Tuesday, April 29, 2025 - In this special episode, recorded live at the ASU+GSV Summit, hosts Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn dive into the rapidly evolving higher ed landscape in President Trump’s second term. They discuss massive cuts at the U.S. Department of Education, mounting challenges around international student enrollment, and looming threats to federal research funding. They examine the broader, longer-term implications of these shifts for colleges and draw from their recent research to discuss how leaders can nurture positive campus culture during these challenging times. This episode is made with support from Ascendium Education Group and the Gates Foundation.
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Mark Schneider: Blowing Up Ed Research is Easy. Rebuilding it is ‘What Matters’
0:00 - Intro
7:32 - Cuts to the Department of Education
20:40 - Targeting International Students
23:48 - Withholding of Federal Research Grants
39:25 - Our Favorite Higher Ed Commentary
46:31 - Changing Campus Culture
Michael Horn
Michael Horn here. What you're about to hear is a conversation that Jeff Selingo and I recorded at the ASU GSV summit on April 7. We covered a lot of ground. The fate of the Department of Education, international students, funding threats that range from the NIH overhead cuts to efforts to root out antisemitism, How the Trump versus higher ed narrative is playing out in the media, what boards have to say about it, and how do you change a campus culture anyway? In the episode, we try to stay out of the breaking news elements and focus on the bigger picture. Ours is a podcast about the longer term impacts on the future of higher education after all. But since we recorded, the pace of events, which was already quick, has picked up even faster than we could have imagined, particularly the fight between the Trump administration and Harvard. I won't narrate the whole thing. There was the letter from the Trump administration. Harvard said it would fight back. The Trump administration keeps freezing various research funding to the tune of billions of dollars. And we've also learned that the administration may have sent the original letter by mistake. It's nuts. And frankly, by the time you're listening to this, who else knows what what will have happened? Now as you'll hear on the podcast, Jeff and I both have some sharp criticisms for the administration. You'll also hear that I think Harvard and other institutions have some big work to do as well. They are not blameless. But the recent actions, intentional or not, by the administration have taken whatever lines they had originally crossed and put them in the rearview mirror and then some. I'm for the federal government enforcing civil rights laws. But ordering Harvard to reduce, quote, governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization, while may be a good idea, is none of the federal government's business. Telling Harvard to go through all existing and prospective faculty for plagiarism and make sure there is viewpoint diversity in each department, field, or teaching unit, that's infringing on Harvard's right to manage itself. And Harvard is right to push back. Ultimately, as you'll hear time and again in this episode, this governing by executive action is, in my view, incredibly unhealthy and unhelpful for higher ed and the nation. It wasn't good during the Obama or Biden administrations. And as these actions show, it's clearly getting much worse right now. If congress wants to step up to pass laws that create an incentive to improve value for students and institutions therefore decide to reduce costs, for example, go right ahead. It's a good idea. But the actions the Trump administration is taking to micromanage the academic work of academic institutions is not okay. And to those in the Trump administration, no, just because the other guys did it doesn't make it any better. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I hope you enjoy and learn something from our conversation on this episode of Future U.
Jeff Selingo
So, Michael, have you caught your breath yet? It's been a whirlwind few months of 2025 for higher ed. The ed department laying off about half its staff. Trump trying to pull federal funds from Columbia, Penn, Brown, Harvard, and the list just keeps growing. Worries about NIH funding and international students. It seems like the headlines just keep coming at us.
Michael Horn
Yes, they do, Jeff. And it's fascinating to watch how this will all play out, not just on campuses, but also in the media where higher ed, frankly, is appearing all over the major outlets that used to cover it a bit more infrequently than they do at the moment. You know, places like the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Bloomberg. There's a lot of noise and undoubtedly a lot of implications.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. Exactly, Michael. So today, let's unpack these storylines and explore what they're really signaling on university campuses and in their boardrooms as well. That's today on Future U.
Sponsor
This episode of Future U is sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, working to eliminate race, ethnicity, and income as predictors of student educational success. 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.
Michael Horn
I'm Michael Horn.
Jeff Selingo
And I'm Jeff Selingo. So, Michael, it's great to finally have a
Michael Horn
moment to breathe. It's been a packed spring here on Future U. It has. You know, if you scroll through, recent episodes, which I was doing on my phone, Jeff, on the way over here, We've covered a ton of ground. Richard Reeves joined us to discuss his critical research on boys and their struggles in higher ed. We had two college presidents from Ohio talking about their merger, and then that merger dramatically collapsed literally days after our interview aired.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. And don't forget our visit to Google in New York where we explored AI's growing role in higher ed and the workforce, plus our look at Switzerland's Apprenticeship model and what lessons The US could draw from that.
Michael Horn
Yep. And then we got into, you know, really into the nuts and bolts of higher ed budgets, and we unpacked the complexities of the new Carnegie classifications. But, Jeff, I I know that you have had listeners, asking why we have perhaps been somewhat quiet about the Trump administration and their rapid fire moves and impact on higher ed. And I think that's not just been my wife who's been imploring us to weigh in, perhaps in text messages to you. My wife too. Okay.
