Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
Speaker 3: She is taking part right now in a Bloomberg Newsmaker event,
Speaker 3: and our White House correspondent A Kayla Gardner is speaking
Speaker 3: to her live already in progress.
Speaker 2: Let's dip into that conversation.
Speaker 4: I don't recall any particular senator or Congressman that congressomen
Speaker 4: that have had that conversation with, but generally speaking, they
Speaker 4: are all four being behind raising test scores, having better
Speaker 4: performance for the students in our country. But I think
Speaker 4: at this point I could probably honestly say that they're
Speaker 4: relatively thelely divided.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the headlines that we've seen
Speaker 1: from the administration. Obviously, several different agencies have revoked billions
Speaker 1: of dollars in funding to many private universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Cornell,
Speaker 1: Brown Princeton, which, if any, are on track to getting
Speaker 1: their funding back from the government.
Speaker 4: The first university UH that we started this process with
Speaker 4: was Columbia m U. I visited with the then acting president,
Speaker 4: Katrina Armstrong UH on campus at Columbia, and we basically
Speaker 4: were starting our conversation relative to.
Speaker 5: Anti Semitism activities that had.
Speaker 4: Gone on before UH and that we're still continuing in
Speaker 4: in some ways, though some of it worth a little better.
Speaker 4: We that's how we began our conversation, But then we
Speaker 4: wanted to look at other aspects of UH, you know,
Speaker 4: the UH, the programs that they had on campus, how
Speaker 4: they were vetting their students. Did they believe that a
Speaker 4: lot of the uprisings on campus came from outside agitators
Speaker 4: or students that were on campus. What were some of
Speaker 4: the UH ways that they were managing.
Speaker 5: Those activities on campus?
Speaker 4: And UH, I think we have had really good, open,
Speaker 4: honest discussions. I've now met with the current UH UH
Speaker 4: president of Columbia UH twice and had a telephone conversation
Speaker 4: with her. I'm sorry, I've met with her once, had
Speaker 4: you telephone conversations with her, and I think we've made
Speaker 4: great progress.
Speaker 5: Harvard's been a little more UH strident.
Speaker 4: They responded to our negotiation outreach with a lawsuit and
Speaker 4: have amended that lawsuit once. Still hopeful that these things
Speaker 4: can be resolved, you know, through negotiations, and I think
Speaker 4: just sitting in and understanding what is really best for
Speaker 4: students that are on campus that they can be sure
Speaker 4: that they're in a safe learning environment when they're there
Speaker 4: and not be afraid to go to class. But at
Speaker 4: the same time, we want to make sure if tax
Speaker 4: dollars are funding a lot of what is going on
Speaker 4: in the universities, those universities are abiding by the laws
Speaker 4: of the United States.
Speaker 1: M do the universities think that they will get their
Speaker 1: funding back at the end of their negotiations with the administration?
Speaker 4: Are they saying that they are or are they asking
Speaker 4: will they well?
Speaker 1: Would the administration allow them to get that funding back.
Speaker 4: That's part of the negotiations, of course, that we have
Speaker 4: that are ongoing. It would be my goal that if universities, colleges,
Speaker 4: and universities are abiding by the laws of the United
Speaker 4: States and doing what we're expecting of them, that they
Speaker 4: could expect to have taxpayer funded programs.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a chance that President Trump leaves
Speaker 1: the White House in three years and some of these
Speaker 1: schools never see that funding come back.
Speaker 5: I would hope that's not the case. We're certainly trying
Speaker 5: to move much more.
Speaker 4: Expeditiously what we've seen since we really began this effort.
Speaker 4: You know, it was kind of a hard hammer at first,
Speaker 4: and so we've now seen a lot of other universities
Speaker 4: who were starting to look at their practices and their
Speaker 4: programs and getting ahead of the curve so that they
Speaker 4: can report back sort of self monitoring.
Speaker 5: Self monitoring is probably not a good way to phrase it, because.
Speaker 4: We couldn't allow that at first, but certainly self evaluation,
Speaker 4: I think is a better way to say it.
