Note: This transcript was produced by a third-party servicer.
Mushtaq Gunja: Hello everybody, and welcome to dotEDU, the public policy podcast from the American Council on Education. I'm one of your host, Mushtaq Gunja. I'm here with my co-host, Jon Fansmith, Sarah Spreitzer. Jon, Sarah, how are you?
Jon Fansmith: Doing great, Mushtaq.
Sarah Spreitzer: Awesome.
Mushtaq Gunja: And here today also with our special guest, producer extraordinaire, one of our two producers, Jack Nicholson. Jack, how are you?
Jack Nicholson: I'm great. I'm so happy to be here. I've been spending many episodes behind the scenes. I'm happy to finally turn my camera on for episode.
Mushtaq Gunja: So I understand that you are auditioning for my role, and I think that that's a swap that Sarah's actually been advocating for for some time.
Sarah Spreitzer: No, no, I don't want it.
Jon Fansmith: Sarah definitely wants to change things up. That seems a little clear.
Sarah Spreitzer: No, I don't. It's you two that want to change things up.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. Mushtaq, to be clear, it's not your role. It's either of our roles. Whoever Jack outperforms is clearly going out.
Mushtaq Gunja: This is good. We have our seasons on the line. We're much like the Dolphins last night who ... Well, actually they failed, so I guess we're going to do better.
Jon Fansmith: Miserably. Yeah.
Mushtaq Gunja: Today's episode is a special ask us anything. All questions sourced from you, our faithful and loyal listeners. So I'm very excited to be able to do that. This episode is titled Wrap Party for Policy Nerds. Is that right, Sarah Spreitzer? I think you took issue with this title.
Sarah Spreitzer: No, I'm okay with it. And I would say the wrap works well because I believe you and Jon both have packages in front of you that I think really encapsulate the spirit of the podcast for the year. And so I was hoping, I know that this is a podcast and so therefore those not listening today won't be able to tell that you're holding up very nicely wrapped packages. Could you open the lovely presents that I've bought, both of you, for this holiday season?
Mushtaq Gunja: Sarah Spreitzer, we definitely will. Jon, why don't we go on mute for a second because I'm worried this is going to be a little bit loud. So hold on one second.
Jon Fansmith: You don't think it'd be a nice treat for audio only listeners to hear us unwrapping crinkly paper for a minute or two? Weird. All right.
Sarah Spreitzer: It's very AMSR. Right, Jack? Isn't that what the kids say?
Jack Nicholson: I believe so. I appreciate you think I know what the kids say. So I appreciate that.
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah. Okay. They've opened them up. They're holding them up for the camera, but they're still both muted, so they can't actually say what they are.
Jack Nicholson: I think they're both screaming. I think they're both very excited.
Sarah Spreitzer: I think so too.
Mushtaq Gunja: I'm very excited. It says dotEDU TeamMushtaq. I do have my glasses on. I can't put them on.
Sarah Spreitzer: No, those are made special from the dotEDU team. They say #TeamSarah. So I hope that you will both wear those during the holiday break.
Mushtaq Gunja: And at the next podcast, obviously, I think Jon and I will definitely be wearing them.
Sarah Spreitzer: Just to impress your family members. Like say during a holiday dinner, open houses, perhaps at a bowling alley at an ECE work function. I don't know.
Mushtaq Gunja: Well done, Sarah. That is excellent.
Jon Fansmith: That will be you.
Mushtaq Gunja: Very bad that I don't have a present, a T-shirt for you, but I guess you're in the office for the next couple of days, so we'll see what we can do. All right, friends, just a couple of announcements. This isn't Ask Me Anything. Jack has graciously accepted the responsibility of asking all of your questions, and Jack and I went through them and picked a few. Please feel free to throw in more questions in the Q&A in the chat. Hopefully we'll see them, and if we do, then we'll try to ask them as well. Just a couple of quick announcements before we get started. We have a special episode on January 14th in which we'll be bringing on the President of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, Valerie Fuller. And really excited to be able to talk to her about what's going on with nursing, professional, graduate, all of the lone stuff that we've been talking about over the course of the last month. I think it will be a good conversation.
I think I'm really looking forward to seeing what the impacts of all things One big, beautiful bill might be on nurses and what we might be able to do to mobilize the community in the meantime. So that's thing number one. Thing number two was higher education was on Jeopardy last night, was the final jeopardy question.
Sarah Spreitzer: Did you get it right?
Mushtaq Gunja: Well, let me ask the question to you. Sarah, did you see it?
Sarah Spreitzer: No, I didn't.
Mushtaq Gunja: Jon, did you see it, Jack?
Jon Fansmith: I did not, but I was made aware, so I would be cheating if I answered.
Mushtaq Gunja: There are two Augustinian colleges in the country. One of them is Merrimack College. What is the other? And you must answer in the form of a question. And friends, play along if you did not see it last night in the chat. Well, actually, I'll do a little quick Jeopardy theme music. No, I won't.
Sarah Spreitzer: How do I buzz in here? I'm buzzing in.
Mushtaq Gunja: Sarah, buzz in. You got that.
Sarah Spreitzer: And it's probably wrong, but I was going to say, is it St. Augustine's College, which I believe is in Illinois or Iowa?
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah, you would think that might be the answer, but I think the answer, at least the answer that they gave last night was Villanova, which is one of these things where they're always sort of tying it to something that's happening in the public discourse and Pope Leo and went there. But I think, what is St. Norman Augustine? Also seems like it would be the right answer, Greg.
