Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio, and we're here with Dr Eric Barron,
Speaker 1: President of Penn State University, here in our Bloomberg Interactive
Speaker 1: Broker's studio. There is so much going on, and before
Speaker 1: we even got started, we were saying how disruption has
Speaker 1: impacted a lot of different industries already over the last
Speaker 1: few years, and I feel like it's playing catch up
Speaker 1: with education and looking at very different aspects. Tell us
Speaker 1: about when you look at the current um educational environment
Speaker 1: at universities, how is it going to be different in
Speaker 1: five years? Well, you know, I would say one of
Speaker 1: the things that is of particular significance is the fact
Speaker 1: that people will change careers and they will need new things.
Speaker 1: How do they continue to be a student and have
Speaker 1: access to that information? And so we're looking at this
Speaker 1: very directly, and just to give you an idea about
Speaker 1: doing this, we have something called one Penn State. You
Speaker 1: keep your I D, you keep your student number, you
Speaker 1: keep your email, and if you were a student in
Speaker 1: good standing or got a degree, you walk into the
Speaker 1: portal sign up for anything you need. There's no transactional time,
Speaker 1: no need to reapply, and you may go in there
Speaker 1: and get a micro credential. Maybe you're an engineer and
Speaker 1: you decide to get a business minor. Maybe it's because
Speaker 1: your company is doing something in chemistry and you'd like
Speaker 1: to have a little bit more chemistry. Maybe you like
Speaker 1: the opera and just want to take take a course.
Speaker 1: So the whole idea is, let's make it easy online residential.
Speaker 1: We have twenty one campuses. So imagine the difference if
Speaker 1: you look at someone and say, not goodbye, I hope
Speaker 1: you have a successful life, but congratulations on that degree.
Speaker 1: You're still a student, come back any time. And that's
Speaker 1: very appealing in in many ways. I wonder when you
Speaker 1: describe that, whether it changes the whole notion of and
Speaker 1: Carol and I both have uh juniors in high school,
Speaker 1: so we're thinking about this all the time. This notion
Speaker 1: of a four year degree and and going off to
Speaker 1: school for four years, does that in itself become a
Speaker 1: little antiquated? Yeah, it may. Actually we we more and
Speaker 1: more encourage students to become engaged and think about that time,
Speaker 1: even to graduate a little bit more quickly. Because of
Speaker 1: the amount of money, you say, days, education is expensive
Speaker 1: so uh, four years, five years. Um, if if we
Speaker 1: if we do things that enable you not to have
Speaker 1: roadblocks as you go along, not to make mistakes, we
Speaker 1: ought to be able to deliver it even faster. Well,
Speaker 1: you say education is expensive, I think that is an
Speaker 1: understatement to say the least. I mean it is. Uh,
Speaker 1: it is breathtaking for many people when they start to consider,
Speaker 1: you know, even at you know, a state university, how
Speaker 1: much it can cost, what can be on, what should
Speaker 1: be done, and what's realistic in terms of bringing the
Speaker 1: cost down. So literally we watched with the last recession
Speaker 1: and the sort of clawback of dollars that universities weren't
Speaker 1: the same part of the public good and the resources
Speaker 1: were not there, and then in many cases didn't even
Speaker 1: keep up with inflation over years and years, and so
Speaker 1: then the cost come goes higher and higher, and it's
Speaker 1: more expensive when you start to consider the laboratories and
Speaker 1: other things, and and the the the digital education needs
Speaker 1: that you have. So what can you do about it? Well,
Speaker 1: you can spend a lot of time cutting the budget,
Speaker 1: and I work hard at that, But the other possibilities
Speaker 1: are to think about every roadblock you have, are you
Speaker 1: prepared to go to college, So we're incentivizing preparedness. Are
Speaker 1: you placed in the right course or do you take
Speaker 1: calculus the next course after calculus and you think your
Speaker 1: calcul list was good but in high school and it wasn't,
Speaker 1: So you don't do well, you go back and take calculus,
Speaker 1: then you take the next class. I just spent three
Speaker 1: semesters on to get to a prerequisite um fast start
Speaker 1: for a student that has to work too many hours,
Speaker 1: drops too many classes, gives up because they can't graduate
Speaker 1: on time. So we've got programs to help a student
Speaker 1: have summer job scholarship six credits in one summer twelve
Speaker 1: and another. They get the hating credit head start, and
Speaker 1: we see that their attention rates are higher, their grade
Speaker 1: points are higher, they're dropping classes less frequently, and they
Speaker 1: might graduate in three and a half years when they're
Speaker 1: a need based student graduating in five or six and
Speaker 1: borrowing an enormous amount of money to do it well.
