WEBVTT - A Good Circle 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:20.476 --> 0:00:24.036 Matt Skogan was working on Wall Street eighty hours a week, 0:00:24.156 --> 0:00:28.356 making good money, happily married a small town boy from Michigan, 0:00:28.676 --> 0:00:33.516 made good. When he began to have a change of heart. 0:00:33.636 --> 0:00:35.596 I went through a period of my life, a mini 0:00:35.636 --> 0:00:39.116 existential crisis. My dad died in twenty thirteen. He had 0:00:39.116 --> 0:00:42.716 a cancer called multiple maloma. He was only sixty and 0:00:42.756 --> 0:00:45.276 then just two years after that, my mom passed away 0:00:45.276 --> 0:00:48.716 from a different kind of cancer. She had breast cancer. 0:00:49.316 --> 0:00:52.396 And it kind of sent me into a period of 0:00:52.436 --> 0:00:55.676 life where I just felt like, I love my work. 0:00:55.716 --> 0:00:58.476 It's interesting, it's intellectually stimulating, I love the people through 0:00:58.516 --> 0:01:00.236 my work. But I also felt this sense of like, 0:01:00.276 --> 0:01:01.636 I'm at the end of the day, I'm showing up 0:01:01.636 --> 0:01:03.596 to work every day to help a bank make more money. 0:01:03.876 --> 0:01:06.476 I went through a season of pretty intense like prayer 0:01:06.516 --> 0:01:08.676 and discernment and just kind of feeling like I think 0:01:08.676 --> 0:01:10.036 I'm supposed doing something else. 0:01:10.556 --> 0:01:14.036 Scogan was on the board of the small Christian liberal 0:01:14.076 --> 0:01:17.276 arts school he'd gone to as an undergraduate, a place 0:01:17.356 --> 0:01:20.716 called Hope College on the shores of Lake Michigan, and 0:01:20.996 --> 0:01:24.276 just as his life was turning upside down, the school's 0:01:24.316 --> 0:01:28.236 president announced he was leaving. Scogan says that when he 0:01:28.276 --> 0:01:31.876 heard the news, he had an intense feeling that this 0:01:32.276 --> 0:01:35.156 was a job he was supposed to do. He thought 0:01:35.196 --> 0:01:37.836 of the Mark Twain quote, the two most important days 0:01:37.836 --> 0:01:39.636 in your life are the day you're born and the 0:01:39.756 --> 0:01:44.356 day you find out why. Scogan had no academic experience. 0:01:44.796 --> 0:01:48.996 He was a ridiculous long shot, but slowly he inched 0:01:49.036 --> 0:01:52.356 forward in the process, and as he did, he realized 0:01:52.396 --> 0:01:55.236 that if it was actually going to happen, if he 0:01:55.316 --> 0:01:58.316 were really going to be the president of a college, 0:01:58.356 --> 0:02:01.276 he couldn't do what every other president was doing. 0:02:03.116 --> 0:02:05.636 I had a couple of pretty formative experiences. There was 0:02:05.676 --> 0:02:07.516 a moment when I was on an airplane on a 0:02:07.556 --> 0:02:09.636 business trip and I was flying back to New York 0:02:09.676 --> 0:02:14.196 from California, I think, and we were flying into JFK, 0:02:14.876 --> 0:02:17.076 and I'm like half asleep on the airplane, and the 0:02:17.156 --> 0:02:19.196 pilot comes on and he says, we're at thirty three 0:02:19.196 --> 0:02:22.516 thousand feet and we're beginning our descent into JFK. Thirty 0:02:22.556 --> 0:02:25.276 three thousand at the time was the price of Hope's tuition, 0:02:25.676 --> 0:02:27.636 And I just got this visual image in my head 0:02:27.676 --> 0:02:30.316 of thirty three thousand going to zero. And then it 0:02:30.636 --> 0:02:32.676 was three weeks later and I was having dinner with 0:02:32.756 --> 0:02:36.476 a friend and we were just talking about life, and 0:02:36.516 --> 0:02:38.276 I told him that I was thinking about applying for 0:02:38.316 --> 0:02:40.956 this job, and he asked me about home college, and 0:02:40.996 --> 0:02:43.956 he asked me about what I saw is the challenges 0:02:43.996 --> 0:02:46.036 in higher ed and I've of course mentioned the cost, 0:02:46.756 --> 0:02:50.436 and he just very flippantly and without thinking, he said, well, 0:02:50.916 --> 