Jon Fansmith: Maybe they're Jeopardy fact-checkers, need a little refresh.
Mushtaq Gunja: I did not get it, which is just yet another final Jeopardy answer I did not get right. Jack Nicholson, can I turn it over to you, my friend?
Jack Nicholson: Yes. I'm happy to ask the questions now. I was prepared to be asking questions throughout, so I was a little concerned when I was being asked questions five minutes into this, so I'm happy to be able to be asking you all questions now. As Mushtaq said, we received many, many questions, lots of great questions. We'll get to as many as we can. But if you don't read yours, it's not because we didn't think it was great. It's because we had so many good ones. Start, a really important question for a year, so busy is this one. Greg asks, "What is your Starbucks order?"
Sarah Spreitzer: Well, I know Mushtaq's is no Starbucks. It's actually Panera.
Mushtaq Gunja: That's right. Well, the reason for me is I can't take the caffeine in Starbucks and I drink so much coffee in a day. If I had even two of those, I'd keel over. So I think for me for Starbucks, it's got to be something chai probably, which has a little bit less caffeine. How about you, sir?
Jon Fansmith: Right. Sarah, I feel like you and I should try to guess each other's since we've gone to coffee many times.
Sarah Spreitzer: Oh, well, Jon, yours is Diet Coke or a horrible Celsius drink.
Jon Fansmith: No.
Sarah Spreitzer: I don't think it's-
Jon Fansmith: It is a horrible caffeinated drink, but I drink a nitro cold brew with oat milk, which is the most concentrated form of caffeine I think Starbucks offers.
Sarah Spreitzer: Okay.
Jon Fansmith: Sarah, you get a grande latte. No, latte. It's definitely latte.
Sarah Spreitzer: No, grande mocha.
Jon Fansmith: Mocha.
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah. And I'm probably the most consistent Starbucks goer.
Jon Fansmith: You definitely are.
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah.
Jon Fansmith: They offered free coffee, brought people into the building today to give out free coffee as a holiday thing. And Sarah, I noticed you still went to Starbucks despite that.
Sarah Spreitzer: And then I got the free coffee after. So I'm a little caffeinated right now.
Jack Nicholson: Getting into looking forward to 2026. Next year is the midterms. Melanie from Arkansas asks, "How will the midterms impact next couple of years?"
Mushtaq Gunja: Let's have Sarah start.
Sarah Spreitzer: Wait, me, you guys are way more political get into the elections. I mean, I think that everybody's going to be running for their seat, except for two thirds of the Senate. I think the entire House is going to either be retiring or trying to figure out if they're going to get reelected. So I don't think next year, I think everything is going to be very political. I think every vote is going to be watched. There will likely be a lot of messaging bills that we're going to have to respond to, but I think everything will be about the elections. But what do you guys think?
Jon Fansmith: So I agree. I think everything's going to be about the elections. And I actually somewhat hopeful that that means we might have a little bit of a moderating influence on what's happening over the next year. Because look, I mean, look, Republicans I think pretty widely expect to be facing really rough waters in the House. And that's part of the reason we've seen all these pushes around redistricting, which so far the Texas effort has been overturned by a court. Indiana refused to advance a redistricting there. And California is advancing redistricting, which at least at this point seems to move the map even more favorably towards Democrats. Historically, first midterm after a new administration goes against the party and powers standing. Senate looks like it's pretty much locked for Republicans, but maybe there's a chance for Democrats to pick up a seat or two. There's some campaigns where I think there might be some pickup opportunities that probably weren't expected until we got into this climate that we're in.
And look, statewide elections went heavily Democratic up and down the ballot. The special election in Tennessee went from a 22-point Trump district to a nine-point Republican win, still a Republican win, but that's a huge shift. It's a pretty favorable climate right now for Democrats. We'll see if it holds up. We're talking about this in December.
Sarah Spreitzer: We are a year away.
Jon Fansmith: We are a year away. But unless you're expecting big reverses on the economy, big shifts in the economy, and certainly the administration is saying we're going to, people vote generally on the economy and people right now are not really happy with where the economy's headed. And it's going to be hard to move off tariffs. It's going to be hard to move off some of the other policy decisions for this administration that are driving the concerns about the economy long-term. We saw unemployment went up this month with the job... Today, the job support said unemployment went up. That's reversing a multi-year trend. Only 64,000 new jobs. These are not good numbers for the administration if they hold out. Even frankly, into the summer, it's probably too late for them to reverse core. So I think probably we're going to see Democrat take over the House, that's what I'd speculate. And then that has a big impact on what the administration can do. One chamber being in the opposition party's hands means a whole lot of ability to grind down the gears of what the administration can accomplish.
Sarah Spreitzer: But Jon, you missed the part about messaging bills. I think we're going to be extremely busy next year with bills that they're going to bring up and try and make members take votes on them, whether or not they think they're actually going to pass. And I think that type of thing tends to mean it's going to be a busy Congress.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. I mean, I think there's also a very realistic... Sorry, Mushtaq, I'm jumping on your chance to answer. But I do think there is a very realistic option that if you take the attitude of Republicans about what's going to happen in the House and you invert it, they don't move to the middle. They don't try to win the handful of 20, 25 seats that actually determine control of the House. They go hard in consolidating their base and hope maybe support from the President can limit the losses if you're strategic about it. You could have a much more exaggerated, very hyperpartisan, very culture war issue kind of thing. Generally, that's not the playbook. And that playbook is essentially saying, "We're not going to pull it off, so we're going to retrench." But Mushtaq, you are probably the closest poll watcher among all of us.