Jeff Selingo
And so, and it's partly because everything was unfolding so fast, Michael. And frankly, it's been really well covered elsewhere. We're we're not really break about breaking news on future you. We're more about the context of what's happening. But now with a few months of perspective, I think it's finally time for us to dig into the big picture and and weigh in a little bit.
Michael Horn
Yeah. And for a bit of context for our listeners, we're in person right now. Yeah. That's a good thing. Right? And so we're recording today from the annual ASU GSV summit in San Diego. For those that don't know, it's an annual gathering of EdTech companies, investors, startups, philanthropies, education leaders in K-12, higher ed, increasingly workforce sorts of issues here as well. And I was curious, Jeff, when I arrived to sort of see the mood here, particularly that, you know, there are a lot of secretaries of education here. I think they've got Duncan, King, Cardona, as well as the current secretary of education, Linda McMahon. So there's been a lot of opportunity for folks to have, let's call it, sharp reactions. And I think the conference has done a good job of making sure we benefit from hearing all sorts of viewpoints and having sort of dialogue around disagreement that's frankly become too rare in education.
Jeff Selingo
Michael, and as you know, I saw former secretary Cardona, walking around, the exhibit hall here at school.
Michael Horn
Him with a little bit of your book?
Jeff Selingo
I caught him with a little bit of my book, and then he took a picture with me. And then he said, maybe I should read the book to make sure I agree with it. But it was also interesting because not as many people probably recognized him as I think should have, but probably says a lot about, the education department in recent years and particularly, during the the Biden administration. But, you know, we're supposedly, the education department's on its final mission, which we'll be, talking about today. And we probably need to do an entire season to unpack all the executive orders, announcements, layoffs, and such impacting higher ed in the first three months of the Trump administration. But if it's okay with you, Michael, I I think I wanna focus on what I call the big three, and that doesn't necessarily mean for our listeners that everything else is unimportant, but I think we kinda had to decide what we're gonna focus on here today. And I I would like to focus on the ed department, international students, and then kind of funding threats to to higher ed. And so let's start with the ed department, which, of course, has been a favorite target of conservatives since the Reagan administration just a few years after the department itself was created, in the late nineteen seventies. But despite this target on what is the smallest department in the federal government, it has lived on. That was until March when the Trump administration said it was laying off 1,300 employees in the education department. And on top of other cuts in that department, it means that the headcount in the department has gone from about 4,100 to about 2,200.
Michael Horn
It's a big change. It's interesting. I I didn't know the history that, you know, Carter was actually suspicious of this department when he when he put it into law, of course. And then Bush, 43, you know, sort of became a big advocate for it. So it's it's been an interesting history of this. But I I wanna know, Jeff, will this be the beginning of the end of the department in your view, or will this instead be remembered as a rightsizing of the department in the post No Child Left Behind era, an era that we actually entered in 2015, so ten years later, or is this something else entirely in your view?
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. Michael, I've been kinda living this every day. You know, I live in DC, and despite diversifying its economy since you grew up there, Michael, it's still a company town. We have friends spread throughout the federal government in various departments. And so, you know, I'm hearing it firsthand from them. And and what they're saying is, you know, isn't anything that we haven't heard already. It's it's chaotic. It's not well planned out. In many cases, rather than eliminate horizontally to kind of trim, and cut people, they're cutting vertically. So entire divisions or sections, basically down to nothing or close to nothing. So the question to me in all of these departments, but especially the education department is, how is this work gonna get done?
Michael Horn
Yeah, and to be fair, and I think well, you'll hear this a few times throughout this episode, sort of my big issues. This is one of mine. Right? Is that anytime we have budget cuts, frankly, in government, we tend to see vertical or horizontal chops across the board as opposed to sort of a real zero based strategic budgeting, something more thoughtful. This is certainly not been an exception to that rule, and it's been maybe even more the, you know, horse cuts, if you will.
Jeff Selingo
Right. And the The idea of zero based budgeting is kinda build up from the bottom, and decide what you really want to do. And and I really worry about a consequence in the in the education department based on my conversation is there's kind of a bunch of things. But, again, I kinda wanna focus on on three in particular. You know? Trump has DOGE, and and so I'm gonna call this PIP. people, information, and process. Those are the three things that I worry about in the education department. So let's start with people. Right after Trump was elected, there were a bunch of people in the education department that took retirement. And and while I get that there's this caricature of, you know, federal employees as kind of lazy and entitled, You know, I met many in my years of covering the department who are, you know, talented, and they decided to just apply those talents not to the private sector, but to public service. So, yes, we are losing people who probably didn't perform well and should have been fired a long time ago. Are we is that happening? Yes. But we're also losing people with kind of institutional knowledge. And the thing about government is that it doesn't operate like a business precisely because it's not a business. It's a it's a public sector. And at the other end of the people spectrum is the what's called the presidential management fellows program. As Michael Petrucci at the conservative Fordham Institute put it, this is essentially teach for America for federal workers, recruiting young, bright people into the federal government. And I know several people who actually came in the federal government that way, and they they stayed and and worked. And it's a shame because now we might be losing two generations of federal workers for the future, not only those older workers who retired earlier, but now younger workers who never will enter government service as a as a result. And and I know what people will say. Well, you could just build this back. Right? Two years, midterms maybe come along, four years depending on results of those elections. But I think that this is something that maybe can be taken down in a few weeks, but it's probably gonna take years or a decade to build back better.