0:02:52.996 no one should have to pay for hope. And then 0:02:52.996 --> 0:02:54.876 he repeated it, no one should have to pay for hope, 0:02:55.476 --> 0:02:57.836 and he meant it as a joke, I think, and 0:02:57.876 --> 0:03:01.516 we both laughed. But as I was laughing, like I realized, dang, 0:03:01.596 --> 0:03:04.596 he just said something profoundly true. No one should have 0:03:04.636 --> 0:03:05.356 to pay for hope. 0:03:06.996 --> 0:03:10.236 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to U Revisionist History, 0:03:10.476 --> 0:03:15.276 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. Over the years, 0:03:15.316 --> 0:03:18.476 on this podcast, we have talked about the strange goings 0:03:18.516 --> 0:03:24.356 on in higher education, ridiculously fancy amenities, the elsat the absurd, 0:03:24.836 --> 0:03:29.876 US news rankings, multi billion dollar endowments. This episode is 0:03:29.916 --> 0:03:33.916 about a very different kind of strange goings on, Matt 0:03:33.916 --> 0:03:41.276 Skuggan's radical experiment Nobody should have to pay for Hope. 0:03:41.476 --> 0:03:44.556 Hope is in a little town called Holland, just west 0:03:44.556 --> 0:03:48.196 of Grand Rapids, which is called Holland because Dutch immigrants 0:03:48.236 --> 0:03:51.316 settled there. The area still has a lot of tidy 0:03:51.476 --> 0:03:55.756 Dutch practicality. The big local employers are the furniture makers 0:03:55.796 --> 0:03:59.356 Herman Miller and Haworth. The campus is right in the 0:03:59.356 --> 0:04:02.116 middle of town, a big, beautiful church at the center. 0:04:02.796 --> 0:04:05.876 I got a campus tour from a towering Nigerian student 0:04:06.156 --> 0:04:10.236 with the magnificently Nigerian first name of Mark Marvelous. I 0:04:10.276 --> 0:04:13.036 sat in a campus coffee shop listening to a high 0:04:13.076 --> 0:04:16.236 spirited back and forth that began with the movies and 0:04:16.356 --> 0:04:20.156 ended with scripture. The school was having a day long 0:04:20.196 --> 0:04:23.676 conference to explain to the community what they were trying 0:04:23.676 --> 0:04:28.076 to do. A student spoke first, a young woman named Madison, 0:04:28.596 --> 0:04:31.116 a little nervous in front of the crowd. She'd made 0:04:31.116 --> 0:04:32.756 some of the art hanging on the. 0:04:32.756 --> 0:04:33.676 Walls around the room. 0:04:34.476 --> 0:04:34.676 Hi. 0:04:34.716 --> 0:04:39.476 Everyone, good evening and thank you for attending what I 0:04:39.556 --> 0:04:44.436 believe is a wonderful artistic representation of Hope Forward as 0:04:44.516 --> 0:04:48.036 not only a vision but a reality. My name is 0:04:48.076 --> 0:04:51.036 Madison and I have the honor of belonging to the 0:04:51.076 --> 0:04:52.956 inaugural Hope Forward cohort. 0:04:53.796 --> 0:04:57.196 Hope Forward was the name Skogan gave to his experiment. 0:04:57.836 --> 0:05:00.556 Madison had made a print of a willow tree that 0:05:00.676 --> 0:05:03.556 she said symbolized what the school had done for her. 0:05:04.236 --> 0:05:07.276 Because of this gift, I feel free to pursue any 0:05:07.316 --> 0:05:10.956 area of study without the burden excessive debt. This means 0:05:11.036 --> 0:05:13.596 I am free to care about my community here and 0:05:13.836 --> 0:05:17.116 later because I am and will be passionate about what 0:05:17.156 --> 0:05:17.476 I do. 0:05:18.636 --> 0:05:22.716 Then the writer Mitch album came to the podium. Album 0:05:22.956 --> 0:05:25.396 was actually the reason I was there. He emailed me 0:05:25.436 --> 0:05:27.356 out of the blue one day and told me about 0:05:27.396 --> 0:05:30.756 what was happening in Holland. He drove over from Detroit, 0:05:30.916 --> 0:05:33.956 where he lives, and kicked things off with a short 0:05:33.996 --> 0:05:37.156 talk about why he's a Hope College believer. 