've found American students have a challenge with sometimes is writing well. And so AI can help them with that. I'm excited about all the possibilities that AI is bringing.
along with so many other advanced technologies today.
Gary (11:39)
And you know, you and I are both college professors in addition to these other things that we do. And I, in my syllabus, for all of my classes, I say use AI. Just quote it as a source, just cite it as a source as every other source that you use. And I see nothing wrong with that. And with that, you know, Joseph, let's look at our news stories today. And the Department of Education, when they're not working on FAFSA,
is working on student debt relief rules. And there's political things, you and I don't do politics here, and I'm going to leave that alone. But the essence of it is, they're looking at finding student relief for long -term college financial debt. Stop the presses. Deep breath, Joseph. After thinking about this, I kind of support the concept. I really do. And here's why, before you start throwing things at me through the computer screen.
You and I have both read stories about folks in their 20s, 30s, 40s, maybe even older, who because of this debt have delayed the purchase of cars, purchase of homes, finding spouses, making families, and all things associated with that. And even though there are some bad parts associated with it, you and I paid down, if we had student loan debt, I know I paid mine down. I paid it all on my own. There is some inequities associated with that.
But I gotta think that for those millions who have been negatively impacted, Joseph, they need some help.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (13:11)
Yeah, well, first of all, I've got to give a caveat. I'm opposed to this sort of bailout that the Biden administration is offering. This is their second go around with this. Now you'd think I'd be all in. I've got two kids that would be affected by this. And so I do have some skin in the game here, but I've got to tell you, to be fair, I don't think it's sustainable. How can we have a bailout?
subsidize education for one group and then in three years say, well, you know what, we've changed administrations or we, you know, we've run out of money or the will of the people, uh, isn't there. And suddenly now we've got a whole new group of people that are back to where we began. I'm all in favor of tax funded higher education and that's a separate conversation, but this is a bandaid and it's not fair. It also.
There's no way it's sustainable, at least for now. So I can't support this, Gary.
Gary (14:16)
And I understand. And there are many who make the point that a bailout in whatever form or fashion is not a cure for the disease. You mentioned the word bandaid. The cure for the disease is lowering college tuition costs. We sent folks to the moon. We sent folks. We sent spacecraft to Mars. We do all sorts of technological marvels. But man, I don't know how we lower the cost of college anytime soon. So let's give these folks a break. It hurts me to say that a little bit.
But man, I can only imagine the traumas and challenges these millions of folks have faced simply because they chose a college and it didn't work out for them. Joseph.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (14:55)
Yeah, well, I agree with especially with students that end up not being able to finish because a school closes, and that's really a different context. And for those individuals, there should be special consideration for sure. We know that half of them students that don't finish at a school because it closes often without warning, don't aren't able to take advantage of teach outs and the rest of it.
and they don't return to school. We talked about that last week and it's really shocking that half of them don't end up finishing their degrees. And yeah, they should get some kind of relief, some kind of help for sure. But I'm just, I'm concerned because we're not getting at the root of the problem. There's runaway inflation in higher education and that's gotta be dealt with.
You know, I remember over the years working with the bean counters and I say that with all due respect, the CFOs and others who basically would like a reflex say, well, we simply are going to increase tuition by X percentage every year because that's just how we've always done it year after year after year. That's got to stop. That's got to end. And we need we need more efficiencies, perhaps, perhaps through creative.
consolidation, we can get costs down. We'll have to see.
Gary (16:23)
So Joseph, our second and final news story is from the Green Bay Press Gazette earlier this week. And the headline read, there's no cause for worry about the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, their chancellor says, after a report from a consulting firm. And Joseph, I don't remember the consulting firm.
after the report from a consulting firm asked leaders to act with urgency. Now I see this a lot. And this is kind of the Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof example of higher education where he were the president of this college. And I'm not going to use his name because that's not what we're focused on here. The president of the college says, well, we don't have to be urgent. But as Tevye would say, on the other hand, we have to be urgent. That was the gist. That was the gist of the article. And I see this all the time. So I'm going to take some poetic license and Joseph.
I'm going to make myself the president of the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, self -appointed for maybe 30 minutes or so, not even that, 10 minutes or so, just for this exercise. And I'm going to take the position that this president, because I believe this, has to keep his college's actual financial situation close to the vest. And here's the main reason why. You know what I'm going to say?
