Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Blomberg Business Week on this Wednesday Carol Masser
Speaker 1: along with Paul Sweeney, and joining us right now is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Higher Education finance reporter Janet Lauren on the
Speaker 1: phone in New York City. We talked so much about education.
Speaker 1: She covers it so well here at Bloomberg. UH. And
Speaker 1: as we know, Higher ed in particular has been dealing
Speaker 1: really with two pandemics, and that includes of course COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen and also systemic racism in our society. We've got
Speaker 1: a gut check on both. Thanks to Dr Gregory Washington
Speaker 1: joining us. He's president at George Mason University. He joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone from Fairfax, Virginia. Dr Washington, so
Speaker 1: nice to have you here with Janet and Paul and myself.
Speaker 1: You became president in July. UM talk about timing, and
Speaker 1: you came into the job. You had a lot to
Speaker 1: deal with UM between the virus and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: as I said, we had a dual pandemic. We've been
Speaker 1: dealing with systemic racism in our society, and you've talked
Speaker 1: about and written about the school dealing with its own
Speaker 1: identity crisis. Tell me about coming into this job kind
Speaker 1: of what was on your mind and how you prioritized
Speaker 1: everything and how you dealt with it. Well, I'll be
Speaker 1: honest with you, it was like drinking to a fire hole.
Speaker 1: I Uh, it was. You know. We we were actually
Speaker 1: dealing with three crises and so, uh, the two you
Speaker 1: just mentioned and being the pandemic in our crisis and
Speaker 1: racial inequity. But also we're dealing with a budget crisis
Speaker 1: because many states were struggling to support their state universities,
Speaker 1: and so we had a hundred and twenty four million
Speaker 1: dollar budget gap that I had to manage as well.
Speaker 1: So uh, suffice it suffice to say, to take care
Speaker 1: of the racial inequity problem required money which I didn't have. Right, So, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we tackle the problem as I tackled most
Speaker 1: problems as an engineer, right, and in a methodical kind
Speaker 1: of way. Right. You you eat an elephant one bite
Speaker 1: at a time, and uh, and and you tackle it
Speaker 1: by bringing groups of people together to help you solve
Speaker 1: the problem. And so we established a task force on
Speaker 1: Racial inequity and begin and started that task force working
Speaker 1: towards coming up with solutions that we're going to help
Speaker 1: the campus and as they're makest out of pandemic. We've
Speaker 1: put together a separate Safer Return to Campus task force
Speaker 1: that's focused on that and and we've had premendous results
Speaker 1: in both and and that is propelling the institution for
Speaker 1: at this particular point in time. So, Janet, you know
Speaker 1: Dr Washington talking about the precarious finances which we're hearing
Speaker 1: across so many different industries, and that includes higher education.
Speaker 1: What's your reporting been generally about what some of these
Speaker 1: big colleges, universities, how they're trying to piece it all
Speaker 1: together from an economic perspective. Well, it's sorry, just gonna you,
Speaker 1: Janet Lauren. Well, it's a tough time, partly because revenue
Speaker 1: isn't what schools are used to sing about this time. Uh.
Speaker 1: Fewer enrollments means less money. Uh. Fewer students on campus
Speaker 1: means fewer students are paying for UM storms here there,
Speaker 1: fewer students are paying for dining services. UM they've all
Speaker 1: had to many of them have had to offer refunds
Speaker 1: for housing when students left in March. UM. Now George
Speaker 1: Mason is bucking the trend. A little bit in enrollment.