0:05:37.916 --> 0:05:40.756 Yeah, I guess I'm here in multiple capacities. I'm sort 0:05:40.796 --> 0:05:44.836 of like a parent and proud to be And I'm 0:05:44.836 --> 0:05:46.516 going to share with you for a couple of minutes 0:05:47.276 --> 0:05:49.396 how that came to be and why I do believe 0:05:49.516 --> 0:05:52.836 that this model works because I have seen it in 0:05:52.916 --> 0:05:55.476 action many times in my life, and in fact, the 0:05:55.556 --> 0:05:58.116 latter part of my professional life has kind of been 0:05:58.156 --> 0:05:58.876 dedicated to this. 0:05:59.756 --> 0:06:03.516 The model he was referring to was President Scogan's hope forward, 0:06:04.196 --> 0:06:05.396 his grand experiment. 0:06:06.356 --> 0:06:14.316 So honestly not been that charitable a person in the 0:06:14.356 --> 0:06:17.076 first part of my career, not because I was against it. 0:06:17.116 --> 0:06:18.876 I think I was just like many young people. 0:06:18.916 --> 0:06:21.316 I was very wrapped up in my own success, of 0:06:21.396 --> 0:06:24.596 my own ambition, and then I got involved with some 0:06:24.636 --> 0:06:27.516 of you were probably aware with an old professor of 0:06:27.556 --> 0:06:30.836 mine who was dying from lu Gerrig's disease named Mary Schwartz, 0:06:31.396 --> 0:06:33.476 and I visited with him every Tuesday. 0:06:34.316 --> 0:06:37.996 Tuesdays with Maury was album's most famous book. It came 0:06:38.036 --> 0:06:40.236 out in nineteen ninety seven. It's one of the best 0:06:40.236 --> 0:06:41.676 selling memoirs of all time. 0:06:42.156 --> 0:06:45.076 I noticed that when people would come in and visit 0:06:45.116 --> 0:06:49.836 with him, very quickly the conversation would change. They would 0:06:49.876 --> 0:06:52.516 come in trying to cheer him up because he was 0:06:52.636 --> 0:06:55.596 dying from this terminal illness, but within a couple of 0:06:55.636 --> 0:06:59.556 minutes he would start asking them about their work, their 0:06:59.556 --> 0:07:01.436 love life, whatever, And an hour later they'd come out 0:07:01.436 --> 0:07:02.756 in tears and they'd say, you know, I try to 0:07:02.796 --> 0:07:04.876 cheer him up, but next thing I know, I'm talking 0:07:04.876 --> 0:07:06.676 to him, and he's asked me questions, and then he's 0:07:06.716 --> 0:07:08.516 really asking me questions, and I'm really then and as 0:07:08.636 --> 0:07:10.356 I'm I'm crying, I. 0:07:10.316 --> 0:07:12.316 Tried to cheer him up. He ended up cheering me up. 0:07:12.356 --> 0:07:13.316 He ended up comforting me. 0:07:13.316 --> 0:07:16.556 And I asked him finally, after witnessing this so many times, 0:07:16.876 --> 0:07:19.076 I don't get it. You know, like you're the one 0:07:19.076 --> 0:07:22.956 who's dying. Why don't you just say, let's not talk 0:07:22.956 --> 0:07:26.916 about your problems, Let's talk about my problems. And he said, Mitch, 0:07:26.916 --> 0:07:30.316 why would I ever take from people like that? Taking 0:07:30.636 --> 0:07:34.156 just makes me feel like I'm dying. Giving makes me 0:07:34.196 --> 0:07:40.196 feel like I'm living. It's a profound little sentence and 0:07:40.236 --> 0:07:44.316 also rhymes, so it's easy to remember. Giving makes you 0:07:44.356 --> 0:07:47.356 feel like living. And I have never forgotten that moment, 0:07:47.396 --> 0:07:49.356 nor have I ever forgotten that sentiment. 0:07:50.396 --> 0:07:54.316 A small Christian college, a student talking about a willow tree. 0:07:54.596 --> 0:07:58.316 A best selling writer of inspirational books, introduces the rhyming 0:07:58.356 --> 0:08:02.556 catchphrase giving makes you feel like living. If the cynic 0:08:02.556 --> 0:08:04.916 in you is bubbling to the surface right now, I 0:08:04.996 --> 0:08:07.756 understand because these aren't the kinds of things we expect 0:08:07.796 --> 0:08:10.676 to hear on college campuses. What about the fancy new 0:08:10.676 --> 0:08:14.036 building opening, the expansion of the endowed prestigious center for 0:08:14.116 --> 0:08:17.636 this and that, the glittering credentials of the incoming class. 