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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire (00:00)
Welcome to the 100th episode of Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire and because this is the 100th episode, we wanted to bring on a very special guest, somebody who rose to the high expectations one would accept for such a momentous occasion. And we have done that. We have as our guest today, someone who
really does need no introduction. He is Nicholas Kent, the 15th Under Secretary of Education. And listeners to this podcast know the Under Secretary and ⁓ certainly understand what has gone on recently, which we'll discuss. But I did want to talk a little bit about his background so that we can give people kind of an understanding of where he came from and what has led to this position and maybe.
molded some of his thinking on some of these issues. He's a first generation college student, which some folks might be surprised to hear didn't know. He's very respected education policy expert, more than two decades of experience. He serves, of course, as the nation's top federal officer for higher education. And he oversees the department's post-secondary education, career, technical, and adult education, and federal student aid programs.
And that includes oversight of $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio and $30 billion through the Pell Grant program. Needless to say, very important responsibility. And before joining the department, the undersecretary served as the deputy secretary of education for the Commonwealth of Virginia under Governor Glenn Youngkin. Before that, he was the chief policy officer at
career education colleges and universities, where he worked on issues related to career focused education, choice and innovation in higher education. He also founded the CQ Research Foundation. used to serve as the director of policy and planning and research at the District of Columbia Office of State Superintendent of Education and has done other things in the private sector.
He of course ⁓ has a master's degree in higher education administration from George Washington University. But as an undergrad, he went to West Virginia Wesleyan College and used the Pell Grant for his higher education. So he understands the need that exists for that program. As I mentioned, he was a first generation college student. So Nicholas, if you could maybe talk about that experience. And did you?
As you were going through your undergraduate years, did you ever imagine that you would one day be leading the entire higher education portfolio for the country?
Nicholas Kent (02:54)
Well, first, Jason, thank you very much for those kind words. And I'm very excited to be here with you today. And congratulations to you on the 100th episode. What a momentous occasion for you. There was a period of time whenever I was in college where I felt I actually might not have the resources to graduate. So it's interesting that at one point in my educational journey,
there was a possibility that I wouldn't have the resources to actually get through higher education and would be one of those individuals that is a statistic of some college, lots of debt and no degree. But because of my journey and the opportunities that I was provided and the initiative that I took, I was able to get through my education. I had a ⁓ pretty serious event in my life whenever I was...
undergraduate students. My mother was diagnosed with cancer. She ended up passing away my junior year of college. And so that was also a resource to me that was sort of cut off mid journey. So for a whole lot of reasons, I think that like many students nowadays, there was a lot against me. And so it really took a lot of fortitude and a lot of reaching down within myself to sort of persevere and progress through higher education. And
A lot of the lessons that I learned during that time have carried through my experience with higher education. think what drew me to it and has landed me as you you aptly noted is the nation's top official on higher education.
Jason Altmire (04:30)
I'm glad that you shared that and thank you for talking about it because when you see the policy discussions occur and you hear the different constituencies weighing in on the importance of access, especially for the underserved, I think it's really important for people to know that the top official overseeing those conversations and those policies went through that process himself, experienced what it is like to.
go through and rely on the Pell Grant and be a first generation student. And I think that has definitely informed the work that you have done. So congratulations on your success. And as undersecretary, you of course can focus on many different things. This is not one of those agencies in the government that you sometimes you never hear about or never think about. Certainly education, something that touches.
Every individual, every family, every business in America relies upon the American education system. So you could focus your priorities in any direction that you wanted. So how are you thinking about balancing the major issues related to things like affordability, accountability, which you have recently dealt with, access, which you just discussed, and innovation and artificial intelligence and all of these issues. How do you strike that balance?
Nicholas Kent (05:52)
Well, I think there's a lot to unpack there. First is the president deserves a lot of credit in terms of his preparations for this term. You know, the president had four years to think about all that he accomplished in the in the first term with regard to education. And it was a tremendous amount of success. But he had four years also to think about what he wanted to accomplish moving forward.
