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Speaker 1: So joining me now is somebody for many of us

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Speaker 1: of a certain age in Washington, is that I would

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Speaker 1: deem an institution. It's Paul Glasters, the editor in chief

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Speaker 1: of the Washington Monthly. Many of us count the Washington

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Speaker 1: Monthly as one of the first magazines that published us.

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Speaker 1: That would be me. So when I started seeing could

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Speaker 1: I do this? Could I write long form after all

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Speaker 1: of my sort of wire copy years at the National

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Speaker 1: Journal and doing the hotline. And Paul was an extraordinarily

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Speaker 1: generous editor and a great mentor to a lot of

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Speaker 1: writers and reporters around Washington. So this is a real

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Speaker 1: treat for me. Paul, It's good to see you, Chuck.

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Speaker 2: What a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. And I

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Speaker 2: remember that story well by John Kerry.

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Speaker 1: I think, yes, yes it was, And so I have

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Speaker 1: you on because you did something that I love and

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Speaker 1: it's something, frankly that I remember. The Obama administer wanted

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Speaker 1: to make a bigger deal out of which was how

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Speaker 1: can we create a list of best colleges for bang

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Speaker 1: for your buck? Essentially, you know what's going to provide

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Speaker 1: you the education that you need without making you have

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Speaker 1: to go into debt for the rest of your life

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Speaker 1: or to do blood oaths to people that maybe you

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Speaker 1: don't want to give blood oaths too, because you want

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Speaker 1: to get into this Ivy League university, that Ivy League university.

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Speaker 1: I will note the irony that you once worked at

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Speaker 1: US News and now you have a competing list. But

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Speaker 1: this is and look where I want to talk about

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Speaker 1: the future of journalism and and sort of and where

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Speaker 1: that goes to. But talk to me about the decision

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Speaker 1: to do this list and for the Washington Monthly, and

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Speaker 1: how would you describe it and what what what motivated

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Speaker 1: you to do it?

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Speaker 2: Well, you're right that that I used to work at

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Speaker 2: US News and the U S News College rankings paid

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Speaker 2: my mortgage, all of us Right, there was always a

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Speaker 2: kind of undercurrent of concern about the adequacy of the numbers.

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Speaker 2: And when my friend Jim Fallows became the editor, he

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Speaker 2: commissioned internal study by a very reputable organization that found

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Speaker 2: that the use of their metrics, I think the quote

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Speaker 2: was something like made no logical or methodological sense. And

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Speaker 2: when he reported this to the owner, Mort Zuckerman of

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Speaker 2: the US News, and this was the major revenue driver

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Speaker 2: of the publication, Jim was shortly escorted out the door.

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Speaker 2: And it was not too long after that I quit

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Speaker 2: when Jim was fired. And it was a couple of

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Speaker 2: years later that, miraculously who knows that in study made

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Speaker 2: its way into the Washington Monthly and we did a

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Speaker 2: couple of deep dive investigative pieces about US News and

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Speaker 2: I determined the idea of ranking colleges is fine, right, often,

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Speaker 2: how dare you rank colleges? Nobody can compare us? Well,

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Speaker 2: you know, we ranked football teams, we ranked students, we

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Speaker 2: can rank colleges. But that basically US News does it

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Speaker 2: in a kind of a horrific way. And I'm going

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Speaker 2: to simplify their metrics, but it's basically this. They reward

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Speaker 2: colleges in their metrics for three things. Number one, exclusivity.

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Speaker 2: How few students do you let in? It's sort of

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Speaker 2: the idea that, you know, college is like a country

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Speaker 2: club lectures instead of golf and velvet rope. Yeah, and

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Speaker 2: you know, which is kind of wacky when you think

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Speaker 2: about it. If you few restaurants. They don't count country clubs, right,

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Speaker 2: They say, the best restaurant in the city is this

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Speaker 2: country club. Well, I can't get into that country club.

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Speaker 2: Why are you telling me this, it's kind of useless

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Speaker 2: information to anybody who isn't you know, at the very

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Speaker 2: upper level of the SAT range, and you know the

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Speaker 2: way that thing works out. It's mostly people from affluent,

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Speaker 2: wealthy families who go to the best high schools, who

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Speaker 2: have years of prep. Those are the ones again into

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Speaker 2: the IVY League. So for ninety percent of Americans, they

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Speaker 2: don't even consider those schools. They're not for them, right.

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Speaker 2: Exclusivity is how US News And there's about a dozen

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Speaker 2: other rankings out there, and they all, almost all of

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Speaker 2: them do the same thing. They say, who do you

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Speaker 2: How many people can you say no to? That must

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Speaker 2: be you're good. The second thing they reward is spending

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Speaker 2: is wealth. How much money do we spend on our students?

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Speaker 2: Which if you're only mostly letting in wealthy students, you've

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Speaker 2: got a lot of money, right, so you can spend money.

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Speaker 2: And then the third is reputation. US News does this

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Speaker 2: survey of college leaders and they ask you what do

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Speaker 2: you think of that other college, as if that leader

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Speaker 2: knows anything about what's going on in the classroom one

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Speaker 2: thousand miles away. But it's sort of like, you know,

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Speaker 2: high school who are the cool kids. Everybody else the

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Speaker 2: cool kids are. So the cool kids are the cool

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Speaker 2: kids because everybody say they're the cool kids. We said,

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Speaker 2: these are really terrible metrics. They're not useful for most students,

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Speaker 2: and they're very bad for the country. Right. They drive inequality,

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Speaker 2: they drive snobbery, they drive expense. They make college more expensive.

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Speaker 2: Every college president and system wants their college to go

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Speaker 2: hire on the US News list. And so they, wellt's

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Speaker 2: throw some more money at it. Let's tell you know,

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Speaker 2: our constituct our students. No, you can't get in. Let's

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Speaker 2: deny people at education. It's crazy. So we said, all right.

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Speaker 2: I actually hired the woman who had done the study

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Speaker 2: right for Jim Follows, and I said, help me design

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Speaker 2: a different set of rankings. And so we said, what

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Speaker 2: is it that the average person, not the most affluent people,

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Speaker 2: not people who went to Harvard, but the average person

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Speaker 2: wants out of their investment in higher education. And when

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Speaker 2: I say investment, I don't just mean tuition dollars, I

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Speaker 2: mean your tax dollars. Government at every level, Chuck spends

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Speaker 2: half a trillion dollars a year on higher ed. That

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Speaker 2: is seventeen hundred dollars out of pocket for the average taxpayer.

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Speaker 1: Right, whether you go, whether they go to college or not,

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Speaker 1: they have contributed, right, they've contributed dollars to the college

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Speaker 1: is providing some value for the country and for ourselves specifically.

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Speaker 2: So what is that value? And so we came up

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Speaker 2: with three alternative metrics. Number one, what you alluded to

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Speaker 2: best bang for your buck upward mobility? Does a college

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Speaker 2: recruit and graduate students of modest means? Right, working class students,

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Speaker 2: middle class students.

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Speaker 1: Boards, students, first gen basically first gen college?

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Speaker 2: Right? Does it recruit and graduate students of modest means

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Speaker 2: with degrees that don't cost you much, don't load them

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Speaker 2: down with debt, and that means something in the market

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Speaker 2: such that they earn middle class or better incomes.

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Speaker 1: They've moved up the latter, they're making more money than

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Speaker 1: their parents exactly.

