Tuesday, April 21, 2026 - There’s a growing movement to make sure colleges offer ‘degrees of value,’ meaning that offerings lead to higher-paying jobs for graduates than if they hadn’t gone to college. Jeff and Michael talk to a key proponent of the idea, Harrison Keller, the president of the University of North Texas and former Commissioner of Higher Education in Texas. He talks about his experiments to redesign colleges to better match their offerings to the needs of the labor market. This episode is made with support from Ascendium Education Group.
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“Building a Talent Strong Texas,” strategic plan from Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
“University launches regional partnership for Texas Talent Accelerator to meet industry demands,” in the North Texas Daily.
“University of North Texas to cut more than 70 programs and minors to trim $45 million deficit,” in the Texas Tribune.“
Syracuse Drops 84 Majors Including Classics, Ceramics and Italian,” in The New York Times (gift link).
0:00 - Introduction
1:30 - A President Trying to Align Degrees to the Labor Market
3:43 - The Elevator Pitch for Ensuring ‘Credentials of Value’
5:50 - Creating a ‘Hub’ to Analyze Fast-Changing Employment Landscape
9:04 - Is There a Danger of Training Students for Dying Jobs?
12:11 - What Programs at UNT Aren’t Working?
14:14 - What About Majors With Social Value That Don’t Pay Much?
17:21 - How Do State Funding Formulas Need to Change?
20:06 - How Do Universities Need to Change Their Structures?
23:32 - What Should Universities Do to Respond to AI?
28:07 - Sponsor Break
28:46 - Colleges Need to Do More to Connect Liberal Arts to Job Skills
33:14 - The Case for a More-Detailed Mapping of Liberal Arts Skills to Work
41:56 - A Move to Shorter Degree Offerings in Some Fields
45:33 - Eliminating Programs With Low Demand
50:40 - Lightning Round with Harrison Keller
Michael Horn
Jeff, I confess I'm feeling in a bit of a funk as we start this episode because we're now about to end our ninth season of Future U. And I think I've been harping about ROI and outcomes and value for literally all nine of those seasons.
Jeff Selingo
Well, Michael, perhaps today's episode will help because we're not just talking about these ideas again, but we have a university president with us who is making some of the difficult calls to make sure that his institution is offering students real credentials of value. That's ahead on this episode of Future U.
Sponsor
This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium, a mission-driven nonprofit committed to improving learning and training systems to better serve learners from low-income backgrounds. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org.
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Michael Horn
I'm Michael Horn.
Jeff Selingo
And I'm Jeff Selingo.
Michael Horn
Alright, Jeff. Well, you were right. You've already put me in a much better mood with that announcement upfront. But today's guest, as you said, is the president of the university, not just talking the talk around credentials of value, but really walking the walk.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. That's right Michael. At the University of North Texas, they are making a concerted effort to literally execute on many of the things that we've been talking about on this show over the years. You know, not to be all things to all people, offer credentials of real value in the labor market, don't just rely on data about the past when it comes to the labor market, but also focus on the future and a lot more.
Michael Horn
Yeah. I think that's right. And it's probably no surprise to either of us, Jeff, given who is the president of the University of North Texas, and that's Harrison Keller.
Because Harrison is someone that we've both known for years, certainly when he was at UT Austin, where he served as deputy to the president for strategy and policy, vice president for higher education policy and research, and of course, executive director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. And then I remember Harrison and I would often meet up at conferences and talk about various disruptive ideas that he was running through. He was one of the first administrators to really think about the opportunities, not just in higher ed, but across K-12 and higher education to meaningfully change the system.
And then, of course, after that, he served as commissioner of higher education and chief executive officer for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board before assuming his current role as president in August 2024, and he has been busy.
Now one thing we should note before we get into the interview is we recorded this part with Harrison just a couple weeks before the university then made a big announcement that it was cutting some 70 programs and minors to help trim what was a $45-million deficit.
And as you'll hear in the subtext of our conversation with Harrison, what got cut, and most of them were minors, was predicated largely on looking at demand from both employers, but also students of the university itself.
And it wasn't pushed on the university by policymakers.
So with that as background, Harrison, it is good to see you again.
Welcome to Future U.
Harrison Keller
Yeah. It's great to see you all. Looking forward to the conversation.
Michael Horn
Yeah. Well, let's start when you were commissioner of higher ed in Texas, and you pushed obviously for tying funding increasingly to degree programs that both aligned to workforce needs that were in high demand and produced measurable, you know, real student outcomes. Right? And what you called 'credentials of value.'
What was the vision then? And what's the elevator pitch you gave behind this?
Harrison Keller
Yeah. So pretty radical notion at the time that the state should condition its goals for educational attainment on the value of credentials in the economy.
But that was actually one of the things that in my last job interview to be the commissioner that I pitched to governor Abbott. And we had a great conversation about, you know, the potential of moving in this direction. And so Texas became the first state to say, we don't just wanna make up credentials. We wanna make sure that our credentials are credentials of value in our economy.