And, you know, having been honored to serve on the president's transition team, I saw the preparation and the work that went into planning so that when the president won the election, we were off to the races. I think that that's one part is that, you know, preparation matters in jobs like this. And the president sets the tone from the very beginning. And as we all know, he is a ferocious boss. He has very high expectations. He runs at a million miles an hour.
and he expects his appointees to keep up with him. And certainly we do the very best that we can. The other thing is, is that I have built a great team here at the department. When people ask, did you think that you would accomplish everything that you did in just the first year? The answer was, absolutely. Again, not only did we prepare to accomplish it, but I have built a great team. I have built policy people and economists.
and people who really understand the nuances of higher education and have been around for a minute, as well as people who have never been around before in the government space, or bringing in new ideas. So building a team, giving them the resources that they need, getting out of the way and letting them do their jobs has contributed to the success that we have had. In a job like this, where I'm responsible for thousands of people and trillions of dollars,
You have to be able to balance competing priorities and multiple priorities at once. And again, a great team that helps me do that. You know, some of the priorities that we have, know, affordability is at the top of the list. You know, the president has been very clear that affordability is very important to him, especially in the educational context. So we spent a lot of time thinking about how we can reduce the cost of higher education. How can we make sure that higher education is more accessible to students from low income backgrounds?
But we also want to make sure that we are enrolling students that have a likelihood of success. And that really is our focus on merit, making sure that we're really looking to ensure that students that we admit to our subsidized colleges and universities are going to persist and that they're going to graduate and that they're going to go become productive taxpayers and productive members of society. So it's about holding institutions accountable
when they're not delivering on those results. A big focus of ours has been in the news lately, but we've been working on since day one here at the Department of Education is fraud, waste and abuse. You know, we have saved over a billion dollars from walking out the door by putting certain measures into place to ensure that we are protecting the finite amount of resources that the federal government has. We know that
you know, for every dollar that walks out the door to a bad guy is a dollar that's not making its way to a low income student. So we take fraud very seriously. And along those same measures, you know, one of my major responsibilities and what keeps me up at night is also right sizing the health of our federal student loan portfolio. As you mentioned, Jason, we have $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt. have
5 million students who are currently in default. have many more millions of students who are in delinquency. And a lot of that was based upon being misled by the previous administration where borrowers didn't think that they had this responsibility to repay their loans. So I spent a great deal of time thinking about how can we support students from the outset of their educational experience all the way through productive repayment.
Jason Altmire (09:55)
In recent weeks, you have been dealing with the negotiated rulemaking process for a couple of very important sets of issues. And amazingly to some, surprisingly to some, you were able to drive the negotiations in such a way that consensus was reached both times. And that was a surprise to many observers. And I remember, in fact, the day you reached consensus the second time.
There were articles in the news that morning saying it looked like the department was not going to be able to achieve consensus, but you were able to do that. And of course, as everyone knows, in those rulemaking sessions, there's a diverse set of constituencies around the table, special interests that are representing different issues and different priorities. And you were dealing with some very important issues, some of which had some controversial potential
options that were being discussed by some of the negotiators. How were you able to pull that off? How did you achieve consensus in both of those instances?
Nicholas Kent (11:03)
I appreciate that, Jason. And the first thing I'll say, and I'm happy to correct you, is that we reached consensus on the last three negotiated rulemakings. And so people are paying attention to the last two, I think, because those are the ones most recent. But we have reached consensus on the last three negotiated rulemakings. So for now, I am three for three, which really makes me and the secretary very excited. I think that there are many elements that went behind this success.
One is I think that, you the department really chose negotiators who came to the table willing to engage in productive conversations, willing to not dig in, willing to not question each other's motives, but to engage in real productive policy conversations. And, you know, these were kind of charges that I made to the committee at the outset of each of the negotiations, which is, you know, you're here.
to move a conversation forward. And so you should actually listen intentionally to your fellow negotiators and be willing to think through a difference of opinions. And so I think that that was a variable in our success. I think also the negotiators understood and the department made clear from the outset that consensus is not about getting everything that you want, but it's about getting enough of what you need to move forward. And I think what I made
clear throughout the negotiated rulemaking process is that we're trying to build a higher education system where certain structures last beyond a specific administration. So I think one of the challenges when we see rules that are in place for a short period of time is it creates this regulatory whiplash. And the real losers here are students, the real losers here are institutions. And so what we're trying to create is lasting stability.
And I think the negotiators got that. think that for the most part, the regulated community is tired of the whiplashing back and forth. And so we're trying to create something here as an administration that will live on past us leaving the building. And so I think that there is a real appetite to say, you know, we've been trying some of this stuff for the last 15 or 20 years, and we would really actually like to
you know, have that pendulum move more toward the middle as opposed to vassalating from one extreme to another extreme.