0:08:17.996 --> 0:08:19.796 But by the end of the evening I kind of 0:08:19.796 --> 0:08:34.636 wished every school sounded like this. Imagine that you had 0:08:34.716 --> 0:08:39.116 never heard of higher education before, you had been living 0:08:39.196 --> 0:08:43.076 on a desert island somewhere, and suddenly, once you finished 0:08:43.076 --> 0:08:46.556 desert island high school, your parents decided what you needed 0:08:46.716 --> 0:08:50.076 was an American college degree. So you show up on 0:08:50.076 --> 0:08:52.916 this thing called a campus and you ask your hosts 0:08:53.396 --> 0:08:56.396 what am I to you, and they say, we think 0:08:56.396 --> 0:08:59.156 of you as a student kind of, but also as 0:08:59.196 --> 0:09:01.476 a customer, because this whole thing is going to cost 0:09:01.516 --> 0:09:03.716 you a lot of money, and we need to get paid. 0:09:04.436 --> 0:09:07.716 How much you ask, well, it depends like whether you're 0:09:07.756 --> 0:09:10.276 good at things like fencing or rowing and how much 0:09:10.276 --> 0:09:13.116 your parents make. But chances are you'll have to borrow 0:09:13.356 --> 0:09:16.956 a lot to pay for your education. So you say, oh, 0:09:17.196 --> 0:09:20.156 so I'm really like someone with a big mortgage. I'm 0:09:20.196 --> 0:09:24.716 a debtor, and they say sure, but once you've graduated, 0:09:24.916 --> 0:09:26.916 we're going to call you every year to ask for 0:09:26.996 --> 0:09:29.516 donations on the grounds that you are now a member 0:09:29.796 --> 0:09:33.436 of our community. Your head is spinning at this point. 0:09:33.716 --> 0:09:37.636 Oh really, what are those donations for. Well, it's for 0:09:37.676 --> 0:09:40.676 this thing we invented called an endowment, which is a 0:09:40.676 --> 0:09:43.396 big pile of cash that sits with a money manager 0:09:43.396 --> 0:09:45.916 in New York, which we use as a symbol of 0:09:45.916 --> 0:09:49.996 how important we are. So you say, wait, I'm a student, 0:09:50.316 --> 0:09:53.196 a customer, a debtor, and an investor in a Wall 0:09:53.236 --> 0:09:56.676 Street hedge fund. Are all businesses in the United States? 0:09:56.756 --> 0:10:03.836 This complicated? And they say, no, just higher education. This 0:10:04.076 --> 0:10:08.956 arrangement struck Matt Skogan as deeply weird. He was a banker. 0:10:09.476 --> 0:10:12.516 He came from a world where financial arrangements had precise 0:10:12.556 --> 0:10:18.636 definitions gross sales, net revenue, IBITA earnings before interest, taxes, 0:10:18.676 --> 0:10:23.156 and amortization. He was an outsider to this world. He 0:10:23.196 --> 0:10:26.516 didn't think like a college president. He doesn't even look 0:10:26.636 --> 0:10:29.396 like a college president. He was thirty nine when he 0:10:29.436 --> 0:10:33.036 was hired, but looks even younger. I'm short and skinny. 0:10:33.196 --> 0:10:37.436 He's shorter and skinnier. He has red hair and oversized 0:10:37.476 --> 0:10:40.556 ears and looks and this reference would be lost to 0:10:40.556 --> 0:10:42.556 all of you under the age of fifty A little 0:10:42.596 --> 0:10:45.956 like Ron Howard in Happy Days Later when we were 0:10:45.996 --> 0:10:48.836 chatting with a group of students. I asked what they 0:10:48.916 --> 0:10:49.996 call him. 0:10:50.116 --> 0:10:52.476 The summer I got here, I started saying, you should 0:10:52.476 --> 0:10:54.876 call me Matt because my name is Matt. And then 0:10:54.916 --> 0:10:57.476 there was like an intervention. The dean of students came 0:10:57.516 --> 0:10:59.196 and a couple other people came into my office and 0:10:59.236 --> 0:11:01.276 they said, you can't have the students call you by 0:11:01.276 --> 0:11:04.076 your first name. It's disrespectful to the office of the president. 0:11:04.436 --> 0:11:06.276 So I said, okay, so they call me presidents go 0:11:06.356 --> 0:11:08.276 again to my face, they call me who knows what 0:11:08.356 --> 0:11:13.756 they call me? Yes, daddies, Yeah, daddy, Sco. 0:11:13.596 --> 0:11:16.316 Again, Sco daddy. 