Michael Horn
So I confess, Jeff. I've heard a lot of people talk about how long it would take to build back. And and I think from the outside and frankly not being in DC, I'll be super honest. It's not clear to me why we aren't in just another wave of these pendulum of executive actions. And, you know, four years from now, if it changes over, it couldn't get built back quickly. But but I trust you on this because I I I have heard this from a lot of smart folks.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. And I I think that we've had party changes and and people have put more money into certain departments and had done certain things to cut departments. But, you know, at the end of the day, they didn't again eliminate, big parts of the federal bureaucracy. And, again, it's a bureaucracy. Get it. But, you know, they didn't eliminate these entire, divisions. Now I'm not to say what was there exactly does need to be built back exactly as it was. Again, in government, especially after COVID, it got too big. It got too bureaucratic. But now I fear in the chainsaw moments of Elon Musk, we've cut so fast without planning that the result is going to be even less trust in government. So where is there going to be any groundswell of support to build back better? And I kinda use that line because, you know, still in a line from Biden, of course. So that brings me back to the I in PIP, which is information. And the cut, really, Michael, that makes no sense to me is what happened to the National Center for Education Statistics, NCES. This is the division that did research and data collection in higher ed. It's responsible for iPEDS, which kind of feeds the public facing college search site, college navigator, as well as the college scorecard. And I might point out that basically every college search tool that anybody uses out there, including US News and World Report, is fed in some way by IPEDS. You know, sure we have the common dataset which institutions also have to fill out, but IPEDS is required by law. And, you know, I have a chapter in my new book, which I've mentioned before and assume we'll get to talk about again. It's chapter six where I kind of connect our obsession with admissions as being fed by this information marketplace in in in the government. And it's really the result of more data from the Fed. So it's probably hard for people to remember, but up until the nineteen nineties, we there's all this information we never collected. We didn't even collect graduation rate data, for example. And then we started the government again. You know, I get it. Big bureaucracy, deep state. Right? They started to collect a lot of information. Some might say too much overreach, too much information. And then you kinda combine that with the Internet over the last, twenty years, and it kind of led to this obsession around data in in higher ed. And I'm not quite sure what's gonna happen to NCES. I pointed to an article in my recent newsletter that shows NCES, get this, is now the same size as it was in 1870. And, again, I'm not saying we can't do, do it all with fewer people, and maybe this is where, you know, AI can help.
Michael Horn
Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me let me just jump in, Jeff. I I I do think folks should check out some of things that Mark Schneider, who was leading the Institute of Education Sciences under Trump one and then much of Biden, and then had served as, for three years, I believe, as commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics under Bush forty three. And we'll link to this in the show notes. But but he essentially said, the only way to fix this and move to a much more robust system of research was actually, in his view, to blow it all up. Yeah. And his argument was essentially the contractors that built a lot of these, underlying systems had sort of captured the department. And and just as the military, as you've been probably following, has really struggled to move beyond the traditional and somewhat staid, defense contractors. Send your hate mail to me. It was almost impossible, to get really new designs for how you would collect information in a much more modern and frankly efficient and efficacious way. I'm gonna be honest. This is above my pay grade. I don't follow it all. But I understand the argument. But before you go to your final p, what I think it will say is this goes to another of my big issues. This is one of my two on the current sets of cuts in chaos, which is less their intent per se, Jeff. Because I actually think the intent in some cases isn't so bad, but it's actually really hard to know. And this is where I'm this this is, like, my really big issue, which is I just wish we had a transparent, mature set of communications, a road map of where they're going next. Are they gonna rebuild it? What would they rebuild it to? I I hope that they will rebuild and innovate, but we honestly have no clue at the moment. I do think that there is a lot of bipartisan consensus that the federal government has to do research and sort of have these statistics. And so I really would love some mature, clear communication that wasn't just vindictive, that could go a long way in helping people on all sides understand not just what we're tearing down, but ideally what we're building toward. And again, I'm I'm hoping we are building towards something. Without it, again, you'll hear me say this also. I fear we just stay in our cycles of or pendulums of outrage from one crazy to the next, and we avoid the work of enduring change that comes from congressional action. But I completely interrupted you there, so so go ahead with your last p. Right.
Jeff Selingo
So first p, people, information, and now process. And and this is really the one shoe to drop, Michael, is president Trump's plan to transfer student loan administration perhaps to small business administration, which they've talked about. There's a lot of skepticism within the GOP of that. Many lawmakers wanted to go to the treasury department because this is a massive portfolio. We saw what happened, by the way, when education department couldn't even manage something was supposedly supposedly knew something about, which was FAFSA. Right? So student loan system seems to be working right now. I'm not quite sure why they would, move it. But I wonder what happens when SBA gets this complex student loan system. Schools depend on student loans even more than they do the Pell Grant. If there's a delay of even a couple weeks, I know there's a lot of cash strapped institutions these days, so we're gonna talk about that in a minute. I just think we're gonna see a lot of colleges miss payroll. Now, again, maybe I'm skeptical that SBA can, handle this, but even the GOP itself is skeptical of that. And it seems this administration is not really necessarily listening to even people on their own party.