Jason Altmire (13:30)
Consensus that was reached dealt with allowing all schools in the country to have the same accountability framework that the rules would apply equally to all programs in the country, something that has not been the case in prior administrations. And that has been a large part of this whiplash that you've talked about. I've heard the term regulatory roller coaster mentioned where, know, just depending on who.
happens to be in the White House at that time, the regulations look very different and they go back and forth and lawsuits ensue. That's a really important issue that you were just talking about. And how do you think the consensus that you reached is going to dissuade future administrations from taking that same approach, just overturning everything and starting from scratch next time?
Nicholas Kent (14:21)
I think here consensus is on our side, right? The department has never reached consensus on this type of accountability structure, especially in the last 15 years. You know, Jason, better than anybody, how many times we have gone back and forth with gainful employment and financial value transparency, and none of those previous administrations reached consensus on their proposed regulatory tax. We're different, and we are winning when it comes to consensus.
And again, we're doing that by listening to folks and not digging in. That requires the department, you know, to have moved a little bit from where we started. It required the negotiators to move a little bit from where they started. Nobody got everything that they wanted, but I think everybody at the end of the day, from legal aid representatives to public institutions, to nonprofit, to proprietary, to state officials, to taxpayers.
all reach consensus on this floor, right? We're talking about a floor here when we talk about accountability, you know, does a program provide enough value for a student where we leave them better off than where they began? You know, that's a pretty low bar. And I think that most people understand that. And so I think consensus is on our side here. You know, obviously the department is still going through the rulemaking process. We will publish a proposed rule. We will be very open to considering, you know, public comment.
and determining whether or not there are any tweaks that need to be made in order to refine that rule. And so we've tried to create something here that works for everybody, students, taxpayers, institutions, and the department as well.
Jason Altmire (15:59)
One of the most contentious issues that came up and really the controversy didn't begin in earnest until after consensus was reached because of a clear public relations campaign by the constituencies representing the nursing profession. And that issue has to deal with the proposed definition of professional degree and nurses were left out of that definition.
they were disappointed with that outcome. I was just curious how the department weighed the publicity the issue received and the strong feedback from Congress and stakeholders. And I would expect going forward, you would continue to hear more about that. So how are you looking at that issue?
Nicholas Kent (16:45)
Thanks, Jason, for the opportunity to provide some much needed clarification. I love when I have a venue where I can set the story straight here. Again, I want to be clear, we're still going through the rulemaking process. We're still taking feedback. There'll be an open public comment period that we will respond to. So by no means are we finished writing this rule. But I do want to...
correct some misinformation. know, it is true there have been a few loud organizations that have engaged in a very expensive ⁓ misinformation campaign around this concept of professional degree or professional student. Again, Congress has tasked us with determining which programs would be eligible for higher loan limits. You know, it is a little bit crazy to me that we're having this conversation about wanting to settle
more students with more debt whenever we've been talking for years about making sure we're trying to help students get out of debt. We want to make sure that we are not burying students in debt that they cannot repay. know, this is a priority for the president, is a priority for Congress who set these loan caps. So I want to be very clear here. The department believes that nurses are professionals. The department believes that accountants are professionals. The department believes that firefighters and police officers are professionals.
This is not about whether or not we believe a particular occupation is a profession. This is really about a technical definition about which programs are going to be eligible for higher loan limits. You know, the department has crunched the data with regard to certain occupations, including nurses, and we know that 95 % of nurses are not affected by the proposed regulatory language. So this is a big misinformation campaign that is spinning up a lot of people.
for no reason. Again, we'll go through the rulemaking process. We're very open to feedback here. But at the end of the day, what we are trying to do is have an impact on the cost of attendance. We're trying to ensure that students are not buried in federal student loan debt. We're trying to ensure that when somebody graduates from college, that they have the opportunity to start family formation, that they have the opportunity to start businesses. And we know the data.
bears out that students aren't able to do a lot of these really important lifetime milestones because they're burying federal student loan debt. And one other really important element is that the purpose of these loan caps is to put downward pressure on institutions to lower the cost of attendance, to lower their tuition, to lower their fees, which will ultimately help students. Let me give you an example, Jason, that I love to tell.