So we spent some time starting to work on that, and then the pandemic hit. And all of a sudden, it became a lot more urgent because we had all these people who were out of work and sometimes needed additional training just to get a similar job in the same industry. And so we leaned in, and the direction we set out was called Building a Talent Strong Texas.
And so again, the idea is just look at what students have to invest, even accounting for opportunity costs, look at typical earnings in our state economy, and just ask the question, ‘Are students better off?’ And if they're not better off within some reasonable amount of time, you shouldn't count that credential. That was really important for us to lay groundwork for other work in finance in Texas, especially as you alluded to.
We did some pretty radical work to reform our whole community college finance system. So now 95% of the state funding for community colleges in Texas is based on outcomes, especially production of credentials of value.
Michael Horn
So fast-forward now to the present time. You're president now. You're no longer sitting in the seat in Austin, if you will, and trying to implement this thinking in the programs that, of course, you offer and the outcomes that you're seeking for your students.
What does that look like in practice? Because you've built something called the Texas Talent Accelerator, as I understand it. More than a 100 employers, 50 economic development organizations at the table, every community college in the region.
How does that infrastructure start to give you better real-time labor-market intelligence compared to, say, a traditional advisory council model that many colleges, as we know, have long had?
Harrison Keller
Yeah. I mean, what we have to face is that the pace of change is accelerating.
And even when I talk to employers, what employers will tell me is their workforce needs not only are changing faster than they expected, they're changing faster than we understand. And that's especially because of rapid advances in AI technologies.
And so things that people thought they might automate someday, all of a sudden, they're able to automate right now. Lots of entry-level functions and very good jobs are being automated, and that's disrupting our workforce and our talent pipeline. It feels like we're just on the front edge of what could be the largest upheaval in our American workforce, maybe since the industrial revolution.
So we need better intelligence that's actionable intelligence. So when you get together a bunch of employers or your survey folks, like, everybody will say, well, we need people who can think critically and people who can communicate and work in teams, and that sort of thing. That's hard to action. Right? So we need more granular, more actionable intelligence, and much more real-time feedback from employers.
So an idea that I brought to the legislature this last session is to create a regional intelligence network. So the hub is at UNT, but it can't just be for UNT. So as you mentioned, we've got more than a 100 employers across the region. Non-profit organizations include chambers of commerce, economic development corporations. There are state and national partners. So the Dallas Fed is a partner, the U.S. Chamber Foundation, Strata Education is a partner. We've got all the community colleges in the region, the Texas State Technical College, and about a half dozen of the universities.
And the idea is just first, can we bring the data into dialogue with the employers and talk about what it actually looks like in their industry? What are they looking for? What are their best hires looking like? What are the hire? What happens when hires aren't working out? What are the kinds of experiences we need students to have so they're gonna be able to add value and add momentum into their careers?
And then the second idea that's even more radical, especially in higher education, could we actually coordinate? Could we actually, like, coordinate our efforts across the two-year and the four-year institutions, so we can get more impact, more scale out of the system?
Jeff Selingo
So it's interesting, Harrison, because historically, when we've tried to align degrees to the labor market, it always has inherently been backward looking. Right? But if we have good intelligence, we could be more forward-looking.
But as you said, things are moving very quickly, in some ways faster than we even understand. So is there an inherent danger here that we might still train people for jobs that might not exist by the time they graduate? You know, I'm thinking of, for example, over the last decade, the huge enrollment boom that we've seen in computer science, is kind of a cautionary tale here. Right?
How do you stay ahead then if you even are having trouble understanding the signals today?
Harrison Keller
Yeah. So, we're absolutely training people for jobs that don't exist yet.
And so, we've got to prioritize what folks will call durable skills. So, we've got to prioritize the development of skills that are going to help folks adapt to new technologies, to learn new things quickly, to be resilient, and to be able to think critically about how you use these technologies.
And that includes a lot of things that we would think of as sort of the fundamental liberal arts skills, like ethics and some communication skills. Being able to understand and take apart in an argument and think through the implications of some of these decisions.
I think if we play our cards right, this is actually a time for the liberal arts to shine.
Now, in full disclosure, all my degrees are in philosophy, especially more on political philosophy. And I feel like that's definitely equipped me. I mean, this is a time where we need to bring that kind of rigor and discipline in our thinking in a new way to to what we're doing.
I wanna add also though that like one of the things we've realized at UNT that's importantly different from what other institutions have done is ...
So we need better intelligence and we've stood up the Texas Talent Accelerator to do that. But to pull this off, we need different kind of infrastructure within the university itself.
So the university has not been organized in general — and I mean, not just UNT, but universities in general — have not been organized in a way that facilitates our being responsive and nimble the way that we need to be. So you have these kind of ad-hoc advisory groups or individual faculty, you'll have relationships.
But if we're gonna have impact at scale, that means we've gotta have infrastructure.
So we've actually developed a whole new infrastructure to support our learning ecosystem at UNT. And there's a part of this we call the curriculum connector. And what the curriculum connector's role is is to make sure our curriculum not only is coherent, but includes and is intentional in developing these skills that employers need.
Jeff Selingo
So let's try to bring this a little bit more specifically to UNT in the present right now.