Michael Horn
Yeah. Well, so in process from a different angle hits on the other, my my last, I guess, big issue that you'll see recurring, with how things have gone down, which is that on the sorts of questions you just raised, I would love to see Congress get involved and not just defer to the whims of the administration about where this lands. Again, thinking about what this means for the future of higher education, the lack of policy making and the amount of executive actions, I think, just keeps us on the pendulum. It increases uncertainty, and it is for the leaders of colleges and universities. It is very hard to manage effectively in times of uncertainty. So I I I would like to see actual process on all of this as opposed to just sort of rash action. But but speaking of cash, another cash crunch, I suppose, might come from international students. Right, Jeff? I I it this seems a little bit of a replay from Trump one when international enrollment dropped and then, of course, cratered during COVID, but it was on its way back.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah, Michael. And I really thought that colleges and universities had learned their lesson of the past decade that they can't count on international students, but it's kind of like a drug, Michael, to them. They remain heavily dependent on them, especially in in graduate education.
Michael Horn
Is this the point where I'm like, oh, that's why my class at Harvard, I think, is more than 50%, international? But in seriousness, I I will say the conversation right now, is more about, at least at, you know, in in Massachusetts, about who's being asked to leave or deported right now and and the due process around that, frankly. For some people, these issues are clearly infringements, Jeff, on free speech. I will be honest again, I'm not convinced that's true. They may some of these visa, revocations, maybe they are legit. But again, if we're being honest on both sides of the debate, we just don't know because of the lack of process or in the most generous interpretation, the perceived lack of due process perhaps and the lack of communication. My two pet issues again recur here, but but stay with your observations about it.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. And, Michael, I just think this time is different. In 2016, there were concerns about getting harassed. In 2020, COVID closed the borders. As you said, we're we're seeing some deportations covered in the news. Here in San Diego, I was with the University of California San Diego chancellor. Last night, he was on his way to India, and he said, you know, the news in India is covering this. And that really could put a chilling effect on international students coming into, The US. But, of course, this is not just an American phenomenon. Many countries, including Canada, that have become dependent on international students are facing similar backlashes at at home. And in some ways, think, Michael, it's the story of the tariffs. If we slap slash big enough tariffs on imported goods, the thinking is that eventually manufacturing will come back to The US. I know Trump is, you know, targeting foreign students for for different reasons, but I think there's a lot of thinking in the admissions Subreddits and Facebook groups that I follow that if there are four fewer foreign students taking up spots, at elite schools, that means more spots for American students. And I really just like it's not as simple with the tariffs as I think the administration's making it out to be. I don't think it's as simple as that because many of these international students, were wanted for either money or talent, and and colleges definitely need the former. They need the money, and I don't think they're necessarily going to get that from domestic sources of students.
Michael Horn
Yeah, that's interesting. I hadn't heard, these conversations in the admit in sort of the admissions dialogue as much, but but it is a big thing. And and we say it a lot in the show lately, seems, Jeff, which is follow the money. And this is why international students are like that drug as you as you put it. Just like state schools, frankly, though, started poaching full pay students from across state borders to cover their spending needs. I think the same is true here. They need full pay students, and so they look to international to grow the pie in essence. Look. The and and that's not universal. There are some international students coming over for the talent. Right? And and not and they aren't full pay. But as a generalization, it is true. And and I suppose you could say that the deeper issue, is is another one here that I harp on a lot in higher end, which is that the cost basis, the expenditures are in sore need of innovation across the sector or or frankly new blood coming into this sector, new institutions?
Jeff Selingo
No. And I think the flow of money into higher education, particularly the last decade, I call it the lost decade often in in higher ed and again was with these presidents here in San Diego last night. They said, yeah, when times are good, we just kind of waste money. And that's not good, not only for internal culture, but then higher education is seen as just getting fat and happy often on other people's money, whether that's international students, out of state students, the federal government, the state government. And now it's clear these presidents know all those, you know, sources, all those spigots of money are about to come to an end. And now they have to fix the culture of their institutions that have become used to this. So, Michael, I wanna move on to another topic here. We've had all these funding threats against Columbia, which agreed with the demands, of course, of the Trump administration, and then that was followed by Penn and Harvard and Brown. These things come on top of the plan to cap overhead at the NIH, meaning the money and grants that universities can use for things like buildings and utilities, building maintenance, and some administrative costs. From now, what is separately negotiated rates between the universities and the federal government, Some could be 50%, 60%, or higher. The Trump administration wants to bring that down to a flat 15% rate, for everybody. So but, Michael, before we get to the funding issues with the Ivies, I wanted to get your take on this because Tyler Cowen, is an economist at George Mason University, had an interesting series of proposed reforms, to the NIH in its popular blog and newsletter, Marginal Revolution. You sent it to me. I wanted to get your take on it.
