Tuesday, January 9, 2024 - To kick off the new year, host Jeff Selingo welcomes Lynn Perry Wooten, President of Simmons University, for a conversation on the unique position of smaller universities in higher education. They discuss some vital concerns facing smaller universities like Simmons, such as combining less popular liberal arts majors, combatting dropping college enrollment numbers, and embracing online education programs. The episode is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Ascendium Education Group.
Get notified about special content and events.
To kick off the new year, host Jeff Selingo welcomes Lynn Perry Wooten, President of Simmons University, for a conversation on the unique position of smaller universities in higher education. They discuss some vital concerns facing smaller universities like Simmons, such as combining less popular liberal arts majors, combatting dropping college enrollment numbers, and embracing online education programs. The episode is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Ascendium Education Group.
Strategies for Digital Transformation
(0:00) - Intro
(4:10) - Small college challenges and strategic planning
(11:51) - Small college competitiveness and online education
(19:58) - Leadership and collaboration in higher education
(21:31) - Higher education leadership and decision-making
(27:00) - Higher education data analysis and institutional growth
(32:42) - Online education and revenue diversification at Simmons College
Jeff Selingo:
An analysis from Bain and Company earlier this year that I worked on, Michael, found that while higher education as a whole actually did better financially during the pandemic because of government aid. As we head into the middle part of this decade, only one-third of the sector is what we classified as financially sustainable under their current model.
Michael Horn:
And of course, Jeff, we've addressed the financial model of colleges from various perspectives on this show over the years.
But what's different about our discussion today is that our guest is a business dean turned college president, who has an extensive background researching and consulting with companies in crisis situations. And so today, we'll talk about what it means to lead what is now the prototypical college, as you've found. Those institutions that are among the two-thirds of American institutions that must shift their business model in order to survive and thrive. On this episode of Future U.
Sponsor:
This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low-income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. For more information, visit AscendiumPhilanthropy.org. This episode is brought to you by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, working to eliminate race, ethnicity, and income as predictors of student success through innovation, data and information, policy and institutional transformation.
Jeff Selingo:
I'm Jeff Selingo.
Michael Horn:
I'm Michael Horne.
Way back in season two, we had Helen Dreinen on Future U. Helen at the time was the president of Simmons University in Boston. Now Simmons is a women's university at the undergraduate level with about 1800 students. While at the graduate level, it's coed with many more students. Some 3,900, almost 4,000. That's in part because of what Helen described at the time as a highly successful online program in nursing that was in partnership with 2U, the OPM that we discussed on an earlier episode that has seen its market cap collapse in the last year and then recently parted ways with its CEO Chip Paucek who has also been a Future U guest.
Jeff Selingo:
Yeah, Michael. On those enrollment figures you cited were actually 12% higher before the pandemic at Simmons.
Michael Horn:
Wow. And then last summer, Jeff, the Boston Globe of course reported that the 2U agreement with Simmons runs through 2039. So that's a while from now and that the company takes about half of tuition revenue for online programs, that it helps market for Simmons and that those OPM programs at Simmons account for roughly half of its graduate students.
Jeff Selingo:
Yeah, Michael. And you live by the sword of online education and you can also die by it. Now to pick up the story when we last visited with Simmons on Future U Helen stepped down as president in 2020 and it was replaced by Lynn Perry Wooten, who as we mentioned at the top, is a scholar of crisis leadership which is probably a good experience to have right now in higher ed. I actually got to know Lynn in 2018 when she was Dean of the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell, and she was a fellow in the ASU Georgetown Academy for innovative higher education leadership that I helped run. Now before she came to Cornell, Lynn was a professor and associate Dean at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.
Michael Horn:
Jeff, I will say your program has quite a pedigree and obviously I could not join you for this interview when you recorded it with Lynn, but I look forward to joining you on the other side of the break to discuss some of her comments around the future of small colleges. But for now, I will kick it over to you for your conversation.
Jeff Selingo:
Lynn, welcome to Future U. It's great to have you here.