What are you finding are the degrees that maybe aren't working for students at UNT when you start to apply what you're learning, what the intelligence is telling you? What is it saying about the UNT programs?
Harrison Keller
Yeah. So here's how we're looking at this question, Is we've analyzed every undergraduate and graduate program at UNT across multiple dimensions.
So, first, we take a look at ‘time to value.’ So how quickly do students break even on their investment? How quickly are they net positive? The average for a bachelor's degree at UNT is six years. That means all in, your total investment in your undergraduate program including opportunity costs and that you would be net positive within six years. We've got some programs, it's three or four. We have about a dozen undergraduate programs when you look into that data, that it can be more than ten years. So then that helps us know where we need to focus our attention in either improving those programs, or in some cases we have to make hard decisions that we're gonna teach these out. We've got to spin these down.
We also look at the contribution margin. We look at how expensive it is to offer these programs. And you can't be all things to all people, so there are things that make sense for UNT to do, and there are things that maybe we're not the best platform for.
And then we look at demand. We look at student demand. And importantly, we look at what the demand is for the employers in our region and beyond. What are the signals that we're getting from the workforce?
And so you combine all of those different data points into that analysis to decide, here's what we need to stop doing. Here's what we need to adapt or reform. And then in some cases, here are some new things that we need to do to lean in to the emerging demands in the workforce.
Jeff Selingo
So you had mentioned you can't be all things to all people. And one critique of ideas where we do focus on the outcomes is that some fields are beneficial. They're socially beneficial, but they just don't pay very much. Right? Things like social workers, you know, counselors, educators, for example.
So rather than cut those programs, you've been kinda working some different levers on there around packaging financial aid, also thinking about pricing. Can you walk us through how you're thinking about those types of programs, and how far are you along in rethinking that piece of it?
Harrison Keller
Yeah, I appreciate you bringing this up. Because whether it's at the state level or at the federal level, this is one of those key technical issues that could really throw these conversations off track.
So there are certain kinds of things that we need in society that, as you say, don't pay very well. We train behavioral specialists who work with autistic children. We train teachers. We train social workers. These don't pay as well, and they're critically important for society.
So what you don't want to do is you don't want to wax poetic about the importance of these degrees to society. But then, let's exclude all of these from the kind of analysis I'm talking about, and just assume people are going to have to take a vow of poverty to be able to go into these fields.
So instead, I think what we need to do at the institutional level, and also our policymakers need to step up and consider is, ‘Alright, well how do we treat these a little bit differently?’
So that means instead of at the institutional level saying a student is a student is a student, and we're gonna give the same kind of financial aid package to a student who's completing a degree in AI that we would give to a student who's completing a degree in social work. Maybe we pay more attention to what those projected lifetime earnings look like, and what kinds of adjustments we might need to make so students don't carry a debt burden that they can't pay off.
So can we focus on financial aid a little differently? Can we accelerate the time to degree? Can we make some of these programs shorter? Make sure that students are able to get through faster. Of course, that's one of the main ways that you can enhance the value of these credentials is just accelerate them. Get people into the workforce more efficiently.
There are also things we can incorporate into the programs, like meaningful work-integrated learning experiences that just expand the options that the students have coming out of the programs and then later in their career.
So there are a lot of levers that we can pull.
I love the question because one of the things I'm concerned about is the way that this is getting glossed right now where people will draw arbitrary wage thresholds and won't pay attention to this issue. And this could end up really causing serious problems for us as a state or as a nation.
Michael Horn
That's a good way to put it. Right? You don't have to just look at the top of the numerator, if you will. You can also reduce the denominator, and as you're doing so, as you just said, get people some pretty valuable experience that'll actually probably make them better once they're in those roles.
I'm curious also, you mentioned making hard decisions around certain programs. And I guess I wanna think more broadly about the barriers maybe to UNT doing this work or doing this work well.
Obviously, we said earlier you pushed outcomes-based thinking as commissioner, but Texas's own funding model, at least at the university level, is still largely enrollment-driven. I don't need to tell you that you all took a hit in the last legislative session on instruction and operations funding.
So I'm curious how much the state's own incentive structure is limiting what a president like you, who wants to lean into this, can actually do. And, you know, what's the next thing that Texas needs to do, right, to get the policy environment into the right place in your judgment to to help you as opposed to hinder you?
Harrison Keller
Well, there's some work that is going on in the interim right now with higher education institutions and system and my former colleagues from the coordinating board to develop some recommendations around outcomes based funding for universities.
And this could be tremendously important for us because it creates so much friction that universities are just funded on the basis of seat time. Not even whether students complete courses, let alone degrees, let alone whether those degrees are of any value in our economy, just seat time and the kinds of courses that are delivered. And there's also zero consideration for the needs of students.
So in our outcomes based funding model for community colleges, not only are there adjustments that recognize that some credentials are in high demand, there are also adjustments that recognize that some students are gonna need additional support to be able to complete those credentials. So if students come from low-income backgrounds or they start college and they're not yet college ready and they need to be remediated in certain areas.