0:11:16.516 --> 0:11:19.076 There aren't a lot of Sco daddies in the ranks 0:11:19.116 --> 0:11:22.676 of America's college presidents. When they picked you, was there 0:11:22.676 --> 0:11:24.796 a sense that they were taking a chance. 0:11:25.156 --> 0:11:30.396 Yes, well, there was definitely, since they were doing something unconventional, 0:11:30.916 --> 0:11:34.116 so they were hiring a young non academic, But it 0:11:34.156 --> 0:11:36.916 was coming from this premise of the board wanted to, 0:11:37.396 --> 0:11:39.516 you know, a recognition that something needs to be done 0:11:39.556 --> 0:11:41.796 in higher education. We need to try something different, and 0:11:41.876 --> 0:11:44.596 so they hired me and basically said you can do 0:11:44.636 --> 0:11:46.996 anything you want except the status quo, Like we're hiring 0:11:47.076 --> 0:11:48.116 you to do something different. 0:11:48.556 --> 0:11:51.236 He took the job, moved into a big house near 0:11:51.276 --> 0:11:53.996 the church in the middle of campus, and started going 0:11:54.076 --> 0:11:58.836 to the cafeteria and talking to students student, customer, debtor, 0:11:58.916 --> 0:12:02.676 investor what effect he wondered did this have on them? 0:12:02.876 --> 0:12:05.076 And I have a handful of questions that I love 0:12:05.156 --> 0:12:07.276 asking students. I like asking the same questions over and 0:12:07.276 --> 0:12:09.956 over again because I get compare and contrast answers. And 0:12:09.996 --> 0:12:12.276 one of the questions I always ask is what do 0:12:12.316 --> 0:12:12.996 you want. 0:12:12.796 --> 0:12:15.236 To do after you graduate? And I always use the word. 0:12:15.076 --> 0:12:18.196 Want, And what I get often as a response is 0:12:18.236 --> 0:12:19.956 what I want to do is different than what I 0:12:19.956 --> 0:12:22.556 feel like I have to do. And I'll get students 0:12:22.596 --> 0:12:26.396 say I want to do Doctors without Borders, or I 0:12:26.436 --> 0:12:28.676 want to do teach for America or the Peace Corps 0:12:29.236 --> 0:12:32.236 or some ministry. But I've got fifty thousand dollars of 0:12:32.276 --> 0:12:34.876 student loan debt, so I'm going to become a whatever 0:12:35.036 --> 0:12:37.636 consultant to pay off my student loan debt, and then 0:12:38.276 --> 0:12:40.916 I'll pursue the impact I feel like I want to have. 0:12:41.636 --> 0:12:44.836 It seemed to Scogan that you can't do both. You 0:12:44.876 --> 0:12:47.276 can't ask a student to engage in the pursuit of 0:12:47.316 --> 0:12:49.876 truth and at the same time have them wake up 0:12:49.916 --> 0:12:52.036 in the middle of the night with a sense of dread. 0:12:52.996 --> 0:12:56.196 Hope has an accounting program, and Scogan was a big 0:12:56.236 --> 0:12:59.196 fan of accounting, but he felt the way things were 0:12:59.516 --> 0:13:04.316 accounting would always win out over philosophy, which didn't seem right. 0:13:04.916 --> 0:13:05.836 I actually think. 0:13:07.196 --> 0:13:10.516 Students don't come to college with a life plan. They 0:13:10.556 --> 0:13:13.476 come to college with questions, lots and lots of questions 0:13:13.516 --> 0:13:17.196 about their purpose. And it might be the case that 0:13:17.396 --> 0:13:21.236 studying philosophy or studying the classics is precisely how you're 0:13:21.276 --> 0:13:23.596 going to find your purpose. And yet if you're coming 0:13:23.596 --> 0:13:26.316 with fifty thousand dollars of debt, you might get skewed 0:13:26.316 --> 0:13:28.476 into or you might get you might feel nudge into 0:13:28.516 --> 0:13:33.556 studying accounting, and therefore maybe miss maybe miss something that's 0:13:33.556 --> 0:13:34.156 in your purpose. 