President Lynn Wooten:
Thanks for having me and greetings from Simmons University.
Jeff Selingo:
Well, I'm just sorry that my cohost could not be here for this part of the conversation because he's right there in your backyard in Boston. And so Lynn, I'm fascinated by the pathway that Presidents take to their jobs. And we're seeing so many more deans now move right into the presidency which bypasses this traditional role of provost. And now that you've been president, what do you think about the dean's role that makes leaders seemingly ready for the presidency without ever having to be a provost?
President Lynn Wooten:
When people ask me that question, I often reflect upon, if you think of governors of states and how certain governors go straight to being president of the United States, and I was a business school dean. So part of being a business school dean is naturally, my discipline's corporate strategy. So I bring in a lot of analytical skills, I bring the financial skills, I bring the strategic analysis skills but I was at two big schools, University of Michigan and Cornell. And both schools are known for growing presidents and part of being a dean there is really having responsibility for your own business unit. So you learn fundraising, you learn the finances, you learn faculty governments, all the student affairs when you're running a large school like at Michigan or Cornell. Now, I also had the honor to do an internship in the provost office. So I did have that.
Jeff Selingo:
Oh, okay.
President Lynn Wooten:
Chief academic experience when President Martha Pollack was at Michigan and Provost, I did an internship there. So the pathway from dean to president is, like I said, similar to a governor but there are some gaps and I was very intentional in filling those gaps with my internship at the provost office, during training programs. So I did the Arizona State Georgetown training program and then the other thing is I did... The Big 10 has a training program, and you get a lot of exposure in the Big 10 training program to the role and the affairs of the provost office. Once a dean becomes president, Jeff, it's very important also to have a good provost. I describe a relationship with my provost. I say we're like Batman and Robin.
Jeff Selingo:
Okay.
President Lynn Wooten:
So having a good partnership. I am the chief leader of the organization whereas the provost is the chief academic office. And so having that good partnership and being able to talk the language of the provost, especially at a small college.
Jeff Selingo:
So let's talk a little bit about the small college. So Simmons is a small college in a pretty competitive market. In the future of small colleges, I think has been well documented including on this podcast. And we saw just recently, for example, new data from the National Student Clearinghouse that undergraduate enrollment is down across the board at four-year colleges. Simmons, like many colleges, has faced deficits the last couple of years. You announced over the summer, some cuts to some liberal arts programs which we also have seen at many other places, including most recently at West Virginia University and Miami University of Ohio among others. So I want to dig in on a few questions on this front around the small colleges. It seems to me that it's the process that often trips up the university leaders as much as the cuts themselves and how they communicate that process.
President Lynn Wooten:
Right. Yeah, process matters and I'm going into my fourth year of the presidency and been thinking about what Simmons looks like post pandemic. As you just outlined, the world of higher ed has changed since the pandemic. It was on this change trajectory anyway, the pandemic expedited it, and in particular, small colleges have been impacted. So I have a great provost, as I said earlier, and our first model is show me the data. Like Jerry Maguire says, show me the money, show me the data. So we started with a series of conversations with faculty, staff and students about being realistic about our financial situation and the need and the pressures for academic redesign. So looking at the data, where's our majors? Looking at our portfolio of grad versus undergrad, online versus on the ground. Thinking about where the growth areas are and in addition, being strategic, Simmons was really founded for professional education.
John Simmons wanted women to be empowered for economic livelihood. And so we wanted to elevate our signature strengths but elevating our signature strengths in professional education also meant integrating the liberal arts. We weren't throwing the liberal arts out of the Gino out, but we wanted to elevate and integrate them. So once we looked at the data, we looked at where the students were, where our faculty were and what were our signature strengths. And then we started with this canvas about these are the departments. We're wondering what does the future look like in those departments? And it was a long list of those departments and with the provost office and the faculty really working together, what happened is that we were able to integrate some departments, we were able to reimagine some majors and at the end of it, there really were the three departments that we ended up having to shut down.