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Speaker 2: Number two research, Do colleges create the scholarship and scholars

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Speaker 2: that drive new economic growth, solutions to global problems, you know,

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Speaker 2: cures for diseases, et cetera. And number three what we

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Speaker 2: call service. Open up the mission statement of just about

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Speaker 2: any college, and there's going to be a sentence in

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Speaker 2: there that's saying point of this university is to create,

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Speaker 2: is to educate young people to take their place as

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Speaker 2: engaged members of their democracy. So we're the only ranking

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Speaker 2: that holds schools to account for their own mission statement

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Speaker 2: in that regard. And so a school gets extra points

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Speaker 2: in our ranking if they have a robust ROTC program

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Speaker 2: serving in the military, if they students go on into

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Speaker 2: the Peace Corps, if they are friendly to people financially

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Speaker 2: who serve in America Corps. If their voter registration numbers

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Speaker 2: are high and they do what they need to do

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Speaker 2: to make voting easier for their students. If they use

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Speaker 2: some of their work study money to provide community service

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Speaker 2: opportunities rather than just you know, free free labor for

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Speaker 2: the college, that sort of thing. And so when you

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Speaker 2: put those three things together, you get an entirely different ranking.

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Speaker 2: All the other rankings, it's all the top thirty or

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Speaker 2: all the colleges that are always there, right, they're almost

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Speaker 2: never changed, harvardt Stanford, maybe a couple of stories.

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Speaker 1: They freak out if they lose a notch er two.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you hear about it. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think Georgetown got all freaked out that

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Speaker 1: they went from twenty five to twenty seven. Yeah, they're like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, you know this guy's falling. No, this

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Speaker 1: is huge for these colleges.

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Speaker 2: And again, so you go to the top twenty or thirty,

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Speaker 2: and they're all schools most people can't get into, right,

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Speaker 2: they're all country clubs and look elite schools. They do

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Speaker 2: a good job. I wound up, you know, transferring to

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Speaker 2: one and got an elite degree after going to state school.

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Speaker 2: More power to it. If you can get in, you'll

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Speaker 2: make a lot of money, you'll have a great network.

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Speaker 2: But most people can't, right, that's the point. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: so the top schools in US News this year barely

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Speaker 2: budged the top thirty schools in Washington Monthly. Half of

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Speaker 2: the worried these elite schools. Well, and you know, Duke and.

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Speaker 1: Say your Rice is your Vanderbilts, They're on there. I

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Speaker 1: was looking at the South, but then you got a

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Speaker 1: school like that's number I was just looking, right, the

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Speaker 1: number one school in the South for best bang for

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Speaker 1: your buck, and the number one liberal arts college is Brea.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the number one school among fourteen hundred colleges

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Speaker 2: that we rank.

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Speaker 1: That's I mean, nobody would have had that where's Brea

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Speaker 1: in the US news rank? Oh?

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Speaker 2: I mean, you know, if you off to the side

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Speaker 2: and some side ranking, they probably give it, you know,

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Speaker 2: some lip service. But we're the only ranking in the

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Speaker 2: country that says Berea University in Barrack in breat Kentucky. Berea,

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Speaker 2: by the way.

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Speaker 1: I mean, excuse me, yeah, I know we're both is the.

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Speaker 2: Number one school and and why because they do an

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Speaker 2: astonishing job of providing a grant education to students of

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Speaker 2: modest means. Most of their students percent of their students,

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Speaker 2: by the way, are on pelgrams. That's the federal Where

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Speaker 2: is where is Brion? Bria is in Borea and it's

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Speaker 2: I don't know, seventy five miles from Lexington, if that

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Speaker 2: puts you in the.

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Speaker 1: So it's in that side of Kentucky.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Lexington, and almost all their students are from the Appalachia.

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Speaker 2: Colige was founded in eighteen fifty five by abolitionists, and

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Speaker 2: it was the first college south of the Mason Dixon

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Speaker 2: line to educate both blacks and whites and women. And

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Speaker 2: for more than one hundred years it's had the aspiration

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Speaker 2: to charge no tuition to anybody, and they don't quite

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Speaker 2: get there, but the vast majority of the students pay

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Speaker 2: little to nothing and they do that. How do they?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, how do they do it?

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Speaker 2: It's fascinating. I did. We would do a podcast and

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Speaker 2: I interviewed the president Cynthia Nixon is her name.

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Speaker 1: Number one, that's not that Cynthia Nixon, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: A different they think that's her name. A very bright woman,

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Speaker 2: and she explained it to us Number one, very what

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Speaker 2: really designated work college meaning all of their students get

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Speaker 2: work study money, so and then some of that money

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Speaker 2: goes to pay their tuition and some of it goes

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Speaker 2: in their pocket. Number two h And really the biggest

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Speaker 2: reason is for one hundred years they've been building a

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Speaker 2: a endowment through small donations that's now like a billion

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Speaker 2: and a half dollars.

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Speaker 1: Well, they just are really smart investors.

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Speaker 2: Smart investors. And if you start a hundred years ago

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Speaker 2: and you keep going magical compound interest and instead of

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Speaker 2: like using it to build sports stadiums or endow you know.

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Speaker 1: Or beautiful dorms, right, that becomes the arms race at

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Speaker 1: these universities for dorms that look like they look like

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Speaker 1: midtown Manhattan apartments exactly.

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Speaker 2: It all goes or not. You know, the bulk of

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Speaker 2: it goes to keeping costs down for students and then

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Speaker 2: the students. It's it's, it's, it's it's a selective ish university.

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Speaker 2: Not everybody gets in. It's not like Yale, but it's

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Speaker 2: an academically rigorous institution. When you go look on the

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Speaker 2: student reports, it's like, wow, I'm working my tail off here.

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Speaker 2: But when students leave, they earn five thousand dollars more

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Speaker 2: per year than their peers, their demographic peers who will

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Speaker 2: go to colin So you know, that's just our idea

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Speaker 2: of a great school. And if you look at like

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Speaker 2: just the top five the most the highest ranking elite

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Speaker 2: school is Princeton at number five. I think Harvard's down

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Speaker 2: at twenty six or something. But above Princeton are three

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Speaker 2: campuses of the California State University system. The number two

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Speaker 2: Fresno State, which I'm going to guess most of your

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Speaker 2: listeners and viewers don't know much about it, maybe have

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Speaker 2: never heard of, but it shows up on a Saturday

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Speaker 2: night in college football.

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Speaker 1: It does bully, you do see that.

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Speaker 2: But they are a fabulous institution. They charge very little.

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Speaker 2: The students come from that Central Valley of California, many

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Speaker 2: of them from very poor backgrounds. The president of the

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Speaker 2: university grew up working on a farm in the area.

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Speaker 2: The students when they graduate tend to stay in the area.

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Speaker 2: They don't jet off to New York and work for

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Speaker 2: a you know, hedge fund, and some of them go

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Speaker 2: back to work for agricultural companies where as children they

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Speaker 2: pick crops. That is upward mobility, my friend. Right, And

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Speaker 2: so you know, these are the colleges that are really

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Speaker 2: the ones we should all elevate and try to support,

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Speaker 2: and unfortunately they are. They are underinvested in. They don't

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Speaker 2: get anywhere near the money that schools that you know,

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Speaker 2: catered to the wealthier student and it's it's kind of

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Speaker 2: a crime.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting if there's a pattern, loose pattern

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Speaker 1: that I've noticed a lot of colleges, meaning these are

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Speaker 1: schools that don't have graduate programs right in many cases

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Speaker 1: they are just focused on the four year I assume

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Speaker 1: that's not a coincidence and how your rankings work that

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Speaker 1: that those that these these colleges that are just focused

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Speaker 1: on there are not worried about because many many universities

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Speaker 1: it is the graduate programs that pay the bills. Right,

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Speaker 1: you know, in some ways undergrad is a loss leader,

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Speaker 1: and so is there. Do you get a sense that

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Speaker 1: those without the graduate schools, without the the the postgrad

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Speaker 1: you know, whether it's med schools, law schools, et cetera,

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Speaker 1: that it it sort of concentrates the administration on running

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Speaker 1: a better four year undergrad system.