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah. And I don't even know that you need to watch the polls like that closely. I mean, each of the last, what? Five midterm elections have seen enormous swings in the House, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022. And '26, I think is if everything were on the normal, if we didn't have a particularly tumultuous first year in President Trump's office, we still would probably see an enormous swing in the 26 elections. Every single data point that we've seen from special elections to the polls themselves to the numbers that Jon referenced on the economy that just happened point to a pretty good day for Democrats in '26 and November 26th. So is there time for things to change? Sure, but I wouldn't think so. I mean, absent something very, very big happening and unexpected happening, I wouldn't think that the basics, the fundamentals of the American electorate, which have just swung wildly from poll to poll, at least in the House, is going to shift very much.
I mean, the Senate's a little bit of a different animal. I think that it's an uphill battle for Democrats, but I think picking up anywhere from one to three seats seems quite possible. I think this question about messaging bills, I think is a really interesting one, Sarah. I mean, to me, it feels like any bill that is not about the economy right now will be seen to, I think I would read as being a distraction from the things that Americans care about right now. And so sure, the Republicans could try, but I'm not totally sure that it's going to, I'm not sure that it's going to work. I'm not even sure that's exactly what they want to do. So we saw this morning some controversy among, I think it was Michael Lawler, a New York Republican representative who would like a vote on ACA subsidies.
And Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, is having a hard time getting it in front of the House for a vote. I mean, actually the messaging vote there would be a vote that was for the purpose of trying to allow some of his Republican, the moderate Republicans to be able to vote for something that is improving the economic fortunes of everyday Americans. If they can't get that sort of messaging vote out, then I think that's still sort of a tricky place. But I think it all goes to maybe the question that I've got for you and Sarah, Jon, well, Jon and Sarah. Jack, I hope I'm not stepping on your question, but just what's your... This has been a very big year in terms of higher education news, especially the first nine months, maybe even the last couple. Is the madness going to slow down or are we just going to keep up the pace of executive actions, of things coming out of the Trump administration, or are the midterms going to be moderating in some form? What do you guys see in your crystal balls?
Jon Fansmith: I think the two are pretty closely related. What we've seen at the end of this year, at least what I've seen, is this a rebounding against the Trump administration's higher education actions and a different public view of higher ed. And look, I'm clearly outlining what I think is the ideal end game here, but that is that increasing public support for higher education and concern with the Trump administration's policies combined with a Congress where a lot of members who want to win winnable seats and will need support from leadership need to message not just things that are meaningful to their constituents, but demonstrate some independence from an unpopular administration. Look, this administration goes into that election polling at 38, 40 percentage points with the public. Every Democrat's going to run against Trump, and most Republicans are going to want to put some distance between themselves and Trump, at least in winnable seats.
That could very much mean combined with a change in public opinion towards higher education, that efforts that the administration has made. And we've seen a little bit of this, very small pieces here and there, might get more of a ground soul, might get broader Republican support in Congress might frankly make the cost of considering those things harder for the administration, especially as they start to run into the possibility of a chamber with subpoena authority that's not aligned with them starting next year. So I think the things are related. Obviously that's, like I said, probably best case scenario. But the one thing I'll highlight, and I've talked about this a couple times with some groups, if you look at those special elections, 2024, 2020, biggest predictor of how you were going to vote Republican or Democrat was whether you had a college degree or not. The gap was massive.
That wasn't the case in the special elections. Voters without a college degree were split just about 50/50 between the two candidates. Again, not a direct correlation, lots of issues on the agenda that had nothing to do with higher ed, but you don't see those same trends that there's one side of the electorate that's very hostile to higher ed and one side of the electorate that's very supportive. You didn't. Will it hold up? Who knows? But you can certainly see reasons why it might.
Sarah Spreitzer: See, I think, Mushtaq, going into the midterms, I could see the Trump administration trying to double down on some of their campaign promises. I agree, I think an independent voter or somebody who is not completely locked into whatever party they're voting for, but I could see the administration really trying to continue to carry out the promises of continuing to reduce the side of the federal government, addressing college costs perhaps by different efforts, holding hearings, more hearings on antisemitism on campus. So I think that the midterms could in some ways, yes, it may limit their ability to take votes on things, but I think it also supercharges the administration to try and promise on many of the things that they have been talking about for their base and the things that they've started this year, like dismantling the Department of Education.
Mushtaq Gunja: You could see it either way. I mean, you could see a little bit of a moderation to the extent that the public is a little bit uneasy with what is happening in higher education, what the Trump pressures on higher education, if they feel uneasy about that. And you could see a little bit of moderation in advance of the midterms, or you could see it Sarah's way and say, "Look, control of the House is about to probably change hands, so let's get as much done as we possibly can in the next 11 months as we possibly could." If they were going to, if they were going to push down on the accelerator a little bit, Sarah, where do you think they would push?
Sarah Spreitzer: I think continuing some of the efforts at the Department of Education. And I think just today we saw some of the efforts to reshape NACIQI, the National Advisory Council on Institutionals Equality and Integrity.
Mushtaq Gunja: Well done, Sarah.
Sarah Spreitzer: NACIQI. Anyways, they had their meeting today the first time with the Trump folks on the advisory committee, and they've already voted for a new chair who is a Trump appointee. I think these continued efforts to really reshape pieces of the federal government will very much continue. I think that that may not be as noticeable perhaps to US voters, but I think that the base that voted President Trump into office that wants to see these efforts continue putting out proposed rules that's going to limit the number of foreign students that we get, carrying out actions around trying to reign in college costs, trying to reign in colleges period. I think those things can still continue. I think Jon is completely disagreeing with me. And I don't know, maybe he thinks next year is going to be really chill and totally different from this year, but I see this just continuing and even perhaps ramping up in the approach to midterms.