0:13:34.676 --> 0:13:39.476 Okay, back to your college search. After Desert Island High, 0:13:39.556 --> 0:13:42.236 you come to America, and what you discover on your 0:13:42.236 --> 0:13:46.036 college tour is how strangely similar a lot of colleges are. 0:13:46.716 --> 0:13:50.316 William's College looks like Amherst, which in turn looks like 0:13:50.436 --> 0:13:53.436 William and Mary, which looks like a smaller version of 0:13:53.476 --> 0:13:57.356 the University of Virginia. Everybody wants to be the same thing, 0:13:57.756 --> 0:14:01.396 the same look, and the same business model, find as 0:14:01.436 --> 0:14:04.276 many full paying students as they can and charge you 0:14:04.516 --> 0:14:07.916 as much tuition as they can get away with. Why 0:14:07.956 --> 0:14:10.476 are all the colleges the same? My dad taught at 0:14:10.516 --> 0:14:13.196 the University of Waterloo in southern Ontario, and they had 0:14:13.236 --> 0:14:15.836 what they called a co op program, with a college 0:14:15.956 --> 0:14:19.756 arranged with local employers to hire students join their off term. 0:14:20.356 --> 0:14:23.116 Everybody was on co op. To give you a flavor 0:14:23.116 --> 0:14:25.556 of how it works, I asked a student named Spencer 0:14:25.756 --> 0:14:28.436 who just graduated from Waterloo to give me a break 0:14:28.436 --> 0:14:31.636 down of his finances. This is what Spencer told me. 0:14:32.476 --> 0:14:36.636 Total for year costs tuition plus room and board were 0:14:36.676 --> 0:14:39.076 a hundred and twenty two thousand dollars. In that time, 0:14:39.116 --> 0:14:41.836 he did six co op terms working with a government 0:14:41.956 --> 0:14:45.316 organization and several firms in his field, and they paid 0:14:45.356 --> 0:14:48.276 him a total of eighty one thousand dollars. So his 0:14:48.396 --> 0:14:52.156 overall cost out of pocket for getting an engineering degree 0:14:52.756 --> 0:14:57.116 was forty thousand. That's not bad. Plus, and I'm quoting 0:14:57.156 --> 0:14:59.756 here from his email, I'll add that a good thing 0:14:59.836 --> 0:15:02.516 is that the majority of my classmates were graduating with 0:15:02.596 --> 0:15:05.196 a job lined up due to the co op program 0:15:05.236 --> 0:15:09.996 and industry connections. Now, do I think co op programs 0:15:10.076 --> 0:15:13.596 could work everywhere and solve every problem? No, of course not. 0:15:14.236 --> 0:15:17.076 But the University of Waterloo has been running this program 0:15:17.156 --> 0:15:22.356 for almost seventy years. It's a huge success. You would think, 0:15:22.516 --> 0:15:25.636 wouldn't you that versions of the idea would have spread 0:15:25.676 --> 0:15:28.996 everywhere by now that every school that has a problem 0:15:28.996 --> 0:15:31.796 with students graduating with lots of debt, which by the 0:15:31.796 --> 0:15:35.316 way is nearly every school would have experimented with ways 0:15:35.356 --> 0:15:38.476 of connecting with local businesses to give their students work 0:15:38.476 --> 0:15:42.436 experience enlighten their debt burden. Has it happened? 0:15:43.196 --> 0:15:43.396 No? 0:15:44.236 --> 0:15:47.716 Why Because college presidents have their heads in the clouds. 0:15:49.316 --> 0:15:52.356 If you kind of look at the trajectory of higher education, 0:15:52.436 --> 0:15:55.076 it's just not going to end well. This trajectory of 0:15:55.116 --> 0:15:57.356 like tuition goes up by three to five percent every year, 0:15:57.796 --> 0:15:59.636 it's just not going to work. And so this sense 0:15:59.676 --> 0:16:03.516 of like somebody has to do something at the end 0:16:03.556 --> 0:16:04.876 of the day. The thing I love most about this 0:16:04.916 --> 0:16:08.996 place is our name Hope. Hope by definition means that 0:16:09.516 --> 0:16:12.396 we believe problems are solvable, and that's what we try 0:16:12.436 --> 0:16:15.156 to prepare our students to be Hope bringers, people who 0:16:15.156 --> 0:16:17.316 go out in the world and run toward not a way, 0:16:17.316 --> 0:16:19.796 but run toward the biggest challenges they can find. And 0:16:19.876 --> 0:16:22.516 that's why we exist. And we felt like and the 0:16:22.556 --> 0:16:25.276 board felt like, who better than a place called Hope 0:16:25.316 --> 0:16:28.236 to run toward this big societal challenge which is the 0:16:28.276 --> 0:16:29.556 funding model of higher education. 