Our art and music was one, philosophy was two, and then our literature department was three. All the other departments, we were able to reimagine the major. A lot of what I learned in the innovation academy, we were able to be very innovative and integrative. I'll give the one example is Spanish is one that we're going to retain and our school of, Eiffel school of Humanities and Social Science. And we're thinking about Spanish for example, but we're thinking about Spanish for the professions. Another example is how we're thinking about the humanities. Instead of having 10 different small majors in humanity, we're having an integrative humanities studies. Economics is going to be integrated more with business. So rethinking the majors and being an integrative approach.
Jeff Selingo:
It is interesting Lynn, because the Future U campus tour was at Marymount University just outside of Washington D.C earlier this year which is similar to what they're doing, is integrating the humanities into all these other programs which in many ways, could potentially strengthen the humanities. In previous downturns in higher education, all women's colleges in particular win co-ed. Is that on the table at all as you think about the future of Simmons?
President Lynn Wooten:
So we're not thinking about going co-ed, but Jeff, the reason why you see that is our data shows that only 2% of the population who's eligible to go to a historically women's college is even interested in going. So I'm already starting with the odds against me, 2%. And you just said that college enrollment is down.
Jeff Selingo:
Right.
President Lynn Wooten:
So you've got college enrollment down, and of those who want to go to college, only 2% want to go. And of those 2%, half of them want to go to the seven sister schools and the others will think of schools such as Simmons. But on the undergraduate site, we are still very committed to enrolling people who identify as women, historically women. So we have a pretty wide spectrum, and that's changed a lot. We have a trans population, so that's pretty important in our mind. But in the graduate level, we are co-ed and grad. And that's where we've sought our growth area for the last 15 years. Our various graduate programs. On the undergraduate side, we have a distinct population who loves Simmons. So unlike most small colleges who are in our strategic group, we are making our undergraduate numbers. Where we're really having to reimagine is how do we manage the downturn in graduate enrollment and get what the graduate population needs.
Jeff Selingo:
Okay. You mentioned you're making your undergraduate numbers but-
President Lynn Wooten:
Yes.
Jeff Selingo:
As we described, undergraduate enrollment continues to fall. It has fallen for the last decade overall in the country. We know that there is a demographic cliff coming, especially in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest in the next decade. You also have an interesting perspective because you worked at these very large public and private universities which are gaining... It seemed to be gaining in popularity among undergraduates. When we look at application trends, a lot of applications are going to these big research universities for undergraduate enrollment. So how can small colleges compete with these big schools besides just saying we're small and distinctive. It seems like that's not as much of a distinction as it used to be. So what can small colleges really do to try to compete against the Michigan's and the Cornell's of the world but obviously those are more selective. But even the Alabama's of the world and the Clemson's of the world and the University of Oregon, University of Colorado. There's all these places that seemingly become more popular at the undergraduate level. And how can small colleges really compete against them beyond just saying we're small?
President Lynn Wooten:
It's a great question. So I spent most of my career at Michigan and Cornell and even before that, early on in Florida. And then my undergrad is from an HBCU, and I sit on the board of North Carolina, A&T and we know their enrollments are bust but you don't hear those same things with small colleges. So the corporate strategist to me says that small colleges such as Simmons really have to be distinct and different. We are focusing a lot on what can we do best in this higher ed landscape than no one else can do. And in the case of Simmons, our source of competitive advantage and why people come for an undergraduate education are one, they do want to be at a historically women's college. Our demographics that I like to say, we serve, is the mighty middle. So we serve students from various middle income, GPA-wise, that mighty middle who wants a education really, that's going to set them with a trajectory for the graduate school of their choice or the career that they want.
Another innovation that's come out this academic redesign is we know in particular for women, the earlier you get your graduate degree, the better trajectory you are for economic mobility. So we've rolled out the Simmons edge where in addition to all the work we've done on our portfolio is that we're creating efficient and effective paths that anybody who comes to Simmons starting in '24 can get an undergrad and grad degree in five years. It's time efficient and it's cost-efficient and launch into their career. And Jeff, it's not only this grad degree that you leave with but also it involves coaching, internships, career development, so getting that ROI.