Jon Fansmith: I want to be abundantly clear. I do not see next year being very chill. Certainly not for us.
Sarah Spreitzer: That was the vibe I was getting.
Jon Fansmith: Oh, no. Well, I would love that. I think you're probably generally right. I think this administration sees success differently than we would ascribe what success would look like politically or sort of in the norm of, look, you don't destroy the research enterprise because you're invested in the American economy. There's a political motive that drives it even if it's counterproductive to your broader goals and they've done that. So I don't think they're going after institutions purely because this is a well-calculated long-term plan with an end goal. I think there's a lot of lashing out that's part of this. And I don't think they're going to step away from that. I also think that for the people like you talked about, Sarah, who agree with them on this, who see this as a positive step, those are still their core. And that's the people that the president very clearly pays the most attention to and listens to.
Even if that's not going to win his party a majority in Congress, that's where his focus and attention and concern is. So I think that is a reasonable thing to assume will happen. I just think the environment will shift around them in ways that curb the effect. I mean, Congress was absentee this year. They did nothing to check the administrator. Even as they complained, that's about what the administration's doing, they did virtually nothing to even slow it down. I think that looks different next year. I'm not saying it's a complete reversal, but I think the climate is different and the outcomes will be different.
Jack Nicholson: They were started to talk about, I think the next question I want to ask, which is related to the competition you all are having, a little more aspirational, Diana from California asked, "With all the havoc in 2025, what are the top priorities for 2026?" Or phrase another way for the holiday season, what's on your holiday wishlist for 2026?
Sarah Spreitzer: Can we just say survive? I mean, I think everyone is so ready to turn the page on 2025, but I mean, I am hopeful that some of the chaos that we've seen this year goes away and the government kind of gets back to the work of the government. So it's less about tearing down and more in kind of working towards forward things. This week, Congress is going to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, and attached to that bill is an authorization for the U.S. Department of State. And one of the things it does is it reshapes the U.S. Department of State in a way that's being pushed by Secretary Rubio. And something that was announced in the early days when they were kind of moving offices around, this puts it into statute, it creates a new Office of Public Diplomacy, moves a lot of what we care about, the remaining USAID programs, educational and cultural affairs under that new office.
And I'm hopeful that next year, once that office is really established, that we can start having normal conversations with people because given the chaos of this year, it's been very difficult to understand, for instance, the interagency agreements with the Department of Ed, the Department of Labor, the Department of State, where are those programs going? Who do you actually talk to in those offices? So my hope for next year is less chaos and more conversations.
Mushtaq Gunja: I've got two things on my wishlist, Jon, and I think they might not be on yours. So let me go first. One is pie in the sky and the other one is much more tangible and possible, I think. The first is just that Congress step up and do its job. And I think that's a little bit of oversight and a little bit of defending their boundaries. And I think we're seeing just the slightest hints in the last couple of months that maybe there's something there. So with these vote attacks in Venezuela, I think we've seen some effort by Congressional Republicans and Democrats to ask some questions of Secretary Hegseth. I think that's useful and valuable. I think we've seen a little bit of that with Senator Cassidy and vaccines with RFK Jr. I think there's a little bit of appetite here that may be related to the midterms or maybe just that, sure, the president got nine months to be able to push the envelope, but now there's a little bit of regular pushing back.
And I think that will be useful. And hopefully the place we'll see that most is in all things impoundment control and budgets. When dollars get allocated, I would hope that Congress will do a little bit of a better and different job of defending their turf now that they saw that the president's willing to trample on what Congress has allocated from a dollar point of view. That's maybe a little bit more hopeful and maybe less possible. I mean, maybe more possible, just on my wishlist, I'm very hopeful that the department will continue to collect and release data as it relates to IPEDS, college scorecard. I think they need to, frankly, to be able to do some of the accountability work that they want to do, but it will be difficult for us to do our Carnegie classification work and really be able to do good institutional research if the backbone of all of that data is not going to continue to be collected and put out by the Department of Education.
I'm hopeful there. I mean, I think there's some promising signs that updates have been promulgated on IPEDS and to the scorecard. Obviously, the people at the department that were doing it have in large part been eliminated. I hope some of that gets reversed, but some of that's getting contracted out and I'm really hopeful that will continue to come out. So that's on my wishlist. Jon, how about you?
Jon Fansmith: Yeah, I mean, I'm lucky to build on the two of you because I think a lot of what I'm hoping for is aligned with what you said. I think the biggest area where maybe I'm just putting more specifics on what you and Sarah said is funding. I think there is at least a pretty clear appetite among and a bipartisan way for Congress to reassert itself in the funding process to tie the administration's hands on these arbitrary cuts and where the funding's going and where they're withholding it. I think that is something that we can look forward to. Plus, I think the funding levels, there will be things we'll be unhappy about, but generally what we are hearing Congress talk about are things both in the policy side, as Sarah alluded to in some areas, but also just funding levels that are more what we are used to and will be a little bit more of stability and predictability.