Michael Horn
Yeah. Happy to, Jeff. And and we should also clarify for those listeners. We're recording this on April 7 again at GSV. All this stuff could change. Right? But Tyler's basic argument was a few things, and I I won't do everything. But number one, he he said, you know, look, overhead rates of 60% at Harvard where I am, it's even higher, 69%, I think. Kind of insane. Now he said 15%, that may be too drastic given what's involved in scientific research. Although I will note that this is what foundations like Gates and Chan Zuckerberg cap at. But nevertheless, Tyler says, let's go to 25% cap. His second thing, and and I think this is important, Tyler and others have said, let's move some of what's been in overhead to the actual proposals themselves. In other words, make some of that lab equipment, that building cost, right, exactly, part of the direct costs. And what that will do will add some transparency, accountability, and so forth. But importantly, I think it will also limit how much the overhead cross subsidizes other university functions. Meaning meaning, you know and and this happens. Right? We know that some of this overhead is not covering the research being funded. It's covering everything else. Right? And that, know, no matter what people say, that's definitely what's going on at at a lot of these institutions. This, of course, gets to my pet peeve above around the rise in spending at universities over time on administrative overhead costs in particular, but but let me move to number three that Tyler raised, which I think is interesting, which is if the amount of money per proposal goes down, then rather though than cut the NIH budget, you could actually fund more research projects. And I think this is interesting. Right? Because you could also then fund maybe things that are a little less incremental, a little more impactful, you know, risky, some big shots on goal, if you will. And to that end, Tyler thinks that there should be a new fully independent biomedical research arm of the federal government based on DARPA like principles. I'm not sure if that's the right way to think about it, but but given my research around how organizations get stuck in their ways of doing things, I get the need for something new and autonomous perhaps to create it. And I go I I guess it's, you know, goes a little bit to Mark Schneider's points that we addressed earlier as well. I think the point though that Tyler is making is we want an agency that moves faster, takes bigger swings, really leans into what has made American higher ed so great, which are the big research breakthroughs. Not the incremental things where, you know, three people read the peer reviewed paper and then sort of does nothing else. Not the red tape around reporting requirements and the like that have sort of grown around NIH and which ironically, drives up overhead costs at universities. So in other words, that, you know, that also means the federal government has some fault in all this, Jeff.
Jeff Selingo
Michael, I think that's a compelling argument, but I just fear that in blowing everything up, we again, we keep talking about these pendulum swings. There are moments where we have to kinda stop in the middle. And I just fear that blowing everything up will really destroy a system that has built not only American higher education, but the research function of American universities in a way. I'm not arguing that some of his ideas won't open up not only more grant funding, but I also like the idea potentially opening up more grant funding for universities that are not named, you know, Harvard, Yale, Penn, Stanford, you know, Johns Hopkins. And also, by the way, giving potentially younger researchers opportunity, which is incredibly important. But, again, if you just blow it all up the way I think the Trump administration does, you could actually kinda throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Michael Horn
Yeah. So I guess my take is I I I personally find, Tyler's points compelling. I like the idea that you made around mean, given that I think fewer institutions should be doing research, I think I'm less excited about that part, but I do like the idea of making some bets and some young up and coming researchers. I think my big thing is as with the above, I think rather than just slash and burning this, we we need some clarity behind it. And I don't think it should be done retroactively to existing grants unless there's some real due process and cause behind canceling an existing grant. I I just think breaking contracts is really bad business unless there are clear legal reasons that can survive the argument in court, Jeff. Otherwise, I'm not excited about it. And I guess third, let let me use this maybe as a transition into what you've been alluding to around the Ivies, the $400 million, that was at risk at Columbia, the $9 billion at Harvard, Princeton, you know, on and on. And to be clear, these grants are being revoked or examined because of antisemitism on these college campuses. So it's adjacent to the argument, around the 15%, etcetera, over the overhead cap. And it's around not just antisemitic speech, to be clear, but blatant and illegal antisemitism, ranging from harassment and bullying to physical beatings to shutting down of classes and common spaces on the college campus of to Jews and Israelis, in some cases being specifically asked to leave certain spaces and classes and more. I could go on. I I think from my perspective, the hypocrisy of how Jews have been treated compared to other groups has been clear. But sadly, I will say it's been quite believable. And look. I I haven't shied away from it. This is a personal issue for me. And I have frankly seen up close, and I have I've used my words carefully, but I've continued to see this academic year some of these things up close at Harvard. So it is very much still an issue. What I will say about the Trump administration's actions are sort of the following. What I think is oddly useful about them is is that these cancellations or investigations of contracts remind people that the federal government is these universities' largest customer. And whether you like it or not, there's a saying in business, the customer is always right. Now I'm not saying that the administration is going about these things correctly. I think people have heard that. But I do think there's some value in reminding these schools that when the federal government is your customer, you have to be attentive to what that entails. The bargain that you are making, what you are signing up for. And you have to understand that we have two party rule in this country. And so that does mean being attentive to both parties, not just one. It's really bad practice to just care about one and forget the other. And it reminds us that for better or worse, the government giveth, the government can take it