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Speaker 2: I think there's a lot to that. You know, there

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Speaker 2: are tiers of universities that are classified by an institution

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Speaker 2: called the Carnegie H Classification for Institutions for Higher Education,

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Speaker 2: and we used to follow them kind of rigorously. Because

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Speaker 2: US News did funny you should mention this year they

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Speaker 2: really switched up their rankings and that and that allowed

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Speaker 2: us to kind of free ourselves from how we used

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Speaker 2: to do it. And one of the things we did,

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Speaker 2: uh afropop what you said, is we pulled all the

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Speaker 2: research data out of our main rankings and just made

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Speaker 2: a best Colleges for research because that's where the grad

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Speaker 2: programs are really really are and those are those are

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Speaker 2: the universities, and there's maybe a couple hundred of them

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Speaker 2: that have very big robust med schools, law schools, engineering schools,

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Speaker 2: and so forth.

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Speaker 1: You look at your list, and it is the big

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Speaker 1: These are the school the big schools. It's Michigan, it's Stanford,

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Speaker 1: it's Berkeley, it's pur New Texas A and M one

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Speaker 1: through five, all of them huge research institutions.

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Speaker 2: Right, So we said, let's just put those guys in

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Speaker 2: their own category.

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Speaker 1: By the way, Texas A and M over. Mit, you

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Speaker 1: know how much some Texans would love seeing that.

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Speaker 2: They do. They they brag on it, and you know,

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Speaker 2: not to get too political here, but these are the

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Speaker 2: schools that the Trump administration is really going after cuts

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Speaker 2: to research grants. One of the things we found in

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Speaker 2: doing this exercise, and it's in the story, is that

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Speaker 2: sure he's gone after the big research universities in blue

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Speaker 2: cities and states, but the ones that are also being hit.

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Speaker 2: There are a lot of big research universities in red

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Speaker 2: states and in rural areas, and they're getting hurt. And

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Speaker 2: and it's like a lot of Trump administration policy, it

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Speaker 2: is aimed at his enemies, but it winds up damaging

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Speaker 2: his vote.

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Speaker 1: There's a whole Paul I can tell you this. There's

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of lobbyists making money right now off

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Speaker 1: of universities who've hired them to say, hey, get us

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Speaker 1: off this target list. We're not what I don't think

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Speaker 1: he mean. And and what you find out, I happen

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Speaker 1: to know of one very public university that that's having

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Speaker 1: some success doing that because they got as you just said,

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Speaker 1: they lost some stuff that was aimed at punishing a

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Speaker 1: Northeastern school and it ended up punishing the southern big

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Speaker 1: state school. And that is it wasn't the intent. And

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Speaker 1: so like just like the farmers, he's trying, they're trying

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Speaker 1: to create carve outs now you know, which of course

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Speaker 1: just got gum up the whole works.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, And it's and it's a it's a

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Speaker 2: politics truck that we've never seen in this country.

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Speaker 1: As the weaponizing college research. Right, Like that's another.

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Speaker 2: Level specific targeting of your political enemies on funding that

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Speaker 2: was never intended to be anything but given out on merit,

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Speaker 2: right given out.

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Speaker 1: And it's and not even really political stuff. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, whether it's health funding, whether it's research. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is stuff that is arguably for the masses.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so so so I hope that people take

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Speaker 2: away from our rankings. I mean, I think our rankings

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Speaker 2: resonate at this moment, because there's so much fury at

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Speaker 2: higher end, and the fury is in all directions, from

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Speaker 2: all quarters. And you know, a lot of it is

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Speaker 2: political and partisan, and I think, you know, maybe have

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Speaker 2: has grains of truth in it, but is also you know,

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Speaker 2: kind of hypocritical. People. I'm furious about elite universities and

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Speaker 2: college in general, and absolutely desperate to get their kids

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Speaker 2: in there. But part of the fury is is real.

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Speaker 2: Is it costs a lot of money now to send

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Speaker 2: a kid to college or send yourself to college. I

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Speaker 2: mean real inflation adjusted spending for two year schools has

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Speaker 2: nearly doubled since nineteen ninety four, and more than doubled

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Speaker 2: for four year schools. And you know, people are saying,

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Speaker 2: you know, is college still worth it? Well, you go

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Speaker 2: to the Washington Mother, you see hundreds of colleges that

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Speaker 2: are really very much worth it. But in general, you know,

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Speaker 2: at Toyota is a great buy at thirty thousand dollars, yeah,

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Speaker 2: roll or whatever. At one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,

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Speaker 2: it's not worth it. Right, So until we can get

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Speaker 2: the cost of college down and prove the quality, because

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Speaker 2: a lot of colleges are not delivering quality. You're going

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Speaker 2: to have this this fury, this this distrust.

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Speaker 1: There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like

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Speaker 1: there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury

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Speaker 1: twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients.

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Speaker 1: It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing,

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Speaker 1: just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible.

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Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars,

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Speaker 1: which was a staggering forty times the amount that the

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Speaker 1: insurance company originally offered. That original offer six hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So with more than one thousand lawyers across

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Speaker 1: the country, they know how to deliver for everyday people.

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Speaker 1: Their fee is free unless they win. What's the best

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Speaker 1: way to find out? I mean, I'll tell you all

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Speaker 1: these rankings where I feel and it's one of those

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Speaker 1: things I didn't really appreciate until after I got on

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Speaker 1: a campus. But what kind of professors? What kind of

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Speaker 1: teachers do they have? How do they hire their professors?

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Speaker 1: Do they demand professors that do research and prioritize their

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Speaker 1: own work or do they hire teachers real coaches? When

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Speaker 1: I mean a teacher, I mean like a coach you

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Speaker 1: know who becomes that mentor you know? I mean, look,

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Speaker 1: I teach part time. I'm I'm on use USC's campus

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Speaker 1: right now, and I did an event last night and

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Speaker 1: three of my former students showed up and it it

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Speaker 1: brought a ton of joy to me. Right It is

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Speaker 1: that there is a joy you get out of it

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Speaker 1: when you feel like you've you've been able to pass

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Speaker 1: something on, you've been able to inspire a student. And

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Speaker 1: not all people are motivated by that or have that.

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Speaker 1: Is there a way to measure what kind of because

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Speaker 1: you could you look at a resume of somebody, well,

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Speaker 1: what a great resume, but you have no idea if

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Speaker 1: there are any good at being a teacher and they

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Speaker 1: know how to be a coach, you know, that sort

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Speaker 1: of mindset, you know, is that researchable? Is that rankable?

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Speaker 2: So we've really struggled with this, and there are there

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Speaker 2: is some data that you can use to measure the

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Speaker 2: quality of student engagement, quality of teaching, but we are

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Speaker 2: sufficiently doubtful of it to not We've written stories about it.

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Speaker 1: We've you know, is this what sort of the student

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Speaker 1: reaction to professors? Is it?