This president, as does the board, as does most of his senior leadership, has a fiduciary responsibility to the organization. Let me see that again. This president's fiduciary responsibility is to the college. In this case, it's University of Wisconsin -Green Bay, but it applies to all. It's not to the students and it's not to the faculty. So he's got to keep this stuff because if he says, hey, we're going down the drains, that becomes, Joseph, a self -fulfilling prophecy.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (18:06)
Well, you made yourself president. I'm going to make myself one of the trustees. How's that? So I'm going to one up you and I'm going to tell you that I would come to you privately, president stocker, and I would encourage you and urge you to realize that you're, you're dead wrong. The fiduciary responsibility is not your highest apex in terms of your, of your calling.
Gary (18:13)
Good, I like it.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (18:35)
in the role that you're in. It's the ethical and honest communication with your stakeholders as to the viability of your institution. And if you in fact believe that there's a cliff coming, you owe it to them, faculty, staff, students, and their families to communicate a plan to either get healthy or transition to closure.
with teach -outs in place and the rest of it. You should follow best practices to do so, but I absolutely think the presidents who stand behind that notion, it's smoke and mirrors and it's just simply wrong.
Gary (19:20)
President Stalker has a good ring to it. I'm going to have to write that down somewhere. You're making it up, Joseph. The fiduciary responsibility takes precedence. Now, granted my status for the next eight minutes or so as president of the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, I would have long ago recognized the fact that the industry was headed for a financial cliff, for an enrollment cliff, and that the market was going to be an issue of supply and demand. I had a long time ago worked either inside the public education or private college arena to look at
No, that's just me. You and I had this conversation many times before. We'll have it many times in the future. You're making it up, Joseph. When you say that fiduciary responsibility is not a big deal, it is the deal for people in roles like mine here as a self -designated president of this college.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (20:09)
Well, you know, I let me try it this way then, President Stocker, as as you're, you know, one of your trustees, I'm encouraging you to consider this fiduciary responsibility also includes doing everything in your power to maintain the viability of the institution. And if in fact we are in trouble, then we need all hands on deck limiting access to the truth.
among your stakeholders, it's not ethical, first of all, but also it's impractical. And because I think there are many people within the institution who are loyal to the institution that could bring new and fresh ideas. And you know what? At the end of the day, you may need their dollars, their donations, right? In terms of your advancement efforts. And the only way you're going to get them is to have an honest and compelling story to tell.
Gary (21:10)
And you use the word impractical. I'm sorry, I use the word practical. I'm going to use the word practical in a different context. If I am practical and I say, hey, we're in trouble, whatever form or fashion that takes. And I mentioned this as we started this discussion and started my tenure as president of this college, it becomes a self -fulfilling prophecy. And it may not be that the last dollar is circling the financial drain.
But if we're getting close to that, and I mentioned that as president of this organization, I worry that the practical impact of that is it will become a self -fulfilling prophecy. And I'll give you the last response on that.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (21:49)
That's well, that's because you don't have trust in your stakeholders. You need to be able to trust your faculty and staff and families who do have loyalty toward the institution in many cases. And you have to trust that they're intelligent enough to be able to understand the financial scenario that you present to them. They're also intelligent enough to know that it takes some heavy lifting sometimes.
to get out of the weeds. And so I would argue it's through that sort of truthful, transparent and passionate communication. That's the path forward, not smoking mirrors and hiding information until it's too late.
Gary (22:36)
Well, it's that time in the podcast where everyone waits with bated breath. And Joseph, I presume you must have had bad coffee today or something. I've got a score, good points score. Gary, 11. Joseph, 2.
But before you take this episode home, Joseph, I have one thought first. Ponder this and go ahead and take us home. Has higher education as an industry had its business head in the sand for so long that it can't dig out?
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (23:11)
You know, I think that it's true there are people who may not have the capacity to be creative and find a way forward, but I believe the majority of decision makers do have that capacity. I think American ingenuity is second to none. I believe in our leadership in a higher ed today. I think the structures that we have in place, we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
We definitely have a lot of work to do and a lot of heavy lifting to avoid what seems to be inevitable for many, many schools. But let's roll up our sleeves and let's get to work. I'm an optimist at the end of the day. So Gary, it was great today. It's interesting. 11 to 2, that was a trouncing. Well, I'm looking for...
Gary (24:08)
It's a butt kick in Joseph.
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (24:09)
I, the only thing I can say is I'm looking forward to keeping score next week. We'll see. We'll see where we end up then. Um, I may not be as generous as I normally am, but, but thank you for, for your honesty. That was, that was good. I've been, I've been waiting for that, but listen for, for my colleague, Gary, Gary Stocker and myself, I'm Dr. Joseph Pellerito Jr. It's been wonderful to have you join us today on College Counterpoints podcast. And we'll look forward to.
Gary (24:13)
Ha ha ha!
Joseph Pellerito Jr. (24:38)
Doing this again next week, Gary. Take care, everyone.