I mean, that chaos that we've seen, simply knowing that the money the government's appropriate, the terms under which it's going out and that it'll eventually make its way where it's supposed to go would be a huge difference from what we've just spent the last year dealing with. And I think that will be reassuring for a lot of people and maybe restore a little hope about the functionality of our government. I do think, Mushtaq, I'm a little bit split because Sarah is talking about destroying the department, you're talking about the department meeting some core functions. We hear a lot from the administration that they take seriously their statutory obligations to do things like put out the IPEDS data, and we've seen efforts where they're trying to do more of these things, expand it, may not agree with the ways they're trying to do it.
But I do think it's going to be a very, to overuse the term, interesting year in that they're going to try to balance these very conflicting tensions about how do we outsource, diminish, reduce the Department of Education while still trying to show the world that we can govern effectively, that we can do the things that people rely on, that people expect, that people need? And one side has to win out. Again, falling back to mind, if the needle's moving the other direction in public opinion ways, they might be investing a little bit more time and resources and at least meeting some of those functions, might be external, like you said, might be contractors doing the work, but if the work gets done for a lot of our institutions, exactly who's doing it isn't as important as whether they're getting the things they need from the federal government are being prepared.
Sarah Spreitzer: If we could get funding, that would make the year much more chill. I just think having a regular appropriations process, that's my wish for next year is a regular appropriations process because we've been in a continuing resolution now for two years since FY24 for most of the government, and it would be nice to actually have some bills. So that's my wish, I guess.
Jon Fansmith: I don't think you have to be an expert in psychology to notice the number of times Sarah and I in thinking about next year are saying chill. It's a desperate year to get our psyche for some normalcy.
Jack Nicholson: I had somewhere here along the lines of asking about will there be a government shutdown, but I think we're going to hold off that for 2026 maybe. Another question that we received, anonymous one. What do you recommend that we do if the government tactic is more along the lines out of the peers to be taken with the ACA? Which seems to be let it live in name only, but effectively starve it to private of funding.
Sarah Spreitzer: Well, you know what, Jack? I was going to say this isn't related directly to higher education, but that's kind of been the plan on deferred action for childhood arrivals. This is playing out in other programs too, besides the ACA. We're just not going to do anything about it. Then it's kind of, you can say, "Well, we didn't have anything to do with killing it, but eventually it goes away." And so that is a tactic I think this administration uses. I don't know if I would say it's the same as what they're doing with ACA as what they're doing with institutions of higher education, but definitely on some of these big regulations that they don't want to be seen as the bad guy on. I think they're going to just let them quietly die.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. I mean, I would second that. I think the Department of Ed and how they're handling it is exactly this scenario. Secretary McMahon has been very public about we're trying to demonstrate the ability to eliminate the Department of Education through this outsourcing effort they've been announcing. And it is one thing to say we can do it cheaper, leaner across other agencies with fewer staff and fewer resources, and that allows us to cut it, it's a whole nother thing to deliver on that. And one of the things we've seen is they didn't move OCR out of ed yet. They didn't move FSA out of ed yet. The things where the stakes are really high and the impact will be very public and immediate, they're still afraid of making those steps because it hasn't gone well where they've done this already. It's probably unlikely to go well.
And if they blow up things that have a lot of individual impact, look, not on institutions, I don't think they care about the institutions that much, but if a student can't get their financial aid in time, if there are serious issues of abuse or civil rights violations that aren't being addressed by the administration, we've always seen articles around this, how the shift in OCR is impacting that. Those are the things people go to the polls about. Those are the things people get angry at their government about. They have a direct impact on their lives. So they're being very cautious by their standards anyway because I think they realize the sensitivity there. And so yeah, they're trying to kill it, they're trying to suffocate it, but those actions have consequences. I don't know if they're going to be able to pull it off.
Mushtaq Gunja: Can I ask a follow-up question on, I think that very good question from the anonymous asker in the Q&A. I mean, what do you think higher ed should do to help here? So we have a wishlist. We can see what the Trump administration might be doing in the short term. I mean, we, John, Sarah, I mean, constantly say, "Contact your member of Congress, keep that pressure up, make sure that you're making clear what the impacts of some of these changes in OCR and elsewhere have on the ground." What else can we be doing at this point?
Jon Fansmith: I think it's one of these things that we sometimes get lost in this idea of higher ed doing something. And that's not how we're necessarily most powerful as a community is to say, "Well, we've got one central item that we're all going to pursue." Look, I'll reaffirm, lots of people just don't believe this, especially these days, but contacting your member of Congress, your state senator, your governor, whoever represents you and saying, "These policies are really harming us." Negotiate rulemaking. File a comment, say what the impact is for your institution. Say what the impact is on your ability to do your job to serve students of these changes that are being proposed. Even if you don't think this administration cares, put it on a record, let millions of people see that they've chosen to ignore what somebody really impacted by this has to say about it.
And then the other thing that's just so increasingly clear, a lot of where our politics shift, we're in this environment, people are always trying to catch up. If things move very fast, anecdotes blow up, individual stories resonate and cause responses. We know the impact of these policies. I think the scientific research side has done this really well. They've talked about individuals who are in live trial experiments, that grant cancellations meant their last good hope at healthcare went away. That's true for low-income students too. That's true for people who are working in a TRIO program because they grew up in an under-resourced household without the dream of higher ed and somehow were able to achieve it and want to pass that on. That resonates with people. Putting a face on something that the administration would love to say is about waste and billions of dollars and bureaucrats and programs.
That only works if there's no counter narrative. The counter-narrative we have is what we know and what we deal with every day. And the more you can share that story, the more likely people are going to just tune out the things we hear from this administration and vote in ways that will benefit us. That's how we push back.