0:16:30.156 --> 0:16:33.876 So Scogan made a radical decision, Let's make it so 0:16:33.996 --> 0:16:37.476 students don't have to think about money at all during 0:16:37.476 --> 0:16:40.156 their four years of college and put in place a 0:16:40.196 --> 0:16:42.916 pay it forward model. Will you give back to the 0:16:42.916 --> 0:16:47.476 college after you've graduated. That's the program that Scogan calls 0:16:47.516 --> 0:16:51.676 Hope Forward. To apply, you write an essay describing an 0:16:51.716 --> 0:16:54.756 area of hopelessness to which you want to bring hope. 0:16:55.276 --> 0:16:58.116 They started small. After the first two years they have 0:16:58.116 --> 0:17:00.836 a total of fifty eight students in the program. The 0:17:00.876 --> 0:17:04.036 goal is to enroll one hundred freshmen annually within the 0:17:04.076 --> 0:17:07.196 next few years and keep the program growing until it 0:17:07.236 --> 0:17:07.956 covers everyone. 0:17:09.396 --> 0:17:11.956 And you don't pay anything. You don't pay anything for tuition. 0:17:12.956 --> 0:17:15.676 Sign We call it a covenant. It's basically a commitment. 0:17:15.796 --> 0:17:17.236 I sign it on behalf of the college and then 0:17:17.236 --> 0:17:19.756 the student signs it, So we're entering into this sort 0:17:19.796 --> 0:17:23.156 of covenantal relationship, not a transactional agreement. It's not a contract, 0:17:23.196 --> 0:17:25.916 it's not a legal contract, but it's this relationship with 0:17:26.276 --> 0:17:29.756 mutual commitment. And the commitment we're making as an institution 0:17:29.916 --> 0:17:31.396 is we're saying we're going to give you a great 0:17:31.476 --> 0:17:34.836 education and then launch you into a life of impact afterwards. 0:17:34.876 --> 0:17:37.396 And the commitment the student is making is they're going 0:17:37.436 --> 0:17:40.116 to take their education seriously and then they're going to 0:17:40.156 --> 0:17:42.996 give something to the college every year after they graduate. 0:17:43.436 --> 0:17:46.076 We don't specify an amount, we don't suggest an amount, 0:17:46.516 --> 0:17:48.396 nothing like that, because we want it to truly be 0:17:48.516 --> 0:17:50.716 a gift, a gift that's given out of generosity, and 0:17:50.756 --> 0:17:52.356 we don't want it to feel like it's a different 0:17:52.356 --> 0:17:54.716 flavor of a student loan bill. Like we're trying to 0:17:54.756 --> 0:17:56.716 move away from a system that's based on bill paying 0:17:56.756 --> 0:17:59.156 and replace it with a system that's based on gift giving, 0:17:59.836 --> 0:18:03.076 so that the relationship with students is not a transactional 0:18:03.076 --> 0:18:05.116 one at all, but rather a relationship based at its 0:18:05.116 --> 0:18:08.036 core around generosity and gratitude. 0:18:08.196 --> 0:18:10.596 The math behind it pay it Forward system is, to 0:18:10.636 --> 0:18:15.356 say the least daunting. Problem Number one is the transition period. 0:18:15.956 --> 0:18:18.996 A school like Hope takes in about fifty five million 0:18:19.076 --> 0:18:22.596 dollars intuition. If you say to your students, don't pay 0:18:22.596 --> 0:18:25.196 anything until later, then you have to come up with 0:18:25.316 --> 0:18:27.876 fifty five million dollars every year until the pay it 0:18:27.916 --> 0:18:31.836 forward money comes trickling in. If Hope Forward covered everyone, 0:18:32.276 --> 0:18:34.556 the school would need about a billion dollars to handle 0:18:34.596 --> 0:18:39.036 that transition period. Problem number two is what happens after 0:18:39.236 --> 0:18:42.636 the transition period. How do you know that Hope Forward 0:18:42.676 --> 0:18:45.516 graduates will give back an amount equal to the cost 0:18:45.556 --> 0:18:49.516 of their education? Scogan freely admits he doesn't. 0:18:50.316 --> 0:18:52.476 Some may give far less than that, some may give 0:18:52.596 --> 0:18:55.516 way