Speaker 1: I do wonder about access in equality in terms of
Speaker 1: access to good universities and colleges, you know, like yourself, Um,
Speaker 1: how do we make sure it is more equal? Are
Speaker 1: we doing the right way? Because I do feel like
Speaker 1: something's out of whack at this point. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of money coming to schools. We have, you know, huge endowments,
Speaker 1: and yet you know, as we know with the college
Speaker 1: admission scandal, there's a lot of you know, games kind
Speaker 1: of going on, and frankly, I worry that it's it's
Speaker 1: going to get worse if you go back a decade
Speaker 1: or so, we have seven states for which the majority
Speaker 1: of their high school graduates were federally defined as need based.
Speaker 1: Today we have more than twenty states that are in
Speaker 1: that category. So you're looking at enormous population that doesn't
Speaker 1: have the capacity to pay. So if we don't have
Speaker 1: this reinstituted as part of the public good, how are
Speaker 1: we going to help that that group advance and really
Speaker 1: contribute to the economy. So we're going to have to
Speaker 1: have a lot of programs and that we work on
Speaker 1: to do to enable that student. Penn State also has
Speaker 1: twenty one locations, so we have catchment areas that allow
Speaker 1: you to live at home and in living at home,
Speaker 1: keep your summer job and say the significant portion of
Speaker 1: the cost as well as discount on a tuition. And
Speaker 1: this enables that those campuses are about pel eligible students,
Speaker 1: And we're here with Dr Eric Barron, president of Penn
Speaker 1: State University, here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. So
Speaker 1: Dr Barron, one thing I want to ask you about
Speaker 1: is we just got a ruling here a crossing the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg a story about Harvard defeating an anti affirmative action
Speaker 1: groups lawsy to stop the school from using race as
Speaker 1: a factor uh in admissions. We're expecting this to go
Speaker 1: all the way to the Supreme Court. What do you
Speaker 1: think about that? Well, so we'll have to watch to
Speaker 1: see how how it uh, how how it evolves. Of course,
Speaker 1: we are constantly evaluating our admissions to make sure that
Speaker 1: we're we're being as even as we possibly can, that
Speaker 1: we have strong criteria that bring in an academic class
Speaker 1: that's strong. But at the same time, we value the
Speaker 1: diversity of the class um part of the educational experience.
Speaker 1: Out of the educational experience, we always know that if
Speaker 1: you have a diverse class, it's a richer experience. And
Speaker 1: and as a public we feel like we have an
Speaker 1: obligation to to teach the students of America. And so
Speaker 1: that means you, if you're doing your job, you have
Speaker 1: a diverse class. So you're constantly looking at this without
Speaker 1: introducing something that appears to add a bias that that
Speaker 1: is inappropriate. So it's not an easy job, and these
Speaker 1: court cases become very important in making sure that we
Speaker 1: analyze what we do and do it right. When you
Speaker 1: think about the Varsity Blues scandal, what's the real impact
Speaker 1: in terms of behavior changing, either on the part of
Speaker 1: parents or on the part of the institution. Well, tell
Speaker 1: you if someone is punished as severely as some of
Speaker 1: the people are being punished, I do think that puts
Speaker 1: a chilling effect on on attempting to buy your way in. UM.
Speaker 1: My personal feeling is that any time something happens where
Speaker 1: we trust higher education less, this is a this is
Speaker 1: a bad thing. And you know, we work so hard
Speaker 1: to make sure that there's not a favoritism, that that
Speaker 1: you can't do it from political influence or donor influence,
Speaker 1: and that it's based on the credentials. Just think how
Speaker 1: unsuccessful it is for a student if they come in
Speaker 1: below the academic requirements of the university and then fail.