Speaker 1: You've talked about universities potentially supplementing the funding that they've
Speaker 1: lost with their own endowments or potentially other sources. Do
Speaker 1: you see a future where the government no longer invest
Speaker 1: research dollars into some of the universities that have very
Speaker 1: large endowments.
Speaker 4: Well, I think, you know, our universities that do some
Speaker 4: remarkable research m And I think if we look at
Speaker 4: our research as for the public good, which I think
Speaker 4: that's intended, then uh, taxpayers I believe are willing to
Speaker 4: see them of their tax dollars, you know, support that
Speaker 4: kind of uh, really good research, and so that I
Speaker 4: would certainly hope that would continue at the university level.
Speaker 1: Okay, I wanna ask you specifically about Harvard, because no
Speaker 1: school has seen more funding rev than Harvard University. The
Speaker 1: president recently said Harvard is starting to behave What did
Speaker 1: he mean by that, and is Harvard back at the
Speaker 1: negotiating table at this point?
Speaker 4: Well, I, uh, I would never like to pretend to
Speaker 4: uh say that everything that the president says that I
Speaker 4: fully can translate for you. But I think clearly what
Speaker 4: he's indicating is that we are I think making progress
Speaker 4: in some of the discussions we're having, even though they
Speaker 4: have taken a hard line. They have, for instance, replaced
Speaker 4: their head of Middle East Studies. They have already put
Speaker 4: in place some of the things that we have talked
Speaker 4: about in our negotiations with Columbia, for instance. None of
Speaker 4: us is suggesting that on college campuses there shouldn't be
Speaker 4: you know, there shouldn't be discussion. There could be orderly
Speaker 4: and nonviolent protests. I mean, college ought to be about
Speaker 4: the exchange of ideas and debate and all of that,
Speaker 4: but it has to be done peacefully. You can't have
Speaker 4: a protest, as the I think it was the president
Speaker 4: of MIT that I met with last week said, you know,
Speaker 4: you can't do a protest at two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 4: You can't be in the halls of the library and
Speaker 4: prevent other students from getting to the library to study.
Speaker 4: But there are places and time appropriate for peaceful protest.
Speaker 5: This should be allowed, and I think we're all in
Speaker 5: agreement with that.
Speaker 1: The RRS is reviewing.
Speaker 3: Harvard's We're listening, by the way, the Bloomberg BusinessWeek and
Speaker 3: we are bringing you a special conversation Limberg Newsmakers conversation
Speaker 3: with the Secretary of Education Linda Mcmanonchee speaking with our
Speaker 3: White House correspondent Kayla Gardner.
Speaker 4: Large endowments fifty three billion dollars for Hartford, and that
Speaker 4: money doesn't just sit still. It is invested, and if
Speaker 4: it's invested well, they can expect a good return on
Speaker 4: that investment. And so as the citizens of our country
Speaker 4: are providing tax support for those universities that do take
Speaker 4: federal tax dollars, then maybe some of that should come
Speaker 4: back to.
Speaker 5: Our citizens.
Speaker 1: Is the administration planning more actions related to Harvard University
Speaker 1: at this particular time.
Speaker 4: We're continuing with the things that we've already talked about.
Speaker 4: One action we did take relative to Columbia m which
Speaker 4: to make their UH creditor aware UH that they needed
Speaker 4: to make sure that Columbia was abiding by the law
Speaker 4: of the land because they they had had an infraction.
Speaker 5: It was the title six Civil rights. It's which was
Speaker 5: our position, and that they.
Speaker 4: Should examine that because part of the creditor's position is
Speaker 4: to make sure that colleges are lawful, uh, or they
Speaker 4: can risk losing their creditation.
Speaker 1: Did something change in your conversations with Columbia that made
Speaker 1: you send that letter because you have been talking so
Speaker 1: positively about your conversations with the president with the university generally.
Speaker 4: I think one of the things that that made us
Speaker 4: take another look at it is just we're looking at
Speaker 4: accreditation in general mm uh, you know, for colleges and universities,
Speaker 4: because there has been some complaint about that that we
Speaker 4: need to expand the number uh that you know, when
Speaker 4: you think about the fact that all law schools are
Speaker 4: credited you know by the ABA, that's uh it it's
Speaker 4: like a a real monopoly, you know in some areas.