more than that. I think that's another reason why 0:18:55.556 --> 0:18:57.636 we decided to not put a specific amount on it. 0:18:57.676 --> 0:18:59.796 If we say you've made a commitment to give, and 0:18:59.836 --> 0:19:02.116 we suggest this amount in order to pay off what 0:19:02.156 --> 0:19:04.276 you would have paid through tuition, well then people give 0:19:04.396 --> 0:19:07.676 that amount, presumably. But by not putting an amount, some 0:19:07.716 --> 0:19:09.836 people may give way more than they would have paid 0:19:09.916 --> 0:19:11.916 through tuition, and others will give less. And I think 0:19:11.956 --> 0:19:14.556 what this model does is it gives us as an institution, 0:19:15.356 --> 0:19:17.876 we're highly incentivized to help our students be successful. The 0:19:18.076 --> 0:19:20.676 more successful they are, the more opportunities they'll have to give. 0:19:21.396 --> 0:19:24.156 And likewise, for our students, you know, it's kind of 0:19:24.276 --> 0:19:26.676 like the onus is on them when they're in their 0:19:26.716 --> 0:19:29.676 earnings years. Then it's up to them to determine how 0:19:29.716 --> 0:19:32.596 important their education was in launching them into their career, 0:19:33.156 --> 0:19:35.796 and they're sort of then paying them what they think 0:19:35.796 --> 0:19:37.236 this was worth. And it's you know, I think it's 0:19:37.316 --> 0:19:39.836 up to us then to make the education so valuable 0:19:39.876 --> 0:19:42.116 that they're grateful for it after they graduate. 0:19:42.556 --> 0:19:44.076 You are stealing into the unknown. 0:19:44.356 --> 0:19:44.956 Oh totally. 0:19:46.276 --> 0:19:50.916 Is Matt Skogan crazy? Maybe, But I have to say 0:19:51.076 --> 0:19:54.756 that I'm an optimist on Hope Forward. First, I think 0:19:54.796 --> 0:19:57.716 that Scogan is right that the success of the program 0:19:57.716 --> 0:20:01.356 depends on the school convincing its graduates that their education 0:20:01.596 --> 0:20:05.436 was worth something. Although it's early, the evidence so far 0:20:05.556 --> 0:20:08.956 is encouraging. The students admitted into Hope Forward as a 0:20:09.156 --> 0:20:12.876 group have slightly lower academic credentials coming into the school 0:20:13.076 --> 0:20:15.916 than the rest of their freshman class, but after their 0:20:15.916 --> 0:20:20.876 first year they're outperforming their non Hope Forward peers. There's 0:20:20.916 --> 0:20:25.556 something different about your attitude towards school once you're inside 0:20:25.796 --> 0:20:31.756 the gratitude generosity loop. Second thing, most of the students 0:20:31.756 --> 0:20:33.996 at Hope grew up in the church, and this is 0:20:34.036 --> 0:20:37.156 how a church works, right. You don't pay church tuition 0:20:37.276 --> 0:20:40.836 at the door. Sometimes churches encourage you to tithe a 0:20:40.916 --> 0:20:43.676 tenth of your income, but most times you just give 0:20:43.716 --> 0:20:47.756 whatever you can and the congregation and the preacher trust 0:20:47.836 --> 0:20:50.436 in God that whatever comes in from the offering on 0:20:50.476 --> 0:20:53.316 Sunday morning will cover the expenses for the rest of 0:20:53.356 --> 0:20:53.716 the week. 0:20:54.516 --> 0:20:57.076 I remember one of the things that presidents going inside 0:20:57.076 --> 0:21:00.316 was that we're trying to fund higher education than way 0:21:00.316 --> 0:21:04.236 that we fund churches, which is through craft funding, And 0:21:04.316 --> 0:21:08.076 I felt like that metaphor helps it make a lot 0:21:08.116 --> 0:21:08.836 more sense to me. 0:21:09.916 --> 0:21:11.956 I met with a group of Hope Forward students at 0:21:11.956 --> 0:21:16.036 one point. This was a sophomore named Olivia. Pay it 0:21:16.076 --> 0:21:18.716 Forward made sense to her conceptually, the. 0:21:18.756 --> 0:21:20.756 Maybea the church is like you give what you can 0:21:20.956 --> 0:21:25.116 when you can, and you give because you want to 0:21:25.396 --> 0:21:27.716