Speaker 1: We just had some numbers from the National Clearinghouse data
Speaker 1: source which talked about a decline of fourteen percent for
Speaker 1: freshman enrollment and overall enrollments were down, but your enrollments
Speaker 1: were up about two percents this year with record enrollments. Um,
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about how you accomplish
Speaker 1: that and where those numbers come from. Well, they primarily
Speaker 1: come from in stay students and uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: are the beneficiaries of a region, being at a part
Speaker 1: of the region of the country where uh the population
Speaker 1: is still growing, and that helped us. But because we
Speaker 1: actually brought students back to campus and we did sell
Speaker 1: in an aggressive way, students didn't, uh you know, feel
Speaker 1: the need not to come back. Right there was if
Speaker 1: you if you could if you could take all of
Speaker 1: your classes online, or if you were gonna hit be
Speaker 1: hit with exorbitant fees and costs in terms of going
Speaker 1: to school. People started to ask the question, maybe I
Speaker 1: should take a gap year, maybe I should take some
Speaker 1: time off and not come back. Well, we made it
Speaker 1: advantageous and we made it uh clear to our students
Speaker 1: that we were going to provide an environment for them
Speaker 1: that was maybe not quite what they had uh two
Speaker 1: years ago, but something really really close. So we worked
Speaker 1: really really hard with providing all sorts of ways for
Speaker 1: students to congregate safely and for them to enjoy fast
Speaker 1: food through our mobile robotic food delivery services from and
Speaker 1: so we've put a lot of different uh, you know,
Speaker 1: students can go to movies together, they go to we
Speaker 1: have this large drive in movies where students actually can
Speaker 1: do that together. Uh. And and we did lots of
Speaker 1: virtual kinds of engagements with students. We have Tiffany Haddish
Speaker 1: on campus and other kinds of things. So so we've
Speaker 1: been able to figure out different ways to basically invent
Speaker 1: a new normal, which is what I think institutions are
Speaker 1: gonna have to do because they're gonna be dealing with
Speaker 1: the virus. Well, we just have about a minute and
Speaker 1: then we'll do some news. But in about forty five seconds,
Speaker 1: I mean, how much does this set you back? This
Speaker 1: the virus financially And again just about forty five and
Speaker 1: then we'll come back and talk some more. Well, look,
Speaker 1: the reality of the situations, it sets in spectrumendously. Um,
Speaker 1: We're we're talking about a average student twelve thousand dollars
Speaker 1: per heads for room and board. And if you and
Speaker 1: and we got sixty eight hundred slots, so you just
Speaker 1: do the mask, that's seventy eight million dollars loss And
Speaker 1: we don't bring students back to campus, and and the
Speaker 1: numbers just go up from there. So the number the
Speaker 1: losses are huge, over a hundred million dollars for US,
Speaker 1: and we brought students back, if we didn't need to
Speaker 1: be closer to hundred fifty two hundred million. Jannet. We
Speaker 1: were talking about financials there, and I know that's you.
Speaker 1: It's something you keep a close watch on when it
Speaker 1: comes to colleges and universities. Yes, and then addation to
Speaker 1: um less revenue coming in, we've been hearing a lot
Speaker 1: from colleges about more money they're spending on things like
Speaker 1: toxi glass and trying to configure testing and paying for
Speaker 1: testing and uh and so much more. And I would
Speaker 1: love to hear about some of the expenses that have
Speaker 1: seen at George Mason that perhaps you weren't necessarily expected. Uh. Yes, Look,
Speaker 1: the biggest expense for us has been the preparation for
Speaker 1: testing UM putting in place. Uh, you know, the average
Speaker 1: cost of a test can run upwards of a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty dollars per test and UH and that's when
Speaker 1: you count take into account not just the test itself,
Speaker 1: but the corresponding infrastructure that you actually have to have
Speaker 1: in place to ensure that the students get the results
Speaker 1: that they get him in a reasonable amount of time.