away, and it's not simply an entitlement. Second, I think I like, ironically, the Trump administration has given administrators and leaders of these schools struggling to grab hold of their campuses in some ways, a way to actually put some common sense and rules back in place to to lead, in other words, which I think they were abdicating in many cases in in in in the name of all sorts of pretend excuses. So in a weird way, these leaders might be thankful that they can blame, the Trump administration. But there is another deep irony here, Jeff, and it's a sad one in my view, which is that most of the antisemitism has been coming from folks in the humanities. Most of the folks in the STEM fields, they just wanna freaking do research and work, not engage in this silliness. And and yet they're the ones whose funding is getting hit because that's where the federal government as customer has the most leverage. And so I suppose you could say, you know, look, it wouldn't have happened if the administration of these places hadn't let this get so out of hand. But I I I also think it suggests a couple other things which are are problems from, you know, what the Trump administration has done and and and go into some of the same buckets that I've named earlier, which is that due process hasn't been followed as far as I can tell. There's been a bluntness to this, you know, similar to what you were describing. While perhaps effective in bringing institutions to the day table, I don't think it's good precedent for anyone. And as a result, I think there's been clear overreach along a number of dimensions. And and so, look, I don't think we should be cutting existing contracts unless due process is clearly followed. So that's sort of my take there. On the university side, I will say, I think they ought to own some of their fair share of the blame here. Academic freedom, freedom of speech, pursuit of truth, no matter how uncomfortable, not discriminating against individuals. These should be things that are done when their backs are against the wall, but all the time. And universities have been neglecting it too often. Now, look, there's a view that universities could say, well, we're fixing it. Leave us alone. I will tell you from my perspective, Jeff, they're not fixing it. Right. And this external push has sadly been important. I I guess the other view would say, well, over time, this will self correct because, you know, maybe Jews will just stop going to these places and let the market do its thing or something like that. I I don't think that's really what we want either and and not just because it violates title six. So look. I I would like to see the federal government play a role, but I would like Congress to be playing part of that role. I would like it to not violate process also in so doing. I think that is an important tenant as they go about putting this pressure on you.
Jeff Selingo
Well, I think, Michael, this is what so so clearly, you're on a campus. You see things that I don't see not being on a campus. I do worry about due process not being followed here by the administration. I feel like a lot of people have made complaints against, institutions. Some are right, and investigations have happened, and they've been proven out. Others have just been complaints, and now suddenly the administration is putting them on a list, putting out a press release, saying they're antisemitic when maybe the investigation never bore that out. And also using the threat of and I get that, you know, universities are the largest you know, are the customer or the federal government's a customer of the university and, and and and that they can say, you know what? We're gonna take this money away. I just feel like there's other things that the federal government can do to try to change these institutions. And I think maybe Trump will say that's been tried, and the universities continue to say, you know, thumb their nose at the at the universities and something needs to change, or maybe this is the moment, this is happening. So, I'll be kinda curious to see where this all goes and to see, especially at a place like Columbia now, which has churned through presidents a lot in the last couple of years, whether, things will actually change there. And I wanna add a thought as we another thought as we head into break. You know, I think Tyler is right about the NIH moving faster and trimming its processes, and I think this brings up a larger point about everything that's happening right now. Yes. It's a reaction to to a government that Trump thinks is, like, the deep state and that the GOP thinks is bloated and wants to cut taxes. But it's also a reaction, Michael, to something that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson just wrote about in their book Abundance, which I just started reading. In it, they write about the myopic democrats who block new ideas and govern through check checklists, leading to what they call an endless catalog of rules and restraints. Now I haven't finished the whole book yet, but I know they talk about how risk taking science has devolved into, you know, grant seeking for small gains and research becomes less about breakthroughs and much more about paperwork. We know from our episode on the CHIPS Act earlier this season, you know, that the what the NSF is going to do for building science infrastructure in regions of the country that have been overlooked. And I think the NIH is in the backyard of where I live and where you grew up, and you and I know from covering that agency a bit at the Chronicle many of the wonderful discoveries that come out of it. But the bottom line is they take too long because they're caught up in that bureaucracy that costs too much. So does taking a chainsaw to that and cutting overhead to a university from, say, 60% to 15 percent solve that? Absolutely not. But you're never going to bring back public confidence in higher ed if we can't link our discoveries to federal investments in science, health, and technology and do it in bigger ways, and here's key, do it much faster. So, Michael, I I think we probably said enough about those three big issues. For now, the education department, international students, and federal funding. And so when we come back after this break, let's move on to two other topics, media coverage of higher ed right now and what we're seeing and hearing in the culture of our universities as well as boardrooms of higher ed.
Michael Horn
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.
Jeff Selingo
This episode of Future U is sponsored by the Gates Foundation. Students need support at every stage of their education to career pathway, and colleges and universities need to evolve to meet their changing needs. Learn more about the foundation's efforts to transform postsecondary institutions to be more student centered at USprogram.gatesfoundation.org.
Jeff Selingo
So we're gonna dive into this next issue pretty quickly, but we text a lot, Michael, and it seems that we do. Yeah. Right? And then it seems in recent weeks, we've been, you know, I've been sending you so many of these big think pieces about higher ed from outlets that definitely, don't really cover higher ed to the extent that we would think they would. The New Yorker, Atlantic, Bloomberg. And and is there any one that you wanted to point out specifically?
Michael Horn
Oh, boy, Jeff. I confess as of late, I've, actually really enjoyed the vast array of views in the Crimson Of all places. Of all places, Harvard's newspaper, including one by, Charles Covet, probably mispronouncing his last name, that made the point that Harvard's hyper fixation on Israel is academically unserious. He's had some money quotes including that in sort of what, you know, one issue of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy newsletter, there were four events and articles about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and not one mention of the wars in Ukraine, Congo, or Myanmar. And and he sort of goes on to show how this is endemic across the institution, not just in one newsletter, but over time. But mainstream media, so I'm I'm gonna do maybe two, and I'm I'm totally cheating here, Jeff. I have Franklin Ford's March seventeenth piece in the Atlantic in which he delved into the anti Semitism problem at Columbia. And as he said, if the treatment of Jews had been done to any other group, it simply would not have been tolerated. But he had a he had a good line, I thought. Quote, Trump's autocratic presidents presence unbalances every debate. But just because his administration is exploiting the issue of antisemitism does not mean that anti Jewish activism is not an issue at Columbia. Somewhere along the way, one of the nation's greatest universities lost its capacity to conduct intellectual arguments over contentious issues without resorting to hyperbole and accusations of moral deficiency. I thought that, like, relatively well summed it up. It's a long piece. I think it's worth to read. And then here's my cheat. I thought the piece, that appeared in the Boston Globe op ed section by Emmanuel I'm gonna apologize. I'm gonna butcher these names. As you know, I I'm terrible at names to begin with. But Emmanuel Borbou Hakus, Jacqueline Gottlieb, Tarek Masood, Steven Pinker, and John Reeder, who are from Columbia, Harvard, Princeton. They're the academic freedom council chairs there. I thought it was quite good about the threat to academic freedom from outside, namely the Trump administration and from inside. And look, now we've talked about this, but I thought they did a good job showing where the federal government does have authority here and where the federal government is in excess right now and frankly dangerous territory and then where universities must shoulder some of the blame. And I I think you hear that throughout with me. Like, I just think we need to get away from this. It's all bad, it's all good. There's a lot of truth in the middle I keep finding, Jeff, and I I just wish we could return to a little bit of that. But what about you?
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. So I'll pick up on an Atlantic piece, that a Washington University professor in Bocus the headline, the end of college life. Dun dun dun. Alright. Which is like, you know, you know, these clickbait headlines. And the piece argued that Trump's policies will have far reaching consequences because they fundamentally, and I'm quoting here, threaten something far more tangible, to prospective students and parents. And he went on to say the entire undergraduate experience at residential four year colleges, the brochure ready college life that you may once have experienced yourself into which your children may aspire is at risk of ruination. And he contends that fancy private schools and giant public universities, think you work at one of those fancy private schools, face the greatest risk, particularly in research. The innovations emerging from our top institutions since World War two have largely resulted from federal funding and international scholars drawn to American universities. Of course, we just talked about all of that, and that ecosystem is now threatened. And and there's no doubt about it. You know, along with these innovations that we've taken for granted as Arizona State University's president, Michael Crow, recently pointed out when he pulled out his iPhone during appearance in Houston, it's the thousands of discovery from research universities that led to that device in our, pocket. But unlike the author of this piece in the Atlantic, Michael, I'm a little less concerned about undergraduate education at these institutions. And while, you know, colleges do operate as an amalgamation of services and activities with departments kinda cross subsidizing each other. Right? We get that. I don't think really the research cuts are necessarily gonna devastate the undergraduate experience. To be honest with you, for elite universities, I think the undergraduate, you know, education already functions as a side business anyway. It's often an oath afterthought for star faculty. So I think to say to blame that on the Trump administration, I think, is is a little bit wrong. But this is Michael. What does worry me about coverage right now of all that's happening in higher ed, you know, the sky is falling. You know, certainly, in my humble opinion, compared to what has been normal in higher ed for the past half century, it is a threat certainly, but there's also a lot of noise. And what I wish the media would do more of, and I say this as somebody who still counts himself in that club on occasion, is help find the signal in that noise rather than just add to the noise. And that really requires a lot less breaking news and slowing down, more reporting, more investigations, more context. I think what the administration wants right now is coverage of the noise. It helps them. It gives them the headlines they want for their base. See? Hey. We're doing something. And even if some or much of all of this is undone in the coming months or years, whether it's the courts, the pushback from someone, help us Republicans in congress, please. You know, when we build some of this back, it's the coverage of the noise that's going to get the biggest headline, not what follows, unfortunately. Yeah. I'm I'm so glad that you
Michael Horn
just, made that point, Jeff. I I think it's spot on. The noise is giving the administration its wins, frankly, regardless of what happens. Maybe that is what is needed to allow them to also move on, but I I think we need to get beyond the outrage and find the substance. And I just said it earlier, but I'll say it again. I think the truth is often lying in the middle of of these poles, but but it is hard to discern and figure out. I'm also glad you raised, the the article, because I thought it was pretty rich that there is a line drawn from the 60% overhead cost that will you know, cutting back from that will threaten research, but then this article says, will in fact threaten its posh undergraduate life. I get your suspect of that threat, but, I think to the extent someone makes it, it sort of betrays any argument that these overhead costs are all for the buildings and labs, that support the research endeavor, but I digress. So let's get into our final segment of this episode. I think both of us have been asked a lot about how this is all playing out on campuses and in boardrooms, Jeff.