On the two-year side, Texas recognizes those additional costs. And we've seen tremendous change in our two-year institutions just in the conversations that people are having around student success and how people are approaching these issues within the community colleges.
On the university side, I'm not saying that universities are not committed to doing the right thing by their students, but it's in spite of the funding formula. It's not amplified and accelerated by the funding formula.
Michael Horn
So that's the step that needs to be taken.
Let focus also then on the university side about where universities structurally need to maybe change in terms of faculty, staff, incentives, arrangements, whatever it might be. On this show, we recently talked … we did a whole episode about tenure, for example.
So just how does this vision need to be connected to promotion, tenure, structures, departments, things of that nature on campus itself?
Harrison Keller
It has to be a comprehensive effort across all those fronts.
So if we're really gonna move at the speed we need to move, and if we're gonna have the impact we need to have at scale, we need to be willing to touch the third rail to talk about promotion and tenure, and even the design of the university itself.
Our biggest problem at traditional institutions isn't a budget problem. We have budget problems that we have to address. The biggest problem is a structural problem.
So we weren't designed to address the kinds of issues that we need to confront now. Well, that means we need to do some redesign issues.
So at North Texas right now, we are working on a project to roll up traditional departments into more interdisciplinary divisions and schools. And that's got multiple benefits for students and for faculty in their ability to take on questions that are relevant to industry right now. And to be able to be more effective.
We have an initiative that we've launched to broaden our institutional criteria for promotion and tenure beyond narrow conceptions of research productivity.
And look, North Texas is a R1 university. You know, we're a billion-dollar-a-year enterprise. And still, we need to broaden the criteria for how we recognize excellence in our faculty to pick up the full range of what we need faculty to do within the institution.
And that means excellence in research productivity, that also means excellence in innovations in teaching and learning. That means excellence in leadership. It means excellence in our innovation and commercialization activities. Having a startup that is translating insights into the marketplace ought to count. And so we're broadening those criteria.
And I think that's really important to make sure that we can keep up the pace at North Texas.
We're moving incredibly fast at North Texas across multiple fronts. So I go and I talk about these things at national meetings. Everybody always asks about like, well, how are you overcoming the resistance to the faculty senate and that kind of stuff. And I have to say that our faculty at North Texas, our faculty senate, have been great partners in this work. And that's actually the reason that we're moving so fast is we're working in close partnership with the faculty to reimagine the university and the kind of support structures and the incentives that we need.
I think everybody complains about the faculty, but most institutions haven't really organized themselves to try to unlock that creative potential of the faculty to help them do better.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. It's sometimes easier to complain than do something about it.
Well, we can't let you out of here, Harrison, without obviously talking about the big elephant in so many rooms in higher ed right now, which, of course, is AI.
You know, AI is accelerating ... Something you flagged, earlier here, which is around employers, you know, how work is changing.
We know particularly entry level white collar jobs are in real danger in some places right now, already being automated in other places or at least parts of them are being automated, which is the traditional on-ramp, obviously, for a lot of college graduates.
So what does that mean for what universities actually need to be focused on with undergraduates? Let's just focus on the undergraduate experience.
You know, you talked earlier about durable skills. I mean, shouldn't this really be priority number one at colleges and universities right now where where we're looking at outcomes, we're looking at what are AI-enabled jobs, how can we restructure those undergraduate programs to teach those durable skills, or else you're gonna end up, it seems, like, with a lot of graduates who can't find work.
Harrison Keller
Yeah. Yeah. So, a lot of things there.
First, absolutely, we've got to prioritize durable skills.
So students have to be resilient. They've got to be capable critical thinkers. They've got to be able to adapt to new technologies. They've gotta be able to communicate effectively. So deepening that skill set, that should absolutely be our first priority as we're developing the potential and the talent of our undergraduates.
One of the things that we also have to pay attention to, though, is we're seeing references to AI start to disappear from job postings. And what seems to be happening is that working with AI is table stakes. It's assumed. Like, digital literacy, of course, involves being able to work effectively with AI.
So we need to focus on durable skills, also make sure that our students have the digital skills that they need to be able to work effectively with AI and to be able to bring those skills and that value to their employers.
And then the third big thing that I'd flag, and in a lot of conversations with employers and DSW about this right now, is if you think about the glide path, let's say the three of us had coming out of undergraduate, we had a lot more time to figure out how to apply the skills that I learned in my philosophy program to being a new legislative staffer or that kind of thing. Right?
As employers are automating functions in these entry-level jobs, it's not just the technical expertise that gets automated and glossed over. In these entry-level jobs is also where people learn to work in a professional setting. It's where they learn the language. It's where they learn sort of how to get things done within the organization.
Now, as those entry-level jobs are getting automated, where are students gonna pick up all of these other kinds of skills?
Well, I think it should be incumbent on us in the design of our undergraduate programs to build in consideration for these issues. So students before they graduate need to have meaningful work opportunities and that can be internships, that can be working on projects for companies, co-op type experiences. There are a number of different levers you can pull.
But students need to be able to hit the ground running in a way that our generation wasn't expected to do.