There is a law school out there. I won't name the law school, but there is a law school out there. And on that website, they list the last many years of their tuition. And if you look at that list, you know, dating back six or seven years, it's 57,000 and 58,000 and 59,000 and 62 and 63 and 64. And then this coming year, do you know what the loan limits are? They are $50,000.
huge reduction in tuition and why? Because that is the annual limit for a professional student where a law degree would fall in, right? And so we already see that this is having an impact. It's not anecdotal. We are seeing downward pressure put on institutions that is reducing the cost of higher education. That's what we want to see more of. That's what we expect to see more of from institutions.
Jason Altmire (20:24)
Thank you for that explanation. That's certainly an issue that comes up very frequently. And I would expect in the coming weeks, we will probably hear more about that as well. And another issue that generated some controversy was the department introduced a low earnings indicator as part of a student's financial aid application process, where there would be sort of a warning signal that would appear if the student was applying for a program that had
earnings that were deemed to be substandard. Do you anticipate that that indicator will be updated or that the data will be changed moving forward? Because for the programs that are affected by that, that's a very important issue.
Nicholas Kent (21:07)
This is not controversial. Presenting information to students at a really important time in the college enrollment process is something that was important and is important to the secretary and to myself. And for the first time, we are presenting some amount of information about ⁓ program outcomes to students when they are in the FAFSA completion process.
And this ensures that students have the information that they need to make an informed decision about whether or not to enroll in a college or not. I think the department has been very clear here. know, earnings is just one measure of the quality of an institution. And taken together with mission, values, faculty, geography, you know, these are all elements that a student thinks about whenever they're enrolling. But we also know that earnings are really important.
important to graduates and they're really important to families when they think about which college to select. And so we're presenting this information that, by the way, has been on the department's website for many, many years. Now it's been buried in Excel sheets on web pages that require multiple clicks to get through. And so what we're doing is we're just presenting it in a very different way that makes it more user friendly to students and to families.
That being said, this was our first opportunity to provide this information in this very exciting way. And the department is open to refining that over the course of time. We intend to do a refresh of this data early this year, where we're presenting more up-to-date information on completers and earnings information, which I know is a concern of some institutions, that they believe that some of the data is a little bit old. We're going to refresh it, and we're going to pull
earnings data from more recent cohorts of students. And then we're also going to think about how we can provide even more helpful information to students at the programmatic level. So as you know, the earnings indicator is more thinking about the institution together as opposed to individual programs. And so we want to get more granular and provide students more information about what programs they're interested in. Sometimes there are some really, really good
programs in a bad institution and sometimes there's some really bad programs at a really good institution. And so we want to make sure that we're presenting all of that information. So we are going to be engaged over the next year about how do we continue to refine this data tool. But, you know, I think that the department is pretty committed to making sure that students have more information at critical times in their ⁓ educational journey.
Jason Altmire (23:47)
There's
been so much written about the value of a college education. There's this national debate, is college worth it? Is that the preferred pathway for students? And part of that discussion involves trade schools and career education and moving to fill the workforce shortages that plague American employers and the skills gap that exists where employers have.
jobs that are in incredibly high demand, but they simply cannot find the workers who are able to do those jobs. What role do you see trade schools and short-term skills-focused programs playing in the future of student financial aid and higher education more broadly?
Nicholas Kent (24:31)
I think what we're trying to do, the Trump administration is doing, is we're building the workforce for the golden age. And part of that is ensuring that students and families understand the options that are available to them. That is short-term programs, vocational programs, apprenticeships, two-year degrees. These are all options that I feel have been by the wayside for many years, where previous administrations have...
held up four year degrees is the only option for economic mobility. And we know that that's just not true. The research shows that oftentimes students benefit from receiving a certificate or a short term credential and jumping right into the labor force, right? And so one of the things that is a priority for myself and the secretary and the president is making sure that students understand all of their options. One of the things that is really exciting about the time
that we're living in is, Congress just authorized under the president's leadership, short term Pell. You know, short term Pell has been a conversation that's been happening for years and nobody was able to get that done. But President Trump got that done. It's in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And, know, we just negotiated on it. We just reached consensus on it. So we're going to have a new federal student aid program that does exactly what you just said, which is it's championing short term credentials that are going to get students in and out of
higher education quicker with real marketable skills. One of the things that people might not recognize is how important it is for education and labor to be hand in glove. And we championed that and showed people that throughout the negotiated rulemaking process, the education department and the labor department were hand in glove in making sure that we were moving these regulations forward in such a way that education and the workforce were going to be together on this.