Jeff Selingo
And, Michael, we recently had the chance to do something we really haven't done before, which is author a white paper together. In this case, it was the first installment in a series I'm doing a culture change in higher ed, and we'll add this paper to the show notes. We explore in this first installment how campus leaders should develop a more systematic approach to understanding their institutional's kind of cultural DNA before they even begin seeking to transform it. And given the changes higher ed is now facing, this seems like a critical step that many leaders skip. And, again, we're gonna add a link to the white paper in our show notes, but what did you find interesting in our in our research?
Michael Horn
Well, hopefully, you'll invite me back at some point for another. I enjoyed the process. But, I I really liked a few elements in the paper. I I I thought maybe the most enduring contribution, Jeff, though, was how we took a lot of the academic research around what is culture, and then we gave leaders what I think is a pretty concrete tool for identifying in their campus, you know, what is their campus culture. And then from there, there's sort of a direct line into, okay. So if this is what the campus culture is, these are the implications around, you know, what leadership actions will or won't work, either to implement new initiatives, to innovate, or perhaps, Jeff, to change the culture, itself. And I I felt like we left the paper up and created a pretty robust and useful framework that that look, as I said, it's it's grounded in some really good research from Edgar Schein of MIT and others. But I guess the question then, Jeff, is that it's not just the culture on campuses that, needs to change for change to happen, but I think it's also in boardrooms. You've been harping on this. And I know you've been busy leading several board retreats this winter and spring. So as sometimes the critic of boards in higher ed, what are you seeing?
Jeff Selingo
Yeah, Michael. It's interesting across all these boards, very different institutions, but there's definitely a lot of similarities. One, context matters. You know, board members who dip in and out, paying attention to higher ed are overwhelmed with the news coming at them right now. And, you know, again, just taking the four institutions I was with, varied types. They hold very different market positions. So it's more critical than ever that the board members really understand where they sit in this ecosystem and the basics of their institution. You know? For example, how much does federal research matter? Changes in athletics, which we've talked about, the endowment tax, the percentage of students on Pound, our reliance on FAFSA for enrollment decisions. Right? All of these things matter, and I think boards see these headlines, and they have to know, does this is this something I should worry about? Second, I think the past is starting to catch up. The last five years have been brutal for colleges between the pandemic, then the FAFSA debacle, and now Trump plus the enrollment cliff at our doorstep. I think most colleges kicked the can down the road the last decade. I'm shocked at how many of them have been deficit spending and have structural deficits that they really don't know how to get out of. But others have used, what I have found, the relative stability of the last decade to get kind of get ready for what's ahead. They set up external innovation divisions to move faster and outside of traditional governance. They've tackled deferred maintenance. They rethought the size of their institution to kind of prepare for the demographic cliff rather than chasing every last, student. And finally, Michael, what I've come from these retreats last couple of months is lots of trustees think their problem is marketing, that the it will be just, you know, solved by better marketing. Right? We'll get out of our problem with better marketing. You know, and I I facilitate about a dozen board, discussions a year, and I always come away impressed with some of the things that these institutions are doing. So it's true. They do need to sell their story better, but more marketing isn't going to solve all their problems. And too many cases, colleges kind of need to rethink where and how they spend kind of their shrinking and flattened net tuition revenue as we heard from Rick Stasloff on a recent episode about budgets. You know, what they want to market, the distinctive stuff is often done with pennies, while they're still spending dollars on things that just don't matter anymore. You know, and back in March, Michael, I was with financial officers at the Eastern Association of College and University Business Officers. They were meeting up in Boston, and Bill Guerrero, who is the CFO at the University of Bridgeport, he interviewed me and asked me a series of questions, and they did these live polling questions of the audience. And one of the questions was the biggest challenge with working with the trustees, and the top answer was 42% said the trustees are two in the weeds. So context really matters for her.
Michael Horn
Well, Jeff, I think let's wrap up. We both wanna get back to ASU GSV, see how all this is playing out on the floor, so to speak. So we will, take a break from there. That will be all from us on this show. To our listeners, thank you for joining us and be sure to continue to spread the word of this podcast and to keep thinking forward because the future of higher ed depends on it.