And so no, small colleges have to know their distinction, they have to focus on their student group, and I can't be everything that Michigan and Cornell are. And really, once students come at Simmons, we are so committed to those transformational experiences inside and outside the classroom. Another big thing is, as I said, we serve the mighty middle and my commitment is that the mighty middle comes to Simmons and they have what I call experiential equity. That means is that you don't just come here and get education, but you get to take advantage of all the resources that colleges such as Simmons and I know Ithaca College have.
Jeff Selingo:
Yeah.
President Lynn Wooten:
Yeah.
Jeff Selingo:
So it seems like you know who you are but the students who are coming to you know who you are.
President Lynn Wooten:
So marketing, right.
Jeff Selingo:
It's a better fit that way. So we profiled Simmons years ago on the Future U podcast because your online nursing program was bursting out seams.
President Lynn Wooten:
Right.
Jeff Selingo:
So what is happening with online education now at Simmons and how do you think it's changed even since then pre-pandemic?
President Lynn Wooten:
Yeah, Simmons has been great, and they really have had an early move with the advantage in online education and then the pandemic hit Jeff. And what you saw is all of those faculty members, even my colleagues at other places like Michigan and Cornell said they could never do online education. All of a sudden realize that now with Zoom and technology, we can do online education. And then you see the growth in places such as Southern New Hampshire. So what does that mean for a small college that had an early movers advantage of online education? We have to think about how it's evolved over time. We have to think about what we can make unique for our program. So balancing asynchronous versus synchronous, we're asking about pricing models, we're asking about new degree programs, all of those types of things. The industry changed overnight.
And so now we're having to reimagine and think about online education but we are still very committed to a diversified portfolio. What makes Simmons very unique for a small university is that we actually have five lines of business. We have undergrad on the ground, undergrad online, grad on the ground, grad online, and a robust source of alternative revenue from real estate and our institute for inclusive leadership. So it's pretty complex to be a small university but with regards to online graduate education, we're spending a lot of time thinking about innovation and pricing and distinction the same way we've done for undergrad.
Jeff Selingo:
And it sounds, Lynn, though you still think that is a critical and a legitimate line of business for small colleges like Simmons to have?
President Lynn Wooten:
Yeah ,for small college-
Jeff Selingo:
In other words, you're not going to give up on it. You just have to figure out what is the next evolution.
President Lynn Wooten:
Right.
Jeff Selingo:
Of graduate online education.
President Lynn Wooten:
We're not up on it because our nursing, our social work, our library science, our children's literature program, all of those are very important parts of who we are. Educating people for their life works. And many of our students who come to Simmons for grad school, they're coming because they want to be leaders in their profession and they want that next credential that you and I often talk about.
Jeff Selingo:
Lynn, I want to go back to what we had talked about in the beginning, not on two fronts. One about deans moving into the presidency role. And it seems like when anytime there's a new president, when I talk to new presidents, one of the more challenging relationships they have is with their board and their board chair in particular. In fact, when we see presidents leave very quickly after a couple of years, it usually is some issue with the faculty or issue with the board. And many board members I talk with, and we've talked I know over time about boards in general, they think institutions aren't moving fast enough. Do you think that's a fair criticism and where do you see this with your own board?
President Lynn Wooten:
Yeah. So boards usually don't come from higher education. 90% of the board members don't understand the pace that higher education moves. And what I believe, Jeff, is that boards have four responsibilities that I've been talking to boards about is. We all know for fiduciary responsibility that's stewarding the resources. But responsibilities two and three is that the board has to push the university for change. And I say they have to be strategic. So the board has to understand the strategic plan and the metrics. And then the generative innovation bucket is the third bucket about really how are we regenerating? How are we using that strategy to innovate and ensuring that we're moving at the pace? And then especially for small colleges, the board has to help the president and the leadership team and the institution marshal resources. These are tough times for higher education and to get all that generative and strategic and quick things done so that I can be innovative like a Cornell or ASU, you need resources. And so the board has to be a partner with the president.