Sarah Spreitzer: But I think, Jon, also touching on the fact that it's the individuals that make the difference, I think institutions of higher education, even though we're constituents, often the biggest employer in a congressional district, educating people of the region, of the state, it's those individual stories. The student that wants to study nursing, but now will likely not be able to because of the limits on federal student loans. That is what is getting traction. It is the individual constituents calling and saying, "Well, you thought that you were doing something that will keep costs down at these institutions of higher education. I'm not seeing that, but I am being limited in my ability to access my education." And I think that's really important. And I think, as you said, where the scientific community has had success, it is those individuals that are using the results of the research or the drug development or the biomedical research where they're having those conversations and saying, "Look, I'm not the university, I'm not the researcher, I'm not the drug company, but I wouldn't be alive without that. And that's why that funding is important to me."
Mushtaq Gunja: I agree with all that. I'll just add one small layer to Sarah's point, which is, I think we talked about a couple of episodes ago when we were talking about the compact. I think that this administration seems to want to punish a particular set of institutions and only has those institutions in mind and maybe things that all of higher ed are those institutions. So I mean, I think some of the real world impacts on our public universities, on our community colleges, our small liberal arts schools, I don't think the Trump administration always knows the actual impacts of what they are proposing and making those real to everybody for those who don't live and breathe higher ed data all the time, I think are really important. So yeah, I think continuing to tell stories. And the power of the anecdote, I mean, I keep getting blown away. As somebody who thinks about big higher ed data sets, those things are useful, but man, a couple of good stories seem like they could blow up at any time. So heck knows.
Jack Nicholson: Mushtaq, you mentioned punishment and pressure being put on institutions. We have a few questions about that. Let's see. Michelle from Vermont asked, "Do you see a future in which the Trump administration uses Title IV as a carrot or a stick for compliance to executive orders?" Joseph from Michigan asked, "Can you imagine a certain institution signing onto a pared down version of the compact in 2026? What do you see for the pressure the termination could put on institutions next year?"
Sarah Spreitzer: John and I both predicted that we were going to see a second version of the compact two months ago and we haven't seen it. So has it gone away? I kind of doubt it. I think that they'll try it again through a different pathway, not offer it to a handful of institutions, but perhaps push it out in a different way. It's been interesting that Title IV has not yet been caught up in some of the Title VI or Title IX investigations where the federal government has frozen the research funding for the institution. And I think that that's because those Title IV dollars are going to the individuals rather than to the institution directly. And I think that they recognize, just like we were talking about institutions calling their member of Congress and talking about how this impacts them, they've been very careful not to take away an institution's Title IV eligibility. And maybe that'll change next year, but I think that the research funding has been a good stick for them to use.
They've seen movement at institutions where they've launched these investigations, they've gotten the institutions to come to the table. They haven't always come up with settlements, but it's gotten them a lot of press. But I don't know, what do you think, Jon? Do you think we'll see a new compact next year?
Jon Fansmith: Yeah, I mean, we certainly agree on this. I think we saw that round table the White House hosted around the compact and that what I thought was a very clear statement of intent that we're going to see a version 2.0 that will probably, to Joseph's point, be a paired down version. They invited community colleges and regional, generally open access institutions and really kind of made a new effort to say, "Look, what we're talking about is something that will impact higher education broadly, not just those institutions that Mushtaq highlighted that they seem to want to punish." But think about what that's going to mean for what the compact says. Those aren't schools necessarily that even control their own tuitions, much less can set and place a policy freeze. It's going to have to look very different because it's addressing different schools with different challenges and different modes of operation, different missions than who they were lumping in the original version of the compact.
So could I see something paired down that gets institutions to sign on? Absolutely. Now the flip side of that is what is the incentive for those institutions to do it? If you're going to do a broad-based approach and put real financial incentives on the table to do that, that's a huge funding increase, and I don't know that they're willing to do that. So you balance these constraints, and I'm doing the 6-7 gesture beneath the camera there.
Sarah Spreitzer: Whoa, that's very, very hip of you, Jon.
Jon Fansmith: Thank you, Sarah. I'll wear the T-shirt just for that.
Sarah Spreitzer: Okay.
Jon Fansmith: It's really hard to balance those competing interests. And what's probably going to lead to something that's either watered down enough to be acceptable, but not very meaningful or difficult to implement and thus not widely adopted. I do think the Title IV thing, and this is just repeating what I said earlier, it's one thing to go after schools, especially big brand name schools that have a very specific reference point in the public's mind. When you start going after individual students, which is what denying Title IV eligibility means, it hits that school, but it's saying a student who chose that school, who sees that as the best option for them can no longer afford to go there, the public sees that really differently. That's a different narrative than saying, "This school did something bad and we want to cut off their research money, no more money from the government." This is saying, "I'm going to take the money out of the pockets of that student because I don't like what the school is doing." And I just don't think that plays very well with the populace.
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah. Also, I mean, when I was at the department, we looked into this a little bit vis-à-vis a couple of schools. What's the ability to be able to cut off Title IV to schools for things that were related to financial aid, but weren't at the core of the program participation agreements that institutions signed with the federal student aid? And we got pretty clear directives from both OGC in the department and also White House Council that our ability to be able to cut off Title IV aid was somewhat limited. So I'm hopeful that they won't pursue a Title IV stick here. Then again, I guess I'm going to disagree with the two of you maybe if I fully am hearing you. I don't really think that there's another compact that's coming. I think that was their shot. And the reason is what Jon said, I mean, there aren't carrots here.