Jeff Selingo
And I think that's an incredibly critical point, Harrison.
We had Matt Petinsky on, recently, you know, one of the cofounders of Blackboard, and he mentioned at the very end about the difference between today's college students and yesterday's college students and talked a lot about executive function skills and the ability to just get the work done.
So now we have students coming into college needing those skills. Those are skills we used to build in the first job. Now we don't even have that. So it's kind of a double whammy, it seems, for a lot of employers.
This was just a fascinating conversation.
Thank you so much, Harrison Keller, president of the University of Texas for joining us.
And we'll be right back on Future U.
Sponsor
This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium, a mission-driven nonprofit committed to improving learning and training systems to better serve learners from low-income backgrounds. Ascendium envisions a world where low income learners succeed in postsecondary education and workforce training as paths to upward mobility. Ascendium's grantees are removing systemic barriers and helping to build evidence about what works, so learners can achieve their career goals.
For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org.
Jeff Selingo
Welcome back to Future U off that interview with Harrison Keller, Michael.
And let's dive into a few topics.
You know, I referenced something you say often, which is by definition that data are backward-looking. They are about something that has happened. So all this labor-market data and aligning to the labor market that we look at, there's kind of a big lag between when a student enters a program and four, five, or six years later then graduates into the workforce.
And yet the speed of change, as Harrison said, is actually faster than we even understand today, and that's particularly true, obviously, in this era of AI.
And, you know, I made reference to it, Michael, in our interview because nowhere is that more true than in computer science. You know, college graduates, in their 20s with computer science and computer engineering majors, they have one of the highest unemployment rates right now, double that of, you know, pharmacy grads, criminal justice grads, even biology grads.
And get this, Michael. What's interesting to me is that undergraduates already seem too aware of this new state of affairs because enrollment in computer and info science programs is down nearly 8% this academic year compared to the last.
So what's happening is you see these numbers, and immediately, the market is responding to them in terms of number of majors. You know, years ago, there would have been a lag there where it might take many years for that to kind of go through the current system.
And so what was interesting to me, Michael, is that Harrison told us that maybe this is where the liberal arts are gonna make a comeback. Right? Because foundational skills will be critical. And we've been hearing that a lot lately.
But then what was interesting to me, as we mentioned at the beginning, not only did UNT, but, you know, we just had this news this week that we're recording that Syracuse cut a bunch of liberal arts programs.
So there seems to be a disconnect where we're saying on one hand, the liberal arts are making a comeback, and on the other hand, we're still cutting those programs.
And I think that's where places like, whether it's UNT, Syracuse, I will also say higher ed in general, needs to make a much better connection between the foundational skills, and the liberal arts, the programs they have, what they're keeping, and what they're cutting, because I don't think UNT and Syracuse are going to be the last.
Michael Horn
Yeah, Jeff.
Let me just pause you there for a moment because I think on the surface level, I don't disagree. But it comes down a little bit, I think, to how do we define the liberal arts, and what do the liberal arts mean in this current moment.
I was talking to a university president recently about this, and he defined the liberal arts as really, how people understand the world that they live in and also act in the world. And his argument was that the liberal arts has gotten a little bit too divorced as it's actually executed in higher ed from the actual action, like, in the world.
It's too much on the theoretical and not on both spheres.
And then his argument was there's sort of an understanding and acting in the physical world, understanding and acting in your own life, understanding in sort of the human and social world, and science is frankly part of that.
And then his big argument was that a fourth ought to be introduced into this, which is also understanding and working with AI itself. Right? Because AI is sort of this sentient, inorganic entity, in his argument that is coming in.
And so he thought the liberal arts actually needs to be re redefined around that. And again, the notion of action is that it's very practical.
And so in some sense, I think some of the cuts we're seeing are nominally the liberal arts, but maybe not actually addressing the heart of the matter.
One other data point on this, there was recently a Harvard publication that talked about them reading Plato in a particular philosophy class. And it noted that they couldn't believe that they got to the end of the class, and it was asking these sort of abstract questions about the reading. And nowhere did they ever discuss, like, what does it mean for the life I'm living now?
And I think that's the part that's missing. Right? Is that how does it relate to me going forward, both in my personal life, in the career I'll have, in the interactions I'll have with others?
Joe Ross, president of Reach University, he often talks like, the liberal arts is really a conversation with the past, but to understand our present and future. And so I think actually a lot of the programs being cut are nominally like what we've come to think of as the liberal arts, but maybe actually sort of missing the point, if you will, Jeff, of the liberal arts and how practical I think they are needed at this given moment. I'm curious, how that relates to your thinking.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah Michael I think we probably align a lot on this.
I think there's a lot of nostalgia right now for the liberal arts, especially given in this age of AI. I think there's this belief, 'Well, maybe this means the, you know, the liberal arts, as we have always thought about them, will make a comeback.'