Speaker 4: There have been some times now that you could change.
Speaker 4: Accreditors used to be bound geographically, but some uh changes
Speaker 4: in the rules. So as we've looked at a creditors,
Speaker 4: we wanted to make sure, Okay, let's make sure that
Speaker 4: we are touching all the bases that are relative to UH,
Speaker 4: how our universities need to comport themselves.
Speaker 1: So you think other universities accreditation status should also be
Speaker 1: in question as well.
Speaker 4: I I think we accreditors have a responsibility. It's built
Speaker 4: into what they're supposed to be doing. So we've reminded
Speaker 4: the Columbia creditors, and I think all accreditors now will
Speaker 4: will make sure that they are abiding by.
Speaker 5: The terms of their agreements.
Speaker 1: In that letter to Columbia, you talked about federal student aid.
Speaker 1: Is that something that you would consider limiting for universities
Speaker 1: broadly if you can't come to an agreement with them.
Speaker 5: Ask me a different way.
Speaker 1: I suppose do you think that the administration your department
Speaker 1: specifically should restrict access to federal student aid for universities
Speaker 1: if you feel like they're violating civil rights?
Speaker 4: Well, I think the the certainly the American citizens and
Speaker 4: taxpayers would expect that if colleges and universities, I would
Speaker 4: believe and I've certainly heard, if their pact taxpayer dollars
Speaker 4: are going to those universities, UH, and that there is
Speaker 4: student aid coming for those that we would expect that.
Speaker 5: They would abide by those You never wanted to buy
Speaker 5: by the law. Mm.
Speaker 4: Uh and and and I think we if a university is.
Speaker 5: Accepting federal aid. Mm. You know, we've obviously looked at
Speaker 5: that federal aid.
Speaker 1: There's been reports that consent decrees were on the table
Speaker 1: with Columbia University. Is that accurate? Is that a tool
Speaker 1: that you would use?
Speaker 4: We've uh discussed uh consent decree and uh, so our negotiations.
Speaker 5: Have gone, you know, back and forth. Uh. That's you know,
Speaker 5: it's been part of the negotiations.
Speaker 1: What we've seen it over the past couple of weeks
Speaker 1: has really looked like an all of government approach when
Speaker 1: it comes to higher education, whether it's take the State
Speaker 1: Department or HS. Can you walk us through how those
Speaker 1: decisions are made. Are you guys coordinating with each other?
Speaker 1: Are you speaking directly with the president before you take decisions?
Speaker 4: Well, the President clearly has a a stated goal and
Speaker 4: gives direction. Uh, and we take that direction obviously. But
Speaker 4: there are parts of it. It hasn't all come necessarily at
Speaker 4: the same time.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: When there was a focus on international students and uh
Speaker 4: should we stop international students for coming here or taking
Speaker 4: a look at their visas and et cetera. The State
Speaker 4: Department took on that branch of it, uh, and the
Speaker 4: courts have reacted. I think it was UH yesterday the
Speaker 4: court said noe, that process, you know, needs to be reversed.
Speaker 4: We need to be allowing these students to come back in.
Speaker 4: But let's we then say, okay, well, let's just make
Speaker 4: sure we're that we're conveying to these universities and colleges
Speaker 4: that as these students do come in, they need to
Speaker 4: know more about their background. Because when I've asked some
Speaker 4: of the presidents that I've talked to, do you think
Speaker 4: that a lot of agitation that's occurred on campus or
Speaker 4: are they Are they occurring with students who are going here?
Speaker 4: Are there outside agitators who are coming in? Do you
Speaker 4: see it happening more with foreign students than domestic students?
Speaker 4: And so it's really important, I think, to have a
Speaker 4: handle on that student population. And I think that's fair
Speaker 4: and also universities a little bit aside from students Specifically,
Speaker 4: universities are required under Section one seventeen of Higher Education
Speaker 4: Act to report on the amount of foreign funding they
Speaker 4: are receiving and where it's coming from, because we want
Speaker 4: to make sure there's no undue influence, you know, being levered,
Speaker 4: you know, against the United States.