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Speaker 2: Using those rate of professors professor? There's something called the

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Speaker 2: National Survey of Student Engagement. You know, they ask students

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Speaker 2: and you know, faculty, how many times during the course

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Speaker 2: of the week have you met with a professor outside

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Speaker 2: the classroom? Right? How many ten page or more papers did.

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Speaker 1: You have to write?

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Speaker 2: They try to measure the degree to which actual evidence

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Speaker 2: based practices that we know lead to learning are happening

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Speaker 2: on the ground. Not bad, but it's not of a

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Speaker 2: quality that we've been felt comfortable to put in our rankings.

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Speaker 2: But you're asking the right question anecdotally, Like I went

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Speaker 2: to the University of Missouri my freshman year. It's good,

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Speaker 2: good school. The flag that I transferred to Northwestern. Honestly,

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Speaker 2: the quality of the teaching at Northwestern wasn't any better

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Speaker 2: than the quality teaching that I had at MISSOI I

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Speaker 2: bet that's.

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Speaker 1: Just how to pay higher rent that they did.

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Speaker 2: I've given lectures to, you know, many at many colleges.

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Speaker 2: I've been doing this college ranking thing for twenty years.

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Speaker 2: And you landed some small, Bucolic, you know, not well

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Speaker 2: known college in the middle of nowhere, and you know,

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Speaker 2: you meet these professors who are just wonderful, and they're

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Speaker 2: very smart, and the students adore them, and they have

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Speaker 2: degrees from very prestigious universities. The thing is, we overproduce

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Speaker 2: academic talent in this country. Right. Most people that get

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Speaker 2: PhDs struggle to find teaching jobs. And that's tough if

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Speaker 2: you're in that profession. But it's great if you're a

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Speaker 2: college in some far flung place. Sure you got your

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Speaker 2: pick a great talent.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you get a Harvard train, Princeton train, Michigan train

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Speaker 1: at you know, at a small college in the middle

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Speaker 1: of Canthus. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And the less research they're doing, the more time they're

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Speaker 2: all right, I'll just put my my my mission is

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Speaker 2: to is to educate these kids. So I do think

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Speaker 2: that the quality of teaching between elite schools and non

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Speaker 2: elite schools is very narrow, is very similar.

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Speaker 1: So one of the challenges that's coming. I say this.

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Speaker 1: I serve on a board at GW, so I hear

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Speaker 1: these admissions concerns, meaning it's the so called demographic cliff

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Speaker 1: that we are at the beginning of that. I guess

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Speaker 1: it's I guess it's my generation's fault. I didn't have

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Speaker 1: enough kids. I only had two, right, we didn't have

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Speaker 1: there were and you did your job. Yeah, I replaced right,

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Speaker 1: we replaced.

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Speaker 2: The environment i'd had to, and we can better close

435
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 2: them back.

436
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,639
Speaker 1: So but there's I look at a lot of your

437
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:55,680
Speaker 1: the colleges that made the rankings, and I know many

438
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: of them are financially strapped, and I think there is

439
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: going to be a a you know, in the next

440
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen years, we're gonna see colleges. I have

441
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:07,200
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who is the former well somebody

442
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:14,160
Speaker 1: you know Hobart who worked in the Clint administration yep,

443
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: back in the day. And I remember Mark gearan great guy.

444
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: And I remember Mark telling me this fifteen years ago

445
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: when he was at Hobart and then he left and

446
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 1: then he came back that there's real financial challenges for

447
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: these smaller basically the schools that performed best in your list.

448
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: You know, Bria has sounds like they have a good endowment.

449
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,199
Speaker 1: Many of these smaller colleges do not. And if you

450
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: take away international students and you take away some of

451
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 1: these things, there's gonna be some good colleges that go

452
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 1: bankrupt in the next ten years that just disappear. What

453
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 1: are you sensing, you know, have you been able to

454
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: pick up on how are some of these smaller colleges

455
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:01,959
Speaker 1: trying to survive in this in this tightening financial climate.

456
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 2: Well, I'll add one one more piece of news for you.

457
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 2: In the big beautiful Act that got passed, Uh, there

458
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 2: is uh statutory language that is saying colleges that don't

459
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 2: demonstrate bang for the buck, that don't demonstrate a good

460
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:25,640
Speaker 2: return on investment will eventually get cut off from federal financing.

461
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: Mmm.

462
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 2: So there's going to be in addition to.

463
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:30,640
Speaker 1: The interesting reckoning.

464
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, and honestly, the Washington Monthly has been calling for

465
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 2: something like this for years. You know, whether this bill

466
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 2: got it quite right, we can debate, but the the the.

467
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: Spirit you like the spirit of it a hundred. Look,

468
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: I remember the Obama administration couldn't get anything passed, so

469
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: they decided they were going to put out their own

470
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: best bang. It never really took you remember.

471
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 2: That, the kind of they we're going to make it

472
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 2: a ranking, and in the end they said, no, we'll

473
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 2: just put out.

474
00:28:57,400 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: The data that I both know what happened. You know,

475
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: I both know what happened. There so many of those

476
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: they all had connections to some higher institution, like don't

477
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: you rank us? Don't you do that? Yeah?

478
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 2: Exactly. They went about as far as they politically could.

479
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 2: But uh so, so if you look at our fourteen

480
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 2: hundred plus schools and our best best uh colleges for

481
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 2: your tuition and tax dollar ranking. We talked about the

482
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 2: good ones, the great ones, the you know uh you know,

483
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 2: uh President, there's a lot of colleges down on the blow.

484
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:38,719
Speaker 1: That really should go, should disappear. Huh. They need some

485
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: radical reform.

486
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 2: They charged too much, their students don't make that much money,

487
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 2: they don't graduate a there there almost predatory.

488
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: Now, let's let's name some names. What's what's a what's

489
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: one that.

490
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 2: People but you know, you know, liberty University, right, Yeah,

491
00:29:56,880 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 2: just a terrible college too late, right, people think is

492
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 2: a terrific Yeah.

493
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: My kids loved that was on the list.

494
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 2: At least by our reckoning. Right, I'm sure if you're yeah,

495
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 2: you know it has its But but so there's a

496
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,479
Speaker 2: lot of schools you hadn't heard of, a lot of

497
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 2: you know, the arts schools and the music schools where

498
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 2: you know, students go knowing they're never going to make

499
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 2: any money.

500
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 1: Berkeley School of Music, Yeah, one of those very expensive

501
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: and and and selective and no guarantee you're going to

502
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: make it all right. Look, I was a I was

503
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 1: a musician, yeah, and I did get a music scholarship.

504
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: But I remember toying with Berkeley and thought, man, I'm

505
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: not that that's a you're you're, you're, you're going for

506
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: the dream. And literally it's one percent that makes it

507
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 1: exactly exactly.

508
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 2: But so there are a lot of towns kept alive

509
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 2: in part by their university, and those are the places

510
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 2: my heart goes out to because one of the great

511
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 2: things about the American system of higher education is it's dispersed.

512
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 2: It's all over the country, and you know, you think of.

513
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: The every European marvels at this. Yeah, you just marvel

514
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: at it that we have these institutions everywhere.

515
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 2: And I think we need a new deal. And we've

516
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 2: written about this. Kevin Carry, one of our guest editors,

517
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 2: have written extensively about it. We need a deal, a

518
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 2: new deal for higher ed. We need to reach out

519
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 2: to colleges and say, on a voluntary basis, if you're

520
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 2: willing to control costs, to share your data so that

521
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 2: we can monitor what's going on and improve quality and

522
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 2: charge little to nothing to students of modest means, we're

523
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 2: going to cover you all your costs up to a

524
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 2: certain modest amount. This is an oversimplification shot, but the

525
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 2: average cost spending on a student, non accounting, room and board,

526
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 2: it's about ten thousand dollars a year to.

527
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: Go to college.

528
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 2: To cost to college. If you offered colleges ten thousand

529
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 2: dollars per student, that's the deal. And oh, by the way,

530
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 2: any credit at any college from a class transfers over

531
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 2: if that student goes to another college in the network.

532
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:32,959
Speaker 2: That could save thousands of hundreds of these schools anyway,

533
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of state schools would join in.

534
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 2: The elites would never do this, but that way you

535
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 2: could deliver free college or virtually free college to the

536
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 2: working middle class American. Save these schools, save these towns,

537
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 2: save these regions, have better quality at lower cost, and

538
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 2: I could be transformative for the country.

539
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: Well look, I mean I can already hear you essentially

540
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 1: making this pitch so that left and right both could

541
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 1: embrace it. Which is that's as much as to save

542
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 1: these rural towns that do love that.

543
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 2: You know.

544
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: It's funny, you know, there's this sort of war on

545
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: higher ed on the right, but locally they love you know.

546
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: It's like, frankly, it's like you're a member of Congress.

547
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 1: I can't stay in Congress, but I like my guy,

548
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 1: you know, right, I don't like these higher ed guys.

549
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:24,719
Speaker 1: But you know, we got a nice little university right

550
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: down the street here. It's a good you know, you know,

551
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: they produce really good people. I get my babysitters from there,

552
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 1: you know, type of mindset.

553
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And they have they have the local radio station,

554
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,479
Speaker 2: and they have right a lot of times they provide

555
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 2: the local news exactly exactly. And you know, there are

556
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 2: a lot of these regional public universities. The Fresno States

557
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:48,959
Speaker 2: the northeast Missouri state or Southeast Missouri state. These colleges

558
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 2: that are known regionally but have no national profile. That's

559
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 2: where most people get their BA degrees, right, and they're

560
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 2: underinvested in I think they get about one thousand dollars

561
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:07,320
Speaker 2: per student, less than the flagship universities in those states,

562
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 2: and maybe half or a third of what gets spent

563
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 2: for these elite schools. And they're doing the yeomen's work.

564
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 2: They are the up the engines of upward mobility in

565
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 2: this country.

566
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,360
Speaker 1: If we had had a conversation in the early nineties

567
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: the question, I would have assumed back then that we

568
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: were going to get what I call mandatory thirteenth and

569
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: fourteenth grade, meaning that the first two years of if

570
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 1: essentially community college was going to be free, that it

571
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 1: was going to be available the way public Essentially, we

572
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: were going to extend public education two more years. It

573
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 1: seemed inevitable. It's where I remember, you know, one of

574
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: the smarter strategic things that Bill Clinton did in ninety two,

575
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:57,799
Speaker 1: I remember was prioritizing campaign events at community colleges. Yeah,

576
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:00,919
Speaker 1: and you know, it was just you know, that could

577
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:02,839
Speaker 1: why do you do that? That's where the people are right,

578
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 1: like it was a you know, and he was. He

579
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:08,759
Speaker 1: was making an economic argument, and what better place to

580
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: do that where people are looking to make it to

581
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:15,240
Speaker 1: the middle class than there, And he took.

582
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 2: The he began the process of getting the banks out

583
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 2: of student financing because they were making a footload with

584
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 2: no risk and making it some college could offer directly. No,

585
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 2: he was absolutely right. And I don't know if you were, but.

586
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,760
Speaker 1: We're not there. I don't know. I was. I was shocked.

587
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: I am shocked that we didn't get the and I

588
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: know it was in the I think it was in

589
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: the initial draft of one of the bills, Bill Better Yeah, Back.

590
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 2: It was one of those different versions. It was doing

591
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 2: for community colleges what I just said we should do

592
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: for colleges. It was. It was basically a set of

593
00:35:55,280 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 2: funding and regulatory UH offers that said we're going to

594
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:07,840
Speaker 2: make community college free in America. And it came very close.

595
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,839
Speaker 2: No Republicans voted for it. I think Joe Manchin voted

596
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 2: against it. But what really killed it was the four

597
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:19,799
Speaker 2: year elite schools didn't want all that money because it's

598
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 2: a fixed pie. They thought they wanted the money for themselves,

599
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 2: and so they quietly but non publicly bad mouthed it,

600
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:29,280
Speaker 2: and it didn't make it became mack close.

601
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 1: Where what is the state the state of the community

602
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: college system? You know, I grew up in Miami, and

603
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 1: I grew up at the time Miami Day Community College

604
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 1: was almost a model community college. It except it's now

605
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 1: a college. It's a four year college, you know, but

606
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 1: it is a tremendous I mean, it is your path,

607
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:52,319
Speaker 1: you know, out of out of struggles, and it really is.

608
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: It's a I'm you know, I think it's it's I'm

609
00:36:57,000 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: glad to hear it. Still it hangs in there because

610
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,919
Speaker 1: I have always been really proud of how successful it's been.

611
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 1: What is the state of the community college system in general?

612
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 1: Because it still is the best path out of the

613
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:10,719
Speaker 1: out of poverty.

614
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 2: I'm going to answer that question, but before I do,

615
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 2: one to say, I hope you'll go back to the

616
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 2: Washington Monthly and read the story about I think we

617
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:27,359
Speaker 2: call it Florida's Fresh Squeezed Universities. It's about Florida, all

618
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:31,399
Speaker 2: about the history of how Florida managed. When you think

619
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 2: of Florida, you don't think higher education, right, No, And.

620
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 1: I've always been personally frustrated that Florida doesn't have a

621
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 1: UT system, a Sunni system or the UC system. And

622
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: it's been they've they toyed with it a few times,

623
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,760
Speaker 1: but they never they never quite you know, built those

624
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: type of systems like Texas and California New Art.

625
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:53,720
Speaker 2: I invite you to read the story, because what Florida

626
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:58,800
Speaker 2: doesn't have is Harvard level prestige schools. You know, for

627
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 2: Florida's good school but nobody thinks of it as elite.

628
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 2: But the system that they do have is more like

629
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 2: UT or the California system or the New York system

630
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:15,919
Speaker 2: than you realize. And I'll give you one example. First

631
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 2: of all, the end result is you can go to

632
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 2: Florida and go to a four year school. And the

633
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 2: Florida schools do extremely well on our rankings.

634
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: By the way, they did really well in the US

635
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 1: News Wrean Kings this year too. Yeah, because they are

636
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: a good price.

637
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,320
Speaker 2: They are a very good price, and that is engineered

638
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 2: into the Florida system. They give you one example. In

639
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 2: nineteen the nineteen sixties, they passed a system whereby every

640
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 2: course at every public university in Florida was had the

641
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 2: same course number and if you pass that course, you

642
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:58,959
Speaker 2: passed that course at any other school in Florida. Right.

643
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 2: As you may know, when you go to community college,

644
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 2: you take English one oh one and then you transfer

645
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 2: to a four year school. The four year schools like

646
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:09,800
Speaker 2: you to say, we don't think that the coge No,

647
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:10,399
Speaker 2: but you're right.

648
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: In Florida, Santa Fe Community College, which is next to Gainesville,

649
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: it's automatic TCC Tallahassee Community College automatic to Florida State.

650
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Florida has more as I think a percentage

651
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 2: of its students getting the first two years at a

652
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 2: community college and then transferring than any other state in

653
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 2: the Union.

654
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's more affordable. I mean, look, if I

655
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:36,799
Speaker 1: didn't get a scholarship, that was going to be my path. Yeah,

656
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: you do the two years and then transfer because you know,

657
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 1: it's a more affordable way to get a four year degree.

658
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:44,759
Speaker 2: I got a son, you know, at Montgomery College on

659
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 2: and off, so it is a great way. And to

660
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 2: answer the question, community college has benefited some in this

661
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 2: big beautiful act because they're going to get they freed

662
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 2: up money for short termsificates.

663
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: These are kind of trade schoolish type of right, they.

664
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 2: Do trade school stuff as community college. That's where most

665
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 2: trade school stuff happens. And you know, people don't quite

666
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 2: get that, but it's been the case for decades. But

667
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,840
Speaker 2: these are usually the federal government won't give you a

668
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 2: PELL grant if it's not at least a year long

669
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 2: program or two year long program. This is for six weeks,

670
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 2: eight months. I can forget what the timeframe is. We'll

671
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 2: see if it works because the quality, there's a question

672
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:33,839
Speaker 2: of quality. But this is a potential gusher of new

673
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 2: funding for community colleges. But community college is like four

674
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 2: year There's just a vast range of quality. Some of

675
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:46,280
Speaker 2: them have very low graduation rates, some of them much higher,

676
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 2: even holding demographics studies. Some of them are well supported

677
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 2: by their regions and states, some of them not so much.

678
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: So it's a wide disparity, is what you're saying. There's

679
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:57,279
Speaker 1: not a consistency to it.

680
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 2: Correct, correct, And there are some states just don't have

681
00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 2: a lot of community colleges. So it's they are fantastic

682
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 2: as an institution. We need to do more for them,

683
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:12,360
Speaker 2: we need to ask more of them. But I completely

684
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 2: agree with you. They are they are the working end

685
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 2: of higher education.

686
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: Talk about community connection. I mean, I just you know,

687
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: we had a the way the Miami Dade Community College

688
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 1: has multiple campuses all around Dade County, and those campuses

689
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: also served as sort of host for community events. You

690
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:44,919
Speaker 1: might you know, you might take a yoga class there,

691
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: you might take a quilting class there, like you know, look,

692
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: because they had to make money, right, they would offer

693
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 1: sort of classes not for degrees, but just sort of

694
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: community interest classes to yeah, make a couple of bucks

695
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 1: to support the education part of things.

696
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 2: And the partnerships you find between community colleges and employers,

697
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 2: oh yeah, find these at some of the regional public

698
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 2: universities too, but even more at the community colleges. If

699
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 2: you're an employer, you're you know, an airline, right, and

700
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 2: you need people you work with the community college to

701
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 2: structure your classes such that they're getting the certificates that

702
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 2: they need to then work you know, in the logistics

703
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 2: part of your airline or in the accounting or whatever.

704
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 2: And you know, maybe they have a paid internship program.

705
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:40,439
Speaker 2: So that's where a lot of that academic to employment

706
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 2: connection happens or doesn't happen, again, depending on the leadership

707
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 2: and the quality of the community college.

708
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: Well, look, I want to pivot now a little bit

709
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: to sort of where the state of journalism and nonprofit

710
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: for profit all that stuff. But I will just say,

711
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is this is what I

712
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 1: call service journalism, and it sort of gets at something

713
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: that I think is overall missing in the conversation that

714
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 1: we're having about the future of journalism, and I think

715
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: sort of where we lost our way collectively, which is

716
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: just this, there's not enough service journalism. We you know,

717
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think of this statement, But I

718
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 1: have a friend of mine named Richard Gingris who used

719
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: to run the Google News Initiative, and he said, you know,

720
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 1: the worst thing that happened to journalism was all the

721
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:37,240
Speaker 1: president's men. And you know where he's going, because ninety

722
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:41,280
Speaker 1: percent of the work of a journalist is in service

723
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 1: to their community if they're doing it right. It's ten

724
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: percent of your work over a lifetime. That is that accountability, right.

725
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:50,720
Speaker 1: That is the stuff you want to put in your resume,

726
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: the stuff you might show up at your obituary, right,

727
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 1: the stuff that, yeah, you might apply for an award for,

728
00:43:58,120 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: but it's not what most people are going to know

729
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 1: you'rejournalism for. And it's not the impact, right, it's and

730
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: it's it's one of these where this ranking system is

731
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:13,800
Speaker 1: more helpful to the average person than doing a a

732
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: h an audit of of just how campaign spending is

733
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 1: working these days between the NRCC and the NRSC. Right,

734
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's an unimportant story, but it's it's

735
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: not service journalism. And I will tell you in my

736
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: conversations with young aspiring journalists, they're getting in not to

737
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:38,399
Speaker 1: help people figure out how to save money in their life, right,

738
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: They're getting in because they want to get Joe Biden

739
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 1: or get Donald Trump. Right that that they're gonna you know,

740
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: they're gonna be the next Bob Warder. How do we

741
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: inspire people to to to want to be in service

742
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 1: that that journalism is both a service and that part

743
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: of the public service gets you to the point where, yes,

744
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:01,359
Speaker 1: you you're trying to build some trust so that when

745
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 1: you do the accountability they believe you.

746
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, there's always been a hierarchy in journalism. The

747
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 2: people who are out there doing the yeoman's work, right,

748
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 2: covering the school board, covering you know, government agencies, covering services.

749
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: You know, snap benefits. How is that going to work?

750
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 1: You know things like this. Yeah, you know, the.

751
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 2: Beat reporters, they get their they get their share of

752
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:37,399
Speaker 2: love from the editor. But who rules the roost. It's

753
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 2: the political reporters, right, It's the big time investigative reporters.

754
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 2: That's where the glory is. That's where you know, you

755
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 2: make your most money. And when you compound that by

756
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:55,800
Speaker 2: the utter devastation that has taken place in the last

757
00:45:56,520 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 2: really ten years but really more like twenty of local journalism, Chuck,

758
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:04,799
Speaker 2: it's dead. They've it's been deoyed.

759
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: I think it's the single I think it is the it.

760
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 1: If you look at the proverbial house of journalism, it

761
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: turned out local was a foundational right, and you knock

762
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 1: out that it collapsed the entire structure. Right, nobody trusts

763
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: anything because they lost that community tether and that turned

764
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 1: out to be the single most important connection we had

765
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:32,280
Speaker 1: with the public.

766
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 2: So so you know, there's good publications, you know, online

767
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:43,439
Speaker 2: nonprofit publications trying to bring back local reporting, bring back

768
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:48,879
Speaker 2: not just accountability reporting like political and bureaucratic, but as

769
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 2: you say, the service journalism.

770
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 1: Where do I save money? Where can I take my

771
00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: family out of four out to dinner without breaking the bank.

772
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 1: I know that seems not like the greatest scoop, but

773
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:01,759
Speaker 1: that's actually how you help your community.

774
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 2: You know, what are the scores at the high school

775
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 2: basketball game? People care about that, and you know it's

776
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 2: you can't just get the data there. There was a

777
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,600
Speaker 2: game there, Somebody tell me, tell me what happened. Uh,

778
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 2: you know, weather Best drives within three hours of my town.

779
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:25,720
Speaker 2: I mean there's a thousand things that people want and need.