I mean, who's going to sign on to a compact in which you get no benefit? I mean, the preferential treatment that was potentially promised on research grants is fine, but only we categorize 500 or so institutions as research institutions in the Carnegie classifications of the 4,000 institutions that are out there. I mean, for the vast majority of folks, a compact like that wasn't really going to work. So then if you're not going to be able to do that, and by the way, Title VI, I mean, they've cut off the folks at OCR that would be doing a bunch of these investigations, and there was always more complaining about what was happening, or there were more mountains that were probably made out of molehills. I mean, not to say that our institution's wracking, strictly as it relates to all things anti-discrimination, but I mean, obviously it seems to me that the administration was trying to blow things out of proportion.
So there's only so far you can go with the approach of a compact. And if Title VI, you're going to run out of oxygen there because you don't have the right people. There are only so many other avenues, I think, to try to coerce institutions into trying to do what you want them to do. And I am worried about what they might do and whether they might see Title IV as possibility. Again, it'd be very difficult to make this work from a legality point of view, I mean, at least if I'm reading the law right, but that's where I'm worried.
Jack Nicholson: 50 years old but Elizabeth from Georgia, she asks, "How do we make diversity less scary for naysayers?"
Sarah Spreitzer: I don't know if that's going to happen next year. I don't know. I worry, I think we've seen this trend with, again, I think this was a tactic that was used by this administration to try to encourage pre-compliance with the stick approach. You better go so far over so we don't even question whether or not you're complying with the executive order. I don't know if I see that changing. And I think that this administration has seen those efforts as pretty successful, but I don't know. Jon and Mushtaq, do you have happier thoughts on that?
Mushtaq Gunja: Maybe a little. I think states and communities want their local populations educated. And I think when we think about diversity, meaning the teaching and the commitment to all students succeeding, I mean, I think that's still, it feels to me like a message that resonates. We've been meeting with a lot of states in red states, purple states, blue states, and we talk about the ways in which the Carnegie classification measures access. And I think in general, it seems like we're not getting a lot of pushback on this question of measuring how well institutions are doing it at educating the populations that they serve. And that means low-income students, it means rural students, it means students of color, it means everybody. So maybe a little bit of a, I don't even want to say reframe. I mean, maybe just a little bit more clarity about what it is that we are trying to do and accomplish might work.
So I mean, yes, I think the days of probably defending DEI with capital D, capital E, capital I as a phrase altogether might be a little bit complicated in the next few months, but I think the underlying purposes of what we were all trying to do, I think we can still do it. I mean, I think we are doing it and I think maybe just doing the hard work of teaching and learning and student success will be enough hopefully in the next year at least. What do you think, Jon?
Jon Fansmith: So I'm with you. I actually don't think Americans find diversity per se scary. I think the administration has been very intentional about saying DEI when what they want to say is diversity because it's like CRT. You can frame a debate by saying, "This means this." And you are pushing a narrative in the world that says, "In fact, this thing that helps people succeed is somehow discriminatory or harmful or pits people against each other." I think most Americans' experience in life is with varieties of diversity. I forget who it was, I just saw in the chat talking about if you are a rural resident in an urban area, you represent diversity in the population among which you move. We talked to college presidents when all of this was blowing up years ago, and they were almost a little bit stunned because they're like, "But my office is serving veteran students and my office is serving rural students, and my office is doing things to engage different viewpoints on the campus." Don't they understand that?
This is not about this caricature that has emerged in the national narrative. And so I think to a certain extent, your point, this is a lot about what a community sees itself as. And I don't think there's a lot of communities that say, "We're really comfortable with a large portion of our community not having the same opportunities, not being served well. What we want is something that benefits our community, and that's inclusive of everyone within that community." So yeah, I don't know that diversity is a problem. I think the way the administration wants people to think about diversity is certainly a problem. I just don't know that everybody necessarily applies it in their everyday life the way the administration wants you to think about it.
Jack Nicholson: You're getting down on time. So time for just a few more questions, I would say, and I would like to ask a more fun one, at least one I think is fun at the end. But kind of shifting gears again, affordability is still a focus on 2025. What have colleges and universities been doing on affordability and access?
Jon Fansmith: Well, and actually I might even flip it because I think when you look at the national data, and Mushtaq, correct me, but what I have seen is the trend is that generally tuition prices aren't going up that much, especially in private institutions where you tend to think about the highest tuition levels. They've been relatively flat, certainly relative to the challenges institutions are facing with inflation and the cost of goods, the cost of healthcare, the cost of technology, all of which over the last few years have really skyrocketed back to this economic conditions discussion we had earlier. If anything, that's the story that's not being told is how well institutions are doing at managing the overall price. And we've always had this disconnect where it's really hard to talk to the public about net price versus list price and what that means and what that means among varying elements of the population by economic status.
I certainly think there has been a lot more attention, both positive and negative, depending on your viewpoint about institutions getting leaner. It's really hard to experience from the institutional side when programs are closed because they're under enrolled, when faculty are not replaced when positions go open, but those are the kinds of things that allow some flexibility against all these other cost pressures to try to keep the tuition line low. It's also worth noting, and I feel like this is an apology for the industry when I say it, but we continue to see declining state support.
We've seen a government at the federal level that has not matched the increase in costs that people face with commensurate increases in the support they offer them the alternative. We're cutting SNAP benefits, we're cutting Medicaid benefits, we're cutting financial aid and loan eligibility. You can't have those trends happen and then say, "Why aren't schools doing a better job on affordability?" They live in the same world everyone else does and they have to make choices. I think against those tides, schools really actually have a pretty remarkable story to say that, "Look, against nearly impossible odds, we're holding the line as best we can."