You mentioned Plato, which brought back a conversation I also just had with, in this case, a former college president who made this argument to me was that the liberal arts, you know, you had the canon of of all the works that you would read, in the liberal arts, but his argument was that today's professors in the liberal arts kind of came of age probably in the 1990s when many of their mentors and their professors were more narrow in their research and encouraged more narrowness in the research. Right? Because what are you going to do? You're gonna kind of talk about, like, well, you're gonna do another thesis on, you know, Shakespeare, for example, or on Plato. Right?
So you started to then think more narrowly about research in the liberal arts, and then these students would become today's professors, and they're now teaching that research.
So his argument was that starting in the '80s and '90s, and particularly through the beginning of this century, we have narrowed our look at the liberal arts.
And in fact, I think this goes to your point. If you look at the programs that Syracuse or UNT or others are cutting, they're not the broad liberal arts. Right? They're not cutting philosophy, for example. They're cutting very narrow, what I would define as narrow programs within the liberal arts.
So what I think needs to happen now, whether it's Syracuse or UNT or higher ed in general, is that we need to make then a better connection between what we call these foundational skills and the liberal arts with the programs that they're keeping, because otherwise, I just don't think you're gonna see this flight back to the liberal arts.
Just to say, well, you know, in in this day and age of AI, everyone's gonna go back to the liberal arts because it's that human piece of it. I think we need more than that.
And so what do I mean? So when we think about the liberal arts in 2026, I think we need to think much more beyond the programs themselves.
You know, we have long claimed that these provide these foundational skills, but I think if you ask any recent liberal arts college graduate to talk about the skills they learned in the classroom, I think they're gonna struggle to talk about, you know, things like problem solving and teamwork and, you know, discernment and things like that.
When do they get to know those things? So they often get to know those things after a few years on the job. You know, a few jobs and a few years on a job where they start to see how they transfer and translate their skills that they learned, and I would argue, by the way, both inside and outside the classroom in college.
You know, that's when jobs become more complicated. That's when, you know, get being able to get stuff done is more important.
And so this is where I think of recent episodes that we've had where, you know, Matt Sigelman brought this up on our episode about credentials. Allison Salisbury brought this up on our live episode at Adobe headquarters last year. You know, how people learn to work. Right? What we often call executive function skills. You know, just to be honest with you, getting shit done. I'm not quite sure I can say that on the podcast, but I just did.
Michael Horn
No we'll add an 'E' to our podcast. First time. Yeah.
Jeff Selingo
But you know, Michael, I don't know when you talk to employers, but this is what I hear all the time. I just want people who can get shit done, and that becomes I think much more important in a day and age in AI.
So here's what I believe that higher ed needs to do. I think they need to map these skills to their programs, particularly in the liberal arts. What are they doing in those courses or in experiential learning that teaches things like discernment, problem solving, managing large projects.
And then, by the way, they will say they already do that, and they probably do for accreditation reasons.
But then be very intentional with students and ultimately employers about what those grads know. Tell them on the way into a class, these are the skills you're going to learn. You know, when you walk through the syllabus, at the end of class, talk about what did you learn in this class, and how can you translate and transfer that to the job market.
Because just to say the liberal arts matters again isn't enough.
Michael Horn
Yeah. And this, of course, is the essence. We're name checking presidents left and right here. But, what Brandeis is doing, right, in terms of their rejuvenation of the liberal arts is to have a second transcript in effect with independent measurement of actually have you demonstrated and can you do these sorts of quote unquote durable skills, that people think a lot about. Right? That say are important and and have you demonstrated that in a meaningful way?
And they're trying to have outside entities develop measures so that they can actually represent that as opposed to Jeff, you know, you took the class and therefore that's that's, indication enough, if you will, of it.
I'm also reminded, and it sort of helps us transition into something else, which is again, I'll go back to Joe Ross and Reach University, which, of course, we featured Mallory [Dwinal Palisch] a couple times, on the Future U podcast. And for those that don't remember, they do apprenticeship degrees and started with teachers in rural areas.
But Joe will tell you, you know, liberal arts is deeply infused in this, and I think the natural reaction of a lot of people in higher ed is 'You're you're training teachers. Really?' And he says, 'Well, yeah, because the conversations we're having online in the class, like it's all, you know, the practicum happens when you're actually working in the school. But then online, we're having like deep conversations both about past texts that have deep meaning on the state of the human condition, what we're trying to develop in people, ethics, things of that nature, in conversation with others around.
And I think it relates to something because I found Harrison's answer to your question around social workers, addiction counselors, early-childhood educators, these functions that, as you said, are important but not lucrative. I found his answer quite interesting.
He talked about, you know, reducing time to degree, changing financial aid, or, you know, he didn't say this, but I could imagine it, perhaps pricing those programs differently.
And then maybe most interesting, to your point here, embedding real work experiences in the programs themselves, so students perhaps can earn some money, graduate with real work experience that will help them get a job.
And, you know, we've hit a lot of that on Future U, but I thought Harrison did a good job of saying, or at least implying that, A) this is why rather than from a policy perspective, having an absolute wage cut off, it's probably not a great idea.
But instead, having ROI calculations, where there's an incentive to reduce that time, the degree, to get that money into the student's pocket, reduce that opportunity cost, etc, is a better way to measure credential value than an arbitrary cutoff of, you know, is it equivalent to say what a high school diploma holder holds? Because we don't wanna discourage people from getting these degrees.
And then I think the other piece of this, think, is something you think a lot about, Jeff, which is how young people learn to work, and you just were talking about that. And it's not just about the executive function skills and some of these other durable skills, which I will confess, sometimes I can be skeptical of that. But I think often, it's frankly like how to ... Exactly what you just said, like how do you show up and just get the job done and act ... How do you act in a professional environment? How do you showcase yourself?
And if you do those things, if you really embed it, that improves performance on the job as well.
So I think it dovetails with what you said, but it really adds heft in these areas that are not lucrative, but are important to society.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah, Michael. And it's interesting.
You have made the point many times before when we talk about ROI, really breaking out the R and the I of those letters. Right?
And I think of, you know, not only in the investment piece in terms of how we define the ROI of the degree, but, you know, the return on that investment is not just earnings, but it's experience.
And so if we could give students in terms of the package of the degree real-world experience that could help accelerate their career. Again, they may end up maxing out on a salary, but if we help them get to that salary more quickly because they have experience that we gave them in the package of the degree, that to me is a great return on the investment of the degree. Right? It's not just the salary at the end, but that means you got that salary maybe five or ten years earlier than you would have otherwise. So I think that's important to remember.
Second is and, you know, Harrison made reference to this, but I what I'm really ... Somebody just recently asked me what I'm really fascinated by in higher ed right now, and there's a number of things going on. You know, we've talked about the apprenticeship degree. We've talked about embedded credentials. We haven't talked a lot about what's happening in a lot of the regional accreditors now approving, you know, three-year, 90-credit degrees, but that's really coming around now.
You know, I think what we're starting to see when all of these come together is reimagining the package of the degree as instead of this four-year experience that for some majors, and this again gets back to what Harrison was talking about. Right? Like, if you're a teacher, and I know, obviously, you mentioned Joe and what the work that Reach is doing. Right? Like, why can't we get them, embed these credentials, do the apprenticeship as part of an education degree, all of which, by the way, could shorten that degree and get them into the classroom more quickly. Why can't that be the three-year 90-credit degree?
Some of these, like, lower-paying wage jobs. Right?
So that we don't have to think about the package of the degree for every major being that four-year, 120-credit, degree that often, by the way, does not include embedded credentials, apprenticeships, multiple entry points that allow them to go out and work if they want.
To me, that's what's really interesting about this.
And then finally, you know, Harrison didn't mention this, but I was looking at the news coverage of his announcement about the closing of their budget deficit. And one of the things they're going to do is, move, you know, more than 40 courses are gonna shift to a model where lectures are gonna be delivered online, students are gonna attend, you know, weekly in person sessions and smaller groups focused on discussion and problem solving, you know, really hybrid courses, which, you know, many institutions are experimenting with, but yet is another way of reducing that investment, that upfront investment.
And if we could bring that into these lower-paying degrees, it will reduce that investment, and thus, as you always remind me, it's not just the return on the degree, it's the investment in the degree that matters as well.
Michael Horn
That's a really good point, Jeff.
And also, frankly, could help with assessment,too. And AI taking the assessment, if it's now in a smaller group conversation, I can do maybe oral assessments or rethink performance measures around learning. That could be really interesting as well.
Last thing, because I don't wanna be naive about this, and if we are, Jeff, we will hear about it on LinkedIn. After we recorded the interview, as as we said up top, this big announcement came, with a lot of programs being cut. There were a number of articles I know both of us have been reading.
And many of the programs that were cut have been around what are hot-button political issues in Texas. Higher ed in general, but certainly Texas. So gender studies, for example, was one of them.
I thought Harrison's logic was quite clear in our interview that this is about demand, demand from employers, but also demand from students where they're actually enrolling.
But I know that these things are often not seen that way on a campus in higher ed in general and so forth.
And at the same time, as Harrison said, when we're talking about trying to reorganize the university to be more focused around demand, there are very difficult structural issues that come into play, and he made the case that faculty are on board. But I think this is challenging. Right?
And I do think it takes some measure of leadership and courage and saying, ‘We know that this is gonna rub different constituencies the wrong way, but this is what needs to be done to position the university for the future.’
I Iove that, you know, sometimes you hear things that I don't because you're closer to a bunch of leaders. Any takes from you on this? I think what they did makes some sense, but look, these sorts of changes, as we know, are really hard on college campuses.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah, and I think Michael, you said the word that we keep hearing on this podcast in so many different places, and that's courage. Right? And the how of this, I think, is really important.
You know, it was interesting. I was looking at the news coverage out of UNT and out of Syracuse, and the lines are so similar. Right? So the chair of the linguistics department told the Texas Tribune about UNT, quote, "we weren't consulted on the matter at all."
A Syracuse professor was quoted in The New York Times saying, "People are walking around with pitchforks," he said, of the overall reaction among the arts and sciences faculty. Folks aren't happy.
But you know what's interesting, Michael, is that Randy Bass at Georgetown, what he says about change in higher ed, and we should probably mention that Randy has been consulting with Harrison at UNT, is that if you're not happy about the present, you know, the state of higher education right now, you're probably not gonna be in favor of change anyway because it's never gonna be for the better for you. Right?
We always think, well, if we're unhappy with the status quo, something different must be better, but that's not always true. And so I get that you can never do program reviews that will adequately include everyone on campus. Right? And you're not gonna make them happy. But I think as long as you do it with some transparency of the goals that you wanna meet — demand, I think is one of the goals here. That you're gonna do it with data. And in Harrison's case it seemed they did that. And in Syracuse case it seemed they did that. You know, it was data driven, and these are the goals of that. It's going to be what it's going to be.
And I know people are gonna hate this analogy, but, you know, The Wall Street Journal wrote this big piece last year about that this is exactly what's happening in retail. Right? We're just trimming the products that are available to meet demand. You know, in retail, a lot of it is around logistics, you know, getting goods to the stores and getting goods to the people, who wanna buy them. And if there's only three people who wanna buy that product and there's 50 people over here who wanna buy that product, where are you gonna put your energy? You're gonna put it where the demand is.
And I think the same thing is happening in higher ed. And the fact of the matter is that on most college campuses, 80% of students are majoring in 20% of majors, and there's no reason why we should just say we're gonna put this on paper and offer it because one student wants to take it.
Just one last point on this, Michael. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but, you know, almost 90 something programs in Syracuse were eliminated, which affect a couple 100 students at the most out of tens of thousands of students.
I think that says it all right there about, like, again, I'll use a retail analogy. Right? Like, of all the SKUs that you're offering out there. Right? Like, why do you have to offer, you know, hundreds and hundreds of SKUs when people are only buying, you know, 10 of them?
Michael Horn
Just a quick thought as we wrap up on that, Jeff, which is I also think this is the opportunity for what we've been clamoring for also on this show for years, which is true differentiation or diversity of higher ed models.
And so, you know, the university that wants to lean into serving those couple 100 students, frankly, when you aggregate beyond Syracuse, it's much bigger than that. Around those programs, great. Like, lean into that and let other universities focus and specialize on where they're gonna be excellent.
And this 'all things to all people, that's the way it has to be done.,' it's not gonna be productive for the campuses. It's not gonna be productive for excellence, in the campuses and serving really, really well these programs.
And so, look, these are hard choices, but they're choices that I do think need to be made given where we are in in in higher ed in this country right now.
So I think we'll leave it there. But before we do, we're gonna bring Harrison back for a popular segment on this year of Future U where we get to ask him three quick questions, lightning-round questions, and have a little fun.
Harrison, welcome back.
Jeff Selingo
Here we go. Okay. So first question. What was the worst grade you got in college, and what course was it in?
Harrison Keller
So honors calculus as a freshman. I have a C on my transcripts, and I'm proud of being able to squeak by that C because I was in the honors program at Notre Dame, so they said, oh, we'll put you in the honors calculus, of course. I had run out of math to take at my West Texas high school after my junior year, so I had had zero math my senior year, and all of a sudden I'm sitting next to kids like who had had two years of calculus. So there was a lot of suffering with that, but I guess you could say I never got over it because then that transition to college has become one of my areas of specialization.
Jeff Selingo
Well, and as you know, calculus is a big transition to college these days. Okay. You mentioned earlier, you were a philosophy major. So we've been talking a lot about assessing degrees. How would you assess the value of your degree in your major?
Harrison Keller
So I would say philosophy for me was definitely a credential of value. I would always be deeply indebted to the philosophy departments at Notre Dame and Georgetown. And I do mean that from the bottom of my heart that the kind rigor and discipline.
And also, you know, philosophy is really good at teaching you what you don't know. And you learn a lot about due humility in philosophy. So it's sort of like you here's your here's your ego, here's a cheese grater, we're gonna combine those pretty rigorously through especially through your PhD program. And that equips me well to be a college president.
Jeff Selingo
I could only imagine. I guess that's a durable skill. So final question. Everybody would love a billion dollars right now. So if somebody wrote you a check right now for a billion dollars to the University of North Texas, no strings attached, what would you do with it?
Harrison Keller
Yeah. So what I would do is I would ... I'd dramatically accelerate our work that we're doing to reimagine the future of higher education in North Texas. So there's incredible potential with the, especially with this new model of new kinds of partnerships with employers, community colleges, our our K-12 districts. So, as you all are talking to your friends about where to put the next billion dollars, we can definitely get you that return on investment at the University of North Texas.
Jeff Selingo
Well unfortunately, we have great advertisers on Future U, but they don't pay that much. But hopefully, out there, maybe some one of those anonymous donors out there is listening to this and is going to write that check.
Well, Harrison, thank you so much for, again, joining us on Future U.
Thank you all out there, for listening.
Be sure to rate us. Be sure to tell friends about these conversations that we're having with incredible higher ed leaders like Harrison Keller at, the University of North Texas, somebody who's been in and around this work for quite some time in that state in particular.
And we'll see you next week on Future U.