program. That doesn't happen in our educational ecosystem the way that it needs to. And so we are very excited about how this new student aid program is really going to require governor's offices and state legislatures and educational institutions and the workforce to come together and say, where do we have these
high demand areas. Where do we want to put our state and federal resources to ensure that students have an opportunity to get a skill or to re-skill? Oftentimes we think about just somebody coming in and they're 18 or 19 and they're going to get a short-term credential. But again, far from the truth. We see that a lot of times, especially with the emergence of AI, that working adults need to go back into some sort of post-secondary education and get a short-term credential.
This student aid program will provide a myriad of opportunities from new students to adults that have been in the workforce for 30 and 40 years to go back to school. We're very excited about this and very excited that we're championing this better collaboration between education and labor. And in that same vein, you know, I want to take a moment to talk a little bit about the way that the department
has been engaging the Department of Labor in terms of our career and technical education programs. As you know, Jason, the president's charge to the secretary is to put her out of a job. Same with me, I accepted this job and I said to the secretary, if I do a good job, I'll be the last undersecretary. The things that we are working on now is creating these inter-agency partnerships where we're starting to transition some of the work and the people over to partner agencies that are frankly,
more capable, more talented, and better equipped to offer these types of programs and to administer these types of programs. We started at the outset with our career technical and education programs. And again, it's just another example of how we are partnering with other federal agencies, especially our Department of Labor colleagues, knowing that labor and education go together.
Jason Altmire (28:37)
As we wrap up here, and thank you for being generous with your time, I just want to address the fact that some observers predict federal enforcement actions against universities could escalate in the coming year. You didn't say that, but that has been written and said. But how is the department thinking about balancing strong oversight with institutional stability?
addressing issues like academic freedom, research continuity, because all of these have been subject to debate over the past year.
Nicholas Kent (29:08)
I want us to sort of circle back here and say, you know, the vast majority of institutions are doing a great job. They're serving their students well, they're serving their communities well. And so for a lot of institutions, we don't worry about those institutions, but there are a few institutions out there that needed a reminder as the president came into office that, you know, there are expectations, you know, throughout the years dating back.
many, many, many decades, there's always been a partnership between the federal government and higher education. And the president and the secretary have been clear here that they believe our higher education system is the best in the world. And we want to make sure that it maintains the best in the world status. Part of that is ensuring that our institutions of higher education are following federal law, specifically federal civil rights laws, that we are enrolling students who actually
have an opportunity to succeed. So that's looking at merit. It's not a big ask for our institutions to be doing the right thing. And when they're not doing the right thing, we're gonna look at it, we're gonna investigate it, and we're gonna take appropriate action. And I think that that's what institutions have seen over the last year. We've seen a lot of behavioral change in our higher education system over the last year. And I think we'll continue to see institutions modify their behavior, understanding that it is a new day and it is a new partnership.
that the federal government expects with institutions of higher education. I talk at a lot of events, I talk to a lot of association leaders, and most of them say, you know, we recognize that we have some real challenges here and we gotta switch course. And we say, as the department and as administration, all right, well, we have a course, you know, that we believe is the right course to start taking. And they say, well, wait a second, not that course, right?
At some point, we actually have to move off of our hands and do something. And under the president's leadership, we're doing something about it. you know, again, if schools are following the law, they're focused on merit, you know, they're offering high quality programs, they're inviting civil discourse to happen at their institutions, they have nothing to worry about. If they're not, if they're sort of misstepping in any of those areas, you know, we're going to be looking at them. One year down, three to go. Buckle up.
Jason Altmire (31:17)
I just want to end, with you and I have worked together in the past and continue to do so. And it is just such a thrill to see your success and to see you rise to the challenge in front of you and do such great work. I personally am proud of the work that you're doing. I congratulate you on your success. Our members feel the same way. And I just wish you the best moving forward and cannot thank you enough for being our guest today.
Our guest has been Under Secretary of Education, Nicholas Kent.
Nicholas Kent (31:49)
Thanks, Jason.
Jason Altmire (31:52)
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's at C-E-C-U-E-D. Thank you for listening.