Speaker 1: So is it best to say that agencies are making
Speaker 1: these decisions independently or are agencies coordinating each other?
Speaker 4: We have coordinated. In fact, we've had a task force.
Speaker 4: The first actions that were taken in with Columbia was
Speaker 4: with the task force, which was GSA, HHS and the
Speaker 4: Department of Education. We've also now brought in DOOJ as
Speaker 4: part of the process as well. So yes, there is
Speaker 4: a coordination with with the agency's Okay.
Speaker 1: You mentioned international students. The President has floated imposing a
Speaker 1: fifteen percent cap on international students, specifically talking about Harvard University,
Speaker 1: but I suppose he could mean all universities. How would
Speaker 1: something like that work.
Speaker 4: I'm not quite sure, but clearly, but Harvard's foreign population
Speaker 4: right now said about twenty seven percent. And we just
Speaker 4: want to make sure that I I I think the
Speaker 4: President just wants to make sure that we're looking at
Speaker 4: m that making sure that UH students in the United
Speaker 4: States aren't penalized by allowing too many international students, you know,
Speaker 4: to come in. And so what is that right balance?
Speaker 4: I'm not sure what it is, but the President certainly
Speaker 4: floated fifteen percent. So let's see as we discussed that
Speaker 4: investigated how that plays out.
Speaker 1: You're a former CEO, you came from the business world.
Speaker 1: Do you worry that less international students could make American
Speaker 1: companies less competitive?
Speaker 4: I I think there is so merit and having international
Speaker 4: students be part of our university population as I as
Speaker 4: I mentioned earlier, or I might not have mentioned in
Speaker 4: this interview, but as we were talking earlier, I served
Speaker 4: on the board of University in Connecticut Secretary University for
Speaker 4: sixteen years. So I know that having international students on
Speaker 4: campus does does help with that cultural exchange. And uh,
Speaker 4: we actually had a campus in Ireland. Uh from a
Speaker 4: sacred heart, So I I really understand that exchange and
Speaker 4: how culturally it's very beneficial. So I wanna make sure
Speaker 4: that we don't lose that. I think that's important for
Speaker 4: us to have. But on the same time, Uh, if
Speaker 4: you think about just last week when it was discovered
Speaker 4: in the backpack of a a research student at the
Speaker 4: University of Michigan, these fungus spores that were intended to
Speaker 4: be utilized against our agricultural products, those are the kinds
Speaker 4: of things that we have to make sure that we
Speaker 4: are on guard against UH and whether whether that would
Speaker 4: be students with this country, But most of the time,
Speaker 4: I think that would have the provincity at least to
Speaker 4: come in internationally that could destroy your crops in America. I
Speaker 4: heard from the Department, from the Secretary of Agriculture when
Speaker 4: she was saying, you know that these things are so
Speaker 4: dangerous because America feeds not only ourselves, but we feed
Speaker 4: the world. And if we are looking to destroy or
Speaker 4: we can our crop production here, it's not only for
Speaker 4: our food, for our health, but it's also.
Speaker 5: Our national defense. So those kinds of measures.
Speaker 4: I think we have to be very very specific and
Speaker 4: sure about.
Speaker 1: You previously led this.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: For those just tuning in, we're listening right now.
Speaker 2: To US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
Speaker 1: She's taking part in a Bloomberg Newsmaker event with our
Speaker 1: White House correspondent like Kayla Gardners.
Speaker 2: We'll get back to them right now.
Speaker 4: As we first started to talk about dismantly the department,
Speaker 4: what functions would go perhaps to which agencies? He had
Speaker 4: asked about SBA, also about Treasury, We've talked about HHS,
Speaker 4: perhaps looking at the IDA program, But all of that
Speaker 4: is still part of discussion. It's not an assignment in
Speaker 4: any way, except that Treasury has taken back over the
Speaker 4: collection of student loans, as it always has done served
Speaker 4: in that capacity, So that's not new relative to Treasury.