780
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 2: But again, the economic underpinnings of that kind of work

781
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 2: have disappeared, primarily because of Google and Facebook, and you

782
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 2: know there's other reasons for it, but it is primarily

783
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:45,359
Speaker 2: the advertising dollar has been hoarded by the Silicon Valley platforms,

784
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:48,440
Speaker 2: and without advertising, it is really hard to make it

785
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 2: in this in this business. And I run a publication

786
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 2: that for a while was doing very well producing online

787
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 2: content that was supported by advertising, and then it disappeared.

788
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 1: So I've lived, and you don't even know why it disappeared, right,

789
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 1: because they never were transparent about how the algorithm worked, right.

790
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 2: Correct, But you know, in a general sense, we know,

791
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 2: right they monopolized. I mean Google has lost an anti

792
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 2: trust case this year monopolizing the ad tech infrastructure, and

793
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 2: and they you know, the connection between readers and advertisers

794
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,399
Speaker 2: at the local level has largely disappeared. There's still some

795
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 2: and I think you can come back with the right policies,

796
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,280
Speaker 2: but boy, it's tough out there. And anybody doing local

797
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 2: service journalism I agree with that. My hat's off to them. Well,

798
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 2: you know, it's interesting the what what I've discovered. I mean,

799
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 2: I'm trying to throw.

800
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:01,400
Speaker 1: Myself into this issue a little bit and working on

801
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:04,080
Speaker 1: a few projects of trying to is it possible to

802
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 1: bring back a to create a for profit local news environment,

803
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: And what you do find is, you know who else

804
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 1: hates the Google ad network? Local businesses. Yeah, they don't

805
00:49:15,120 --> 00:49:19,840
Speaker 1: like it either. They prefer a personalized connection. They prefer

806
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 1: to advertise in an entity that they that they know.

807
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 1: Rather there's quote unquote programmatic advertising, you know, et cetera,

808
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:31,879
Speaker 1: or you just sort of find people that stumble upon

809
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: your stuff. And I do think that, But the I

810
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 1: don't know whether this is whether you can do this

811
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:44,440
Speaker 1: without the help of government, And I'm and I'm torn

812
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: on it because I don't know how much we want

813
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:47,240
Speaker 1: government involved.

814
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:51,439
Speaker 2: So there's two ways government can help. Government can and philanthropy,

815
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 2: right can underwrite some of the costs, or government can

816
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:01,799
Speaker 2: change the rules of the marketplace from the ones that

817
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 2: wrote yesterday or ten or twenty years ago that destroyed

818
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 2: the AD dollars two new ones that bring the AD

819
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:08,840
Speaker 2: dollars back.

820
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,480
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you can. You can incentive. You know, there

821
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:15,760
Speaker 1: is some work being done on the state level trying

822
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 1: to you know, you might give a tax break to

823
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 1: a local business that advertises in a local publication. So

824
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not a direct subsidy to the media.

825
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: It actually you're helping the small business. So it's a frankly,

826
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 1: it's a way to write, it's a way to make

827
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:34,760
Speaker 1: it a bipartisan ia to be frank Yeah.

828
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:37,320
Speaker 2: Well, I hope you know the work of my friend

829
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 2: and maybe yours, Steve Waldman.

830
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:41,919
Speaker 1: Oh well it's Steve. Yeah, Okay, Yes, it's Steve's work.

831
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:46,360
Speaker 1: He's he's been he's been going legislature by legislature, making

832
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:47,359
Speaker 1: this argument.

833
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 2: On my board. He's one of my best friends. His

834
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 2: organization is Rebuilt Local News, and and you know, I

835
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 2: think he's making real progress in this.

836
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: No, he has, I mean, I I we we've been

837
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 1: at a couple events together as we sort of are

838
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 1: pied pipering this stuff, and it is it is. Unfortunately,

839
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: there is a I do think it's still seen through

840
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: a political lens, right, He's not making the case politic

841
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:19,960
Speaker 1: through a political lens, but it's unfortunately local media is

842
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 1: being punished for the perception of cable news. You know,

843
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 1: I used to scream about this that. You know, actually

844
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:29,359
Speaker 1: the state of journalism is quite good over the last

845
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 1: ten years. It's amazing some of the work that's out there.

846
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 1: The problem is our curb appeal, you know. Right, the

847
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 1: most prominent news organizations were the three cable channels that

848
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 1: really gave journalism a bad reputation. All right, I'm not

849
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 1: going to sit here and say one is bad. I'm

850
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:48,760
Speaker 1: not going to get into that. It just the the

851
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:52,920
Speaker 1: opinion debate drove the perception of all journalism and it

852
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:55,279
Speaker 1: really harmed local more than anybody else.

853
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:00,880
Speaker 2: I think that's right, And I think what happened is,

854
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 2: you know, when I was a kid, when you were

855
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 2: a kid, I'm a little older, you you lived in

856
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:11,319
Speaker 2: a medium sized city or a small town or rural area.

857
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 2: My parents, you know, I grew up in Saint Louis.

858
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:19,799
Speaker 2: They read both the Saint Louis papers, and you were

859
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:23,960
Speaker 2: getting a lot of local news, and you were getting

860
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 2: political news if you if you had a sizable town

861
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:30,400
Speaker 2: like Saint Louis, you had your own reporters in Washington

862
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:35,000
Speaker 2: covering the industries, covering government.

863
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:37,839
Speaker 1: But through the prism of somebody that lived in Saint Louis. Yeah,

864
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: you know, and that's important.

865
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:44,239
Speaker 2: It's important to know what the you know, localizedeers going

866
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:46,480
Speaker 2: to do to the rivers, right, And so the best

867
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:49,239
Speaker 2: guy covering the Army Corps of Engineers was a Saint

868
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 2: Louis Post dispatched reporter. But every town in Missouri, you know,

869
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:58,560
Speaker 2: was carrying a p They were carrying Post dispatch reporting

870
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:00,920
Speaker 2: and then they were doing local reporting. And a lot

871
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 2: of those small towns they were very conservative, datorially sure, right,

872
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:08,720
Speaker 2: but but the news that they were covering, the national

873
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 2: news that they were covering was whatever every you know,

874
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 2: it was kind of everybody else read differences from writers

875
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:28,359
Speaker 2: from from ape, from you're I'm it's back, and it

876
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:35,399
Speaker 2: was allitable checked. Those small towns no longer have national news, right,

877
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 2: they can't afford it, and and a lot of them

878
00:53:39,080 --> 00:53:41,919
Speaker 2: just disappeared completely. And so where do people small towns

879
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:44,600
Speaker 2: get their news. They go to Fox right, or maybe

880
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:47,400
Speaker 2: they go to MSNBC, and that's not news. I mean

881
00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:53,239
Speaker 2: they're getting bits of reformation, but in a package of partisanship.

882
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:56,839
Speaker 1: No it and it's so in some ways when you're

883
00:53:56,880 --> 00:54:00,720
Speaker 1: trying to salvage local news, people look at it. Yeah,

884
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:03,319
Speaker 1: but if you have an agenda right like that, you know,

885
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:06,479
Speaker 1: they've been convinced that that that every if the media

886
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:08,800
Speaker 1: is manipulated, it must be up and down the entire

887
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: ecosystem of media, not just on the on the on

888
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:12,879
Speaker 1: the national cable side.

889
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:15,040
Speaker 2: But you're I'm really fascinated about what you said, Chuck,

890
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 2: that businesses want a relationship with their customers. If you

891
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:23,959
Speaker 2: run a hospital and a you know, rural or vault

892
00:54:24,040 --> 00:54:27,880
Speaker 2: in area, uh, you know all of your business or

893
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 2: most of it comes from the region, right, you run

894
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 2: an HVAC company, if you you know, uh, a grocery business,

895
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:38,560
Speaker 2: you need that relationship with the local and and the

896
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 2: local papers aren't there to provide it. And I think

897
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:46,800
Speaker 2: there's an opportunity there. I keep following that trail.

898
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:49,360
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, I I am, and look, I'm a

899
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: huge believer that that look we've got. As I joke,

900
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 1: a man named Craig decided classifies ought to be free. YadA, YadA, YadA.

901
00:54:56,440 --> 00:55:01,279
Speaker 1: The entire local news industry got destroyed every big But

902
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:06,439
Speaker 1: I still think that it's possible local sports and even

903
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:11,600
Speaker 1: youth sports below high school could be the connective tissue

904
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 1: that starts the rebuilding process. It may not be the elixir,

905
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 1: I mean, might it'd be as helpful as classified advertising is,

906
00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: but boy, the one I just look at it as

907
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: what can bring red and blue together kids? Right, and

908
00:55:25,520 --> 00:55:28,200
Speaker 1: we love sports in this country, and now sports is

909
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 1: going to be a pipeline to college more than ever before.

910
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: Right with the variety of you know, with this, with

911
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:37,439
Speaker 1: this nil, we're making a limp. We're sort of it's

912
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:41,400
Speaker 1: possible this new world of nil and sports might actually

913
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:45,719
Speaker 1: expand the opportunities of people paying for college with sports

914
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 1: the way frankly the arts were used to pay for college,

915
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:53,400
Speaker 1: you know, previous generations. And and that's maybe that's a

916
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 1: good thing, let's hope. So I know, I'm not going

917
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 1: to sit here and say it definitely, but it's possible,

918
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:03,759
Speaker 1: well that this is a that this is a it's

919
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:09,319
Speaker 1: a hand up the ladder not necessarily. Uh uh. You know,

920
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:11,839
Speaker 1: I'm not saying some universities aren't going. I mean, what

921
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 1: we're seeing in college football is a little insane, but

922
00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 1: if you go to that next level down, you know

923
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:21,439
Speaker 1: it's really serving as an opportunity for young women. Yep,

924
00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:23,520
Speaker 1: you know in ways that we've not seen before.

925
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 2: And and you know, the Silicon Valley keeps throwing punches.

926
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 2: And right now, what's happening to local news is their

927
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:43,000
Speaker 2: contents being scraped by AI. Right and and there's a

928
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 2: pretty fascinating movement happening, uh with a company by the

929
00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:52,319
Speaker 2: name of cloud Stream. I think it's called you may

930
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:56,440
Speaker 2: have looked about it, where they host media sites. It

931
00:56:56,480 --> 00:56:58,920
Speaker 2: holds all kinds of sites and they give you the

932
00:56:58,960 --> 00:57:03,319
Speaker 2: ability to say, I don't want AI scrape in my side,

933
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:07,080
Speaker 2: and you don't have to do anything. It's done automatically

934
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 2: for you. Well, that's got the AI folks freaked out

935
00:57:11,480 --> 00:57:17,560
Speaker 2: because the inability to have real time, fact checked information

936
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 2: in local areas turns AI into mush. Right, they've already

937
00:57:23,120 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 2: scraped all the old stuff and so they've got a lot.

938
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:31,640
Speaker 2: But things change, right, Downtown's changed, roads change, people move,

939
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 2: and if you can't get that information, and that's what

940
00:57:35,600 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 2: the local you know, press has, so they've got more

941
00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 2: leverage than they think.

942
00:57:41,560 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 1: No, it's it's look, I'm not you know, I'm one

943
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:47,240
Speaker 1: of those who just views AI neutrally. It can be

944
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 1: weaponized for good or weaponized for bad, or frankly, probably

945
00:57:50,760 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 1: a little bit of both. We just have to be

946
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:57,919
Speaker 1: smart about how we use it as a tool. Okay, Yeah, Paul,

947
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:02,000
Speaker 1: this was great. Washington Monthly is as innovative as ever,

948
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 1: and what I like about it is that there's always

949
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:08,480
Speaker 1: it's a home for sort of different ideas. It's you know,

950
00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 1: it's not always the conventional, not just in some ways

951
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 1: left right debates get conventional. And I hate to say this,

952
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: but there's certain editorial pages that, ah, the editorials new,

953
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:21,959
Speaker 1: but I've read it one hundred times.

954
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:25,760
Speaker 2: You kind of know where they're coming from and play

955
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 2: in a different version of the same song.

956
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:31,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you do seem to have a you know,

957
00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 1: what is it that makes a Washington Monthly story that

958
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: doesn't make it into the Washington Post? What would be

959
00:58:36,360 --> 00:58:40,800
Speaker 1: your what's the secret ingredient in your mind?

960
00:58:42,040 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 2: We're not afraid to put the same reporting energy into

961
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:58,880
Speaker 2: figuring out solutions as slothing out problems and conventional journalism,

962
00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:02,400
Speaker 2: you know, the opinion section may have a piece or

963
00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 2: two on some new policy idea, some new way out right,

964
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:10,480
Speaker 2: but mostly they feel that that's not their job. No,

965
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:14,360
Speaker 2: let me find problems, and we find problems. There's no

966
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 2: politics there, you know, every but solutions have a kind

967
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:23,520
Speaker 2: of political valance, or they might. And we do this

968
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:25,560
Speaker 2: twenty four to seven. That's what we did. We're more

969
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:29,760
Speaker 2: guided by figuring out how to fix things than slew

970
00:59:29,840 --> 00:59:32,840
Speaker 2: the outw I mean, obviously we uh, you know, one

971
00:59:32,880 --> 00:59:35,000
Speaker 2: of my colleagues says, you know that the problem with

972
00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:38,320
Speaker 2: the monthly is we provide solutions to problems people don't

973
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:40,960
Speaker 2: know they have. Oh, there's not much of a market

974
00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 2: for it. But yeah, and I think that's the big,

975
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:45,640
Speaker 2: the big difference. Yeah, No, I know.

976
00:59:45,680 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 1: It's like, I think one of the big solutions to

977
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:52,480
Speaker 1: some of our political distrust is to expand Congress. Many

978
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:55,280
Speaker 1: people don't think that's a problem that needed to be solved.

979
00:59:54,960 --> 00:59:58,960
Speaker 1: I've I've had a hard time getting lay people to

980
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:02,120
Speaker 1: see that right a way. And it's like just you know,

981
01:00:02,520 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 1: but but I take your point. And yet, you know,

982
01:00:05,880 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 1: a lot of Times, what you read today in the

983
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:11,560
Speaker 1: Washington Monthly will be a solution that government eventually agrees

984
01:00:11,600 --> 01:00:13,200
Speaker 1: to in about five years.

985
01:00:12,960 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 2: That's how it works, and we have a lot, we

986
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:16,920
Speaker 2: have a long record of that.

987
01:00:17,280 --> 01:00:19,920
Speaker 1: Yes you do, yes, you do well, you recognize it.

988
01:00:20,480 --> 01:00:23,040
Speaker 1: Paul Glaster is always pleasure. Thank you, sir. Great to

989
01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:23,640
Speaker 1: see it.

990
01:00:23,640 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on.

991
01:00:24,560 --> 01:00:28,760
Speaker 1: Buddy H.