Speaker 1: You have to coordinate the results with the with the
Speaker 1: local health department so that they understand when the potential
Speaker 1: operak uh is occurring. And then you have to uh
Speaker 1: be able to record the results in the proper format
Speaker 1: relative to medical records. So there are a whole host
Speaker 1: of additional infrastructural costs besides the cost of the test
Speaker 1: themselves that go on top of it. And so you
Speaker 1: could easily spend upwards of a Protestant and universities that
Speaker 1: are spending that without questions. And then you've got to
Speaker 1: get your campus is ready for students and staff to
Speaker 1: come back. And so that signage that's plexiglass, that's UH
Speaker 1: putting information on the floors, that's changing UH you know,
Speaker 1: entering and exiting UH protocols for how people will enter
Speaker 1: and exit buildings that may even be modifications and changing
Speaker 1: to the air handling systems and upgrading air handling systems
Speaker 1: and buildings to accommodate. Uh, you know, people will be
Speaker 1: in those buildings with COVID right. Hard to do, you know,
Speaker 1: in a normal year where revenue flows are normal. Harder
Speaker 1: to do when they're not exactly So, what does spring
Speaker 1: look like? What does you know a year from now,
Speaker 1: next fall look like? Let's start with spring. You know,
Speaker 1: what are you guys expecting. So we're not managing the
Speaker 1: virus too well right now as a and what that
Speaker 1: means for us is that we're going to see, Uh,
Speaker 1: the spring looked very similar to the fall. It's going
Speaker 1: to be a restart, right. Our students are gonna go
Speaker 1: home many you know, many campuses, despite the outbreaks that
Speaker 1: you've heard about, a significant number of us have actually
Speaker 1: have environments that have positivity rates lower than the surrounding
Speaker 1: communities in which the students come from. And we'll go
Speaker 1: to and so that's the case for George Mason. Our
Speaker 1: students will undoubtedly, over the break, some of them will
Speaker 1: bring the virus back to the campus, and so we
Speaker 1: have a pretesting regiment that we had to put in
Speaker 1: place to account for that and Uh, and it looks
Speaker 1: like we're starting all over from scratch again, but this
Speaker 1: time was just a little bit more knowledge because we
Speaker 1: did learn a lot from the fall. But it is
Speaker 1: indeed a restart, and so uh, lots of pretesting getting
Speaker 1: the students here and then managing student behavior to keep
Speaker 1: out breaks on happening and get us throughout the end
Speaker 1: of this way. So we'd be remiss. Go ahead, John,
Speaker 1: and I know we were both kind of all messaging
Speaker 1: each other because we'd be remiss if we don't go
Speaker 1: and ask you about what has been you know, the
Speaker 1: other crisis, and that is racism. And you've got a
Speaker 1: university George Mason named for a slave owning founding father.
Speaker 1: Are you guys talked talked, I mean talked to us
Speaker 1: about that? I mean, are you thinking about a name change?
Speaker 1: What happens? So actually it was believe it or not.
Speaker 1: The very first question that I was asked by a reporter.
Speaker 1: I thought I was gonna get a question talking about
Speaker 1: how is it to lead an institution, you know, in
Speaker 1: these difficult times. And the very first question is George
Speaker 1: Mason was a slave owner. What are you going to
Speaker 1: do about that? And um, so, so I actually I
Speaker 1: went to work. I actually I learned a lot about
Speaker 1: George Manson, but I also learned a lot about the country. Um. Look,
Speaker 1: twelve of our first eight team US presidents own enslaves
Speaker 1: individuals at some point in their lives, and nine of
Speaker 1: them while working at the White House. Okay, um forty
Speaker 1: one of the fifty six signatories of the Declaration of Independence, right,
Speaker 1: five of the fifty five men who wrote the Constitution
Speaker 1: all owned plays. It was part of the the economic
Speaker 1: system of our country at that time, and so to
Speaker 1: throw all of that out, you would literally have to
Speaker 1: throw out the country. And so we took a different approach,
Speaker 1: and that is two commemorate individuals like George Mason and
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson and all those individuals like that for their contributions,
Speaker 1: but not celebrate uh them for how they handle slaves.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like a cliche, but it was one
Speaker 1: of the things. And then we used it to enter
Speaker 1: the campus into a discussion of the contributions many of
Speaker 1: those enslave individuals had on the campus. Dr Washington actually
Speaker 1: for us came out into a great play. Dr Washington,
Speaker 1: We're running out of time, do come back? Because I
Speaker 1: would love um to continue this conversation with you, and
Speaker 1: here you know how you guys are managing through and
Speaker 1: just dealing with those three crises. I really appreciated Dr Washington,
Speaker 1: President at George Mason along with our Janet Lauren Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News Higher Education finance reporter. You're listening to Bloomberg Radio