The other thing we're seeing now is the board has to be a partner with a president on, when I say those generative sides, when those challenging conversations come up and partnering with those challenging difficult decisions, do I close the university during the pandemic? How do I handle DEI crisis? How do I think about that next big move for the university?
Jeff Selingo:
Right. So a much more collaborative relationship rather than-
President Lynn Wooten:
A much more collaborative-
Jeff Selingo:
Adversarial in any way.
President Lynn Wooten:
Relationship.
Jeff Selingo:
And I feel like it is becoming adversarial in some cases.
President Lynn Wooten:
Yeah-
Jeff Selingo:
With some boards.
President Lynn Wooten:
And you see it has to be collaborative and it has to be psychologically safe. So when that boardroom door is closed and the leadership team's there and the board's there, that you're asking those generative questions, that you're being provocative, but you're also being on the same page for the direction and love of the institution.
Jeff Selingo:
Great. And by the way, when you said you had an open door policy, now you'll have a lot of listeners-
President Lynn Wooten:
I do.
Jeff Selingo:
Who want to be AC fellows calling you up after this is all over. Lynn.
President Lynn Wooten:
I know.
Jeff Selingo:
Thank you so much for being with us. Lynn Perry-Wooden, who's president of Simmons University in Boston. Thank you for being on Future U.
President Lynn Wooten:
Thank you for having me. It's always good to converse with you, Jeff.
Jeff Selingo:
Thank you. And we'll be right back after a short break.
This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low-income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. Ascendium believes that system-level change and a student-centric approach are important for our nation's efforts to boost post-secondary education and workforce training opportunities. That's why their philanthropy aims to remove systemic barriers faced by these learners, specifically first-generation students, incarcerated adults, veterans, students of color, adult learners, and rural community members. For more information, visit Ascendiumphilanthropy.org.
Michael Horn:
This episode is being brought to you by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Today's college students are more than just students. They're workers, parents and caregivers and neighbors. And colleges and universities need to change to meet their changing needs. Learn more about the foundation's efforts to transform institutions to be more student-centered at Usprogram.gatesfoundation.org.
Jeff Selingo:
So we're back on Future U and Michael is joining me again. And Michael, as I was interviewing Lynn, I was reminded of another business dean turned president that we had on the show at the beginning of the pandemic and that's Scott Cowan, who of course, is former president of Tulane. I first met Scott in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the days right after. The senior administration of Tulane decamped to a hotel in Houston. And I'll never forget heading off to the airport after a couple of days with him for this Chronicle piece I was writing and I was in the lobby waiting for a taxi and just happened to see the chair of the board of trustees at Tulane and he said this to me, and I'll just never forget this line.
He was talking about the issues that Tulane was facing, post-Katrina and he said, "This is fundamentally a business problem and Scott is a business guy." Presidents might read the business school literature but in somebody like a Lynn-Perry Wooten or a Scott Cowan, these are really also scholars of the business school literature and in this case, she's the one writing it.
Michael Horn:
Yeah, I agree, Jeff, and that's unquestionably valuable here because it's not something that she's read at a cursory level. She's lived it in some sense, and someone like a Lynn she'll really know how to think about business model sustainability. How to think about crisis, what have been mistakes that business leaders have made in the past. And look, I mean to be in higher ed right now is to be managing and leading almost constantly in crisis, it seems. So I think her experience is incredibly valuable. Just one quibble I have as I was listening, on the one hand, I love that she says, "Show me the data." Basically she says, "we're not going to manage based on what..." I once heard, Roland Fryer, the economist call the heart test. Essentially, can't you feel the good of this program is what he said, feel it. And essentially what her point is let's ground our assertions instead in the data, in reality and is what she's saying and I agree with that point.
My only slight pushback is that data is not everything and you've heard me say this before. Data is created by humans, it's not some objective truth. Human beings, we decide how to collect data, we decide on the definitions of data, and it's one way of understanding the world. And I think even more to the point here is we think about managing through challenging situations, by definition, all data is backward looking. It's about the past, something that has happened and we collect data on it. And if we're being honest, it's only convincingly available about the distant past. And if you're trying to make decisions in real time, like look, trends are obviously helpful. Understanding demand is valuable for certain programs but it still does have some limits if you're trying to forecast the future. And that's my argument is where sound theory is so critical because a good theory allows you to predict the future in a reliable way.
And look, yes, theory has to have been developed and grounded and built in sound data and tested through different circumstances but you just need theory to manage the future. So I worry a little bit when people say, "show me the data" and view that as sort of the end of a conversation or a more scientific way to manage and lead. I guess what I'd say is I think it's one vital piece but it's not the only, and I'll just give one story or one example because when I teach my students at Harvard, they always push back on this point I'm making. And I say, "Okay, so look, you're managing an integrated steel mill in the 1960s," and I'm picking this example Jeff, because it's in your backyard of Pennsylvania where you grew up. And then look, guys, this new technology comes along in the 1960s, mini mills.
It's not as good as integrated steel mills, but it allows you to make steel at 20% lower cost but it requires a huge upfront capital investment. Not unlike, frankly, Jeff, what you said big public colleges ought to do on our show with David Leonhardt, create more supply for students. And so if you looked at the data at the time in the 1960s, you'd say, well, these mini mills, they account for basically no market share. And so my students say, "Well, why spend all the money to build new plants?" So I said, "Okay, fine, I get it. So then let's look at the data in 1979. Would you now have invested in mini mills?" And my students say, "Nope, absolutely not. It only has single digit market share." And I say, "Okay, let's move into the 1990s. Now it has roughly 50% or so market share."
And the students say, "Yep, now we would invest in it. The data are now clear." But Jeff, by then it's too late. The game is already over and this is exactly what the managers and leaders of the American Integrated Steel Manufacturers did. And as you know better than I do, every single one of them went belly up. So I think my only point is that there are limits to data.
Jeff Selingo:
Okay, I'll give you that, but I'm going to be just like your students at Harvard. I'm going to push back here too. Because yes, there are limits to data but I don't think higher ed has even come close to those limits. I just don't think they've taken advantage of the data available to them. Campuses are a wash in it. A white paper I wrote last year on harnessing data to make better decisions and we'll link to that in the show notes. I found that in various surveys of C-suite leaders in higher ed, that they feel their inability to translate data is a barrier to transformation and innovation. More than half of college and university CFOs, for example, told Inside Higher Ed for its annual survey of financial chiefs that a lack of analytical capacity is a significant obstacle to a sustainable future at their institutions.
And while it's often said that data without insights is meaningless, so are insights if they're not coupled with action. And I just think that turning data into wisdom is really what ultimately drives institutions and we're just not doing that. So we haven't even come up against some of the limits that you outlined there. So Michael, what I like about what Lynn said is that it really just starts to shift the mindset of campuses toward this analytical culture rather than what I see way too often which is management by anecdote and gut. And I just see that when I'm talking to higher ed boards or when I'm talking to higher ed leadership, and in the paper that I talked about, I quote from the authors of the book, the Power of People, who writes that quote, "Only when deep expertise exists at the top of the org charts that a pension for evidence-based decision-making will develop pervasively throughout the organization." In other words, you need leaders who believe and trust in data. And so, I love it when I hear a president say, show me the data, because so many presidents never say that.
Michael Horn:
Okay, you make a compelling set of points. I hear you that. It's certainly better than the heart test. It's better than anecdote and gut. Those tend to make for very, very bad theories. But maybe we could just leave this as a place where some of our disagreement can stand on its own. And the business school grad and me can be the one to say careful of the limits of data, and we can all note the irony of that. But with that, let's turn to another highlight from the interview for me, Jeff. I'd love to know what you made of her point that the distinctiveness of small colleges can't just be that they're well, smaller.