Sarah Spreitzer: And Jon, I completely agree with you about the net price versus the actual cost to college. When I'm asked about affordability, I often talk about our community colleges and what they do to expand access and the fact that you can go to a community college and then transfer to another institution or apply to a lot of different institutions to figure out what is going to be most affordable for you, what's the college experience that you want. And I think that that's something that's really not recognized. I mean, we were just talking about the compact and how it doesn't work for every single institution of higher education because to use the word diversity, we have a huge amount of diversity in our post-secondary education landscape, which is the strength of the U.S. higher education system.
And you can't just think about the cost of college at one specific institution without thinking, "People have a lot of options when considering where they're going to go to school, how they're going to pay for school." And that is really a strength of the U.S. system. And I think it's really important that the federal government recognize that we are not some monolith one institution. And I think when you talk about affordability, you need to look at all types of institutions.
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah, Sarah, I agree with a lot of that. And Jon, I agree too, that our net price, when you look at the big data systems, I mean, the net price increase that most students are paying on average has not increased, has been increasing about at the rate of inflation for the last dozen or so years, that's right. And yet I do think we've got a sticker price problem. I mean, we were just talking 20 minutes ago about the power of anecdote versus what the big data systems are saying. The big data's telling us something that is not what is happening out in... It's not the narrative that's out there. So I mean, I do think that we, as an industry, probably have to think about what we are going to do with the sticker price. And I don't know how this is an individual institution by institution thing. Higher ed can't do it as a monolith, but I do think we have something to worry about there.
Well, one other thing, there's the yearly cost, which is reflected by net price or by the sticker price in some cases, but we have to multiply that by the number of years that it takes a student to graduate. And I think that is a thing that we sort of miss sometimes. And so we've seen a lot of innovation out in the sector to thinking about having more dual enrollment, having more credits apply from high school to three-year bachelor's degrees, which many of the accreditors are now experimenting with and many of our institutions are too. And I think that we have to think about both of those parts. And I think so much time is spent on the first of those, what's the yearly cost and a lot less time and attention in our policy circles are spent on how long it actually takes students to graduate. And if we can get students to and through, I mean, it will be cheaper and more effective. We'll get more students to graduate the more that we focus on that graduation.
Jack Nicholson: We're almost at time. Final question with the season of best of lists, I know it's been a busy year, but Jack from Washington, D.C. wants to know what's a favorite song you heard this year? What's a favorite TV show you may have watched, a movie, a book you read? What recommendations do you have for the audience to listen to watch, to read this holiday season?
Jon Fansmith: I hope Jack from Washington, D.C. is watching for all this.
Mushtaq Gunja: I got a favorite song. Well, actually, I got maybe two favorite songs. On the way in this morning, I heard the song Truth is a Dimension by Josh Ritter. Do you guys know this song? Josh Ritter or the narrator is out driving. He takes a toke while he's trying to map the stars and then comes to some realization about truth, which is that it's a dimension, it's not mutable. It's got all these characteristics. It's the visible and blinding is lovely. But actually my favorite song of the year is this song Bullseye by Lucy Dacus and Hozier. Do you guys know this song?
It's got this insane rhyming structure. It's like A, A, A, A, B, B, and then C, D, E, F, G, H, H. It's wild. I've never heard anything like it. And it's got this lovely, lovely lyric in the middle about these European bridges where lovers throw, put locks on the rails and then the bridge collapses and the... Anyway, it's a lovely song, and I'm going to send it over to you guys if you haven't heard it already. And hopefully I'll find Jack from Washington, D.C. and play for him too.
Sarah Spreitzer: That's very, very deep with Jack. I'm going to spend my break watching Stranger Things with my kids because they're finally old enough to watch Stranger Things. They caught up before season five started, and so we had a lot of fun at Thanksgiving watching the new episodes. And so I'm excited for Christmas to see the rest of the episodes.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah, I will say I've read a lot of good books, but for a song, I'm a huge Jason Isbell fan and he had a new album out this year and the first song on that album is called Bury Me. And not saying it particularly resonates with me on any specific level, but it's a guy basically facing middle age and trying to find purpose in what they do and looking at where they've been and where they're going. And maybe listen to that one a little bit more than any other over the last few weeks.
Sarah Spreitzer: Wow, I just play my '90s mix over and over and over.
Jon Fansmith: Relive the glory days.
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah, I'm going to just continue to do that.
Mushtaq Gunja: Well, thank you everybody. Thanks, Jack, for jumping in and moderating these questions. I hope that you will come back and do this again for us. And for everybody else, have a happy new year. We'll see you in the next year. And before, I'm sorry I didn't say this up top, but our thoughts, prayers with the folks over at Brown University and everybody in Providence and the two souls, two students whose lives were lost there. I know that there's violence throughout our campuses all the time, but as a Brown alum, this one hits particularly close to home. So we're thinking of everybody and we will see all of you, thankful for all of you and we will see you in the new year. Happy holidays, everybody.
Sarah Spreitzer: Happy New Year.
Jon Fansmith: Happy holidays. Thank you for joining us on dotEDU. If you enjoyed the show, please consider subscribing, rating, and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback is important to us and it helps other policy wonks discover our show. Don't forget to follow ACE on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes and other higher education content. You can find us on X, LinkedIn, and Instagram. And of course, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, please feel free to reach out to us at podcast@acenet.edu. We love hearing from our listeners and who knows, your input might inspire a future episode.