Speaker 1: The Reconciliation Bill has a lot of changes to federal
Speaker 1: student aid, and one provision in particular, ask you to
Speaker 1: basically place a cap on the amount of loans that
Speaker 1: people can borrow based on the program that they're choosing.
Speaker 1: Have you started to calculate what it would cost to
Speaker 1: have a psychology degree or an engineering degree.
Speaker 4: I've not actually started that process yet, except in conversations.
Speaker 4: I know that Congress had started a lot of that
Speaker 4: kind of work and had done some research relative to
Speaker 4: what the mean cost was across country to take different
Speaker 4: courses and should lending kind of be based on that
Speaker 4: media or that mean cost. And I think that is
Speaker 4: one of the things that I think it was Representative
Speaker 4: Fox who has worked so diligently to bring down the
Speaker 4: cost of college of one of the things that she
Speaker 4: talked about, And so that is something to look at,
Speaker 4: especially for students who can graduate so overburdened by debt
Speaker 4: and not really understanding that the profession that they have
Speaker 4: chosen could never give them the account the amount of
Speaker 4: income or at least the projected or the proven stated
Speaker 4: amounts of income that they might receive to pay off
Speaker 4: that loan. And part of what we are doing with
Speaker 4: the restructuring of the FAFSA application for college is trying
Speaker 4: to work in some language eventually that will say this
Speaker 4: is what you could expect to earn relative to this
Speaker 4: kind of degree in program. This is what this college
Speaker 4: charge is for. This is what a different college would
Speaker 4: charge for. Put this into your calculus as to where
Speaker 4: you would like to go to school and have the
Speaker 4: biggest ROI on what you're doing. I think those are
Speaker 4: really sensible measures to be taking and how to look
Speaker 4: at it, because so many students have no ideas.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you just a little side story.
Speaker 4: When I was running for the Senate in Connecticut back
Speaker 4: in twenty ten, and I went to a freshman class
Speaker 4: in college and I asked, I said, of all of
Speaker 4: you are in this class, how many of you have
Speaker 4: a student eight you know?
Speaker 5: Ninety five percent? Hands go up.
Speaker 4: I said, how many of you know how much interest
Speaker 4: you're paying on that loan? Maybe half the hands went up.
Speaker 4: I said, how many of you know the actual amount
Speaker 4: of the loan? Viewer, I said, how many of you
Speaker 4: know what kind of a job you would have to
Speaker 4: have and how much money you'd have to make to
Speaker 4: start repaying this loan.
Speaker 5: Not a single hand went up.
Speaker 4: So I think we need to provide students with better
Speaker 4: tools of assessing the value of what education they and
Speaker 4: do they need a four year college or are they
Speaker 4: better suited for some other kinds at community college?
Speaker 5: Are we looking at our skill based education?
Speaker 4: How does technology and AI play into all of that
Speaker 4: in their learning process? I think we kind of need
Speaker 4: to rethink, uh, in our whole culture of how we
Speaker 4: look at education.
Speaker 1: Okay, my last question before return to the audience. Would
Speaker 1: you make those calculations public because it could affect what
Speaker 1: major students decide to pursue.
Speaker 4: Oh, definitely, They'll be part of the public forum. And
Speaker 4: I think it's a that's a that's a great thing
Speaker 4: to share, uh with, you know, with anyone who's contemplating going,
Speaker 4: you know, to class and going to college or university
Speaker 4: or community college or however they decide to look at
Speaker 4: at their career. That's I think vital information for them
Speaker 4: to have and for parents.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're gonna go ahead and take some questions
Speaker 1: from the audience. If you could just raise your hand.
Speaker 1: We just asked that people's say your name an organization
Speaker 1: before you ask your question.
Speaker 2: All right, I think we will jump out. Now. You
Speaker 2: can follow that event on live go on the Bloomberg terminal.
Speaker 3: L I ve go to hear more from a Secretary
Speaker 3: of Education Linda McMahon talking with our White House correspondent
Speaker 3: A Kayla Gardner at a Bloomberg Newsmakers event