Jeff Selingo:
Yeah, Michael, and I think this is interesting. We just talked about this in the lightning round of a previous episode, and I think that Lynn really seems to understand that her student segments and who succeeds at Simmons, which again, I don't think can be said for a lot of small colleges who say just what Lynn said. It isn't distinctive that they're small compared to usually the big state universities or regional publics that they're competing against. Just to say you're small is not distinctive. Now, I might argue that the highly selective and very well-endowed liberal arts colleges like the Williams and Amherst of the world, for example, are distinctive for their size. But we're talking about a couple of schools there that really can say they're distinctive. But other small colleges, to be honest with you, are small because they can't grow even if they wanted to.
They just don't have the market position to grow. So there were a couple of points that I think Lynn made that I think can be applied to other small colleges, even if they're not specifically a women's college at the undergrad level like Simmons is. So number one, Simmons knows that being a women's college matters at the undergrad level but not at the graduate level. And I'm curious about, for example, how many small colleges that have a mix of grad and undergrad really know the persona of their students like that? So that's number one. Number two, Lynn was very specific to say they can't compete against the seven sister schools. How many colleges really know who their overlap schools are, how those overlap schools have changed over the years and why they're losing students to those colleges? Lynn clearly knows who their overlap schools are and why.
I think three, and this is closely related to number two, is that she knows who their overlap schools are and she says, "We're going to be the mighty middle." In other words, Simmons is leaning into who they are, who they're already attracting rather than most colleges, trying to be somebody they're not and I think a lot of colleges are trying to be somebody they're not. Number four, I love this idea of the five-year degree. Again, based on research as she said, that women who are in a master's degree earlier in life tend to have better outcomes later in life which by the way, is this cycle that ends up helping Simmons in the end. Again, I like this idea of leaning into what the research says, a little bit about leaning into the data. And then finally, I'm really starting to this integrated strategy for the liberal arts.
And as I mentioned in my question to her, it's exactly what we heard at Marymount during the campus tour last year. So at Simmons, as she said, there will be Spanish for the professions and instead of 10 small humanities majors, they're going to be bundled into one. I really do think this is going to be the future, Michael, because after we were at Marymount, for example, we saw the University of West Virginia, Miami of Ohio and others say they're going to cut liberal arts programs. And rather than just let these programs wither away, I hope that other colleges will follow Simmons and instead rethink them which in the end could really make them stronger.
Michael Horn:
Yeah. That's just a brilliant set of points, Jeff and I thought Lyn was spot on as well about her understanding.
Jeff Selingo:
Yeah. Michael, I know what Lyn said about online education was also super interesting to you and to me. I think the point that about Simmons being an early mover advantage being diminished now by the pandemic and everyone moving online was a critical point but notice she didn't say we're giving up on online education as a result. And what I hear from a lot of leaders these days is that, "Well, we just can't compete online because we're too late to the game." So do you agree and what did you hear in her answer?
Michael Horn:
Yeah, Jeff, great question. I would say in general, her discussion of online was super interesting and the first mover advantage point was interesting. And that's a literature to your earlier point about her background that she knows and understands well, when does first mover advantage help? When does it become irrelevant? For how long? And so forth but I actually want to lean into your bigger point that she's not walking away from online. Her point is, that's the future of education. And frankly, Jeff, as you know, it's not even the future, it's the present. 70% of students are taking at least one online class right now. Half of those, are going to school full-time online. So instead, what she's doing is rethinking the design of it. How Simmons does online, not whether it does it.
And I don't know that I have an opinion on this yet but I just more want to raise it because the fact that they would revisit the decision they made when they went with 2U to be a synchronous online school and rethink, maybe we want to have asynchronous, I think is very interesting because the 2U's of the world have essentially made the argument that synchronous online learning is what equates to quality. Our friend, Ryan Craig says the very same thing John Katzman says, the very same thing you just said it recently on another podcast, although interestingly enough, he then praises Paul Leblanc and Southern New Hampshire University in the very next breath. And the irony there is Southern New Hampshire University, Western Governors University, they are not synchronous, they are asynchronous. And I think it points to this underlying tension for folks around the design of these learning experiences, which is if you want to go synchronous, that's great but let's be honest, it tends to attract a demographic that has more time and that their time is more predictable, their schedules.
So they can be available for class sessions that are scheduled weeks, semesters in advance. And that generally does not work for students who are earning lower incomes and have historically struggled in college. Those individuals have time poverty, as Paul Leblanc calls it. They are afflicted by unpredictabilities in their schedules. So I guess my question has always been, is it that asynchronous is worse or that it's serving a more challenging student? And secondly, an observation which is that in some ways, synchronous has something going for it that makes it easier which is that in a seat time synchronous system, I can just show up online, fire up my Zoom, sit through the class and get credit for it regardless of how well I do or how much effort I put in. But with an asynchronous class, you actually have to do the work to progress which can make it harder. Plus, let's be honest, the designs of these asynchronous programs, they are not all equal either.
Some are pretty awful. They're static PDFs put online that are fricking hard to get through. Whereas Western Governors University, it's a very active learning experience. They have a lot of coaching and so forth, so it's a very different game. And so I guess I'll to say, I think Lynne is picking at some really interesting threads here around how do they do online and how can they be distinctive in carving out their niche?
Jeff Selingo:
Michael, I wonder if given their experience, they'll just do it better. I was reminded of a father I was talking to recently. He was telling me about his daughter really struggling during the pandemic at the University of Colorado at Boulder because they just didn't do online very well. So as Lynn does think about the future of online, I wonder, given their experience in it over the last decade or so, whether that will actually help them design something that's better rather than what I think most colleges and universities have done, especially during the pandemic and now is on the fly more than anything. But I want to get you one last thought from you, Michael, because I couldn't help but think when I was talking to Lynne, how lucky Simmons is to be in Boston. Because as she outlined her five lines of business, one of them was this robust alternative revenue in real estate.
Now, one thing Lynn did mention is that in exchange for a new dorm and student center, it's offering a ground lease for commercial uses which is going to bring in a lot of money to them. And they're not the only Boston University doing that. Now you can do that in Boston but you can't do that in most other places where small colleges are located because there's just not demand for retail and office and other things. Now, I'm not sure though you might see the diversity of revenue sources at Simmons the same way as I do because it really does seem that every small college I talk with keeps talking about this idea, if we only had more diversity of revenue, we would be fine.
Michael Horn:
Yeah, Jeff, look, I was torn on this one and I think the one that you just mentioned, offering a ground lease for commercial use off of a new dorm and student center that's super smart. That is leaning into your location as a strategic advantage. I guess more broadly when I heard all the business lines mentioned in the interview, it felt like a classic case of where the conventional data would suggest that you cannot get out of these lines of business. But the flip side of that is we also know from sound theory that complexity managing fundamentally different lines of business and products and so forth, can lead to a big increase in administrative overhead which as we know, drives up the spending of colleges nationwide. And I was just struck listening how many different business models Simmons is left managing and how small they are and I just wondered how taxing is that?
It must add up to a lot of administrative overhead. So I don't know the answer, but I guess I was wondering where are they doing too much and whether programs that perhaps appear profitable as just a center to themselves might not in fact be profitable if you took a more holistic look at what the cost of managing all those different programs are. But look, I get it. It's hard to stop some activities because those are probably the real revenue generators at the moment. So I clearly don't have an answer here. I don't know enough, but it raises a lot of questions for me and I suspect your retort will be well informed by the theory Michael, good for you. They should now go and collect some more data and that is probably the right answer.
Jeff Selingo:
Ah, victory for me perhaps right here at the end of the show because we are going to finish up now, Michael. And thank you to our audience as always for joining us. And if you like the show, remember to rate us and comment so that others might find us. Please connect with me or Michael on social media or feel free to ask us questions, be answered on a future show by visiting Futureyoupodcast.com and we'll see you next time on Future U.