Speaker 1: That's a terrible experience for a student. So, you know,
Speaker 1: the trust is important, but the success of the student
Speaker 1: is even more important. But I think it's safe to
Speaker 1: say that I think there was an understanding that some
Speaker 1: of this always went on. The varsity Blue scandal kind
Speaker 1: of took it to a whole other level. Um, But
Speaker 1: there has been always an understanding um that you know,
Speaker 1: we look at, you know, kids of alumni who maybe
Speaker 1: have made donations. Right, There is a little bit of
Speaker 1: that always present. So it might be the you would
Speaker 1: look at an alum and say, we're more likely to
Speaker 1: yield that student, and so that's a that's a good
Speaker 1: thing because you your efforts and recruiting students might be stronger.
Speaker 1: But it is a mistake to bring in a student
Speaker 1: who doesn't match up with the rest of the class.
Speaker 1: It's just a mistake at least. And how much how
Speaker 1: much has the expectation changed? This actually came up on
Speaker 1: a college toury had over the weekend in terms of
Speaker 1: producing a student who is absolutely ready for a job
Speaker 1: and really trained for a job, and not in a
Speaker 1: position where they come out from a prestigious institution like
Speaker 1: hers and say, well, I'm going to sort of figure
Speaker 1: out what I what I do next. It feels like
Speaker 1: there's more pressure on students and kindily from parents based
Speaker 1: on the investment that there. You know, it changes with
Speaker 1: generations where some are more relaxed about or or or
Speaker 1: less relaxed about it. I like to think about training
Speaker 1: people for a career, giving them that breadth that is there,
Speaker 1: and that opportunity and the ability to be a lifelong learner.
Speaker 1: Those things make a tremendous amount of difference. We know,
Speaker 1: the more experience as a student has outside of the classroom,
Speaker 1: they have much greater success and careers than in other cases,
Speaker 1: and they're building a resume. So internships and things in internships,
Speaker 1: study abroad, one on one interaction with the faculty members,
Speaker 1: consistently these students do better and are more ready for
Speaker 1: jobs they always do. Wonder about what's the balance of
Speaker 1: I think, you know, part of what's great about going
Speaker 1: to college is you've just given an opportunity to explore
Speaker 1: different things that you might not have right and maybe
Speaker 1: just learn how to think um just so whatever comes
Speaker 1: your way versus you know, it's like people who used
Speaker 1: to teachers who taught to s A T. S and
Speaker 1: achievement tests, which we've now realizing isn't such a good thing.
Speaker 1: So what's the balance between So this this is what
Speaker 1: I say. You come to pend State, it's not inexpensive.
Speaker 1: You purchased a blue and white sports car. If you
Speaker 1: just go to class, you're driving at twenty If you
Speaker 1: put you should put that sports car through its paces.
Speaker 1: And that's twelve hundred clubs that you can experiment with
Speaker 1: things that you've never done. That sets of classes and
Speaker 1: opportunities with interact with faculty. That's the outer classroom, experienced
Speaker 1: service learning, or something else that transforms what your educational experiences.
Speaker 1: So and we know those students are more successful. I
Speaker 1: think we have an obligation not just to say here's
Speaker 1: your course, but here's what you can do to really
Speaker 1: make and literally there are surveys out there that suggests
Speaker 1: the more engaged you are as a student, the happier
Speaker 1: are you are for the rest of your life, regardless
Speaker 1: of income or age. So I think we have to
Speaker 1: do this. It's just not delivering curriculum only anymore. All right,
Speaker 1: what a treat for us to catch up with you.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate the time. Dr Eric Barron is the
Speaker 1: president of Penn State University, and I'm just gonna say it,
Speaker 1: it's got a four and no football all team, a
Speaker 1: lot of expectations, high expectations, and they're also going to
Speaker 1: put out there that when he was the president of
Speaker 1: Florida State, they won a national championship. So anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: just throwing that out there. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining