Note: This transcript was provided by a third party
Sarah Spreitzer: I can see nothing-
Jon Fansmith: It's very bright.
Sarah Spreitzer: ... up here.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah, it's very bright.
Mushtaq Gunja: Hello, and welcome to dotEDU, the public policy podcast from the American Council on Education. I'm Mushtaq Gunja. I'm here with my co-hosts live.
Jon Fansmith: Live.
Sarah Spreitzer: Are we starting?
Mushtaq Gunja: I think we have started today.
Jon Fansmith: I mean, we're on the stage. They played the music.
Sarah Spreitzer: Okay.
Jon Fansmith: All right. How are you two?
Sarah Spreitzer: I'm good. Excited to be here at the ACE Experience 2026.
Mushtaq Gunja: Jon?
Jon Fansmith: I'm good. I just wish we could have gotten our room with enough capacity for people.
Mushtaq Gunja: We are in the big ballroom where all the plenary sessions are. And for those who are listening, who will be listening at some point, and we had an over under of 70.
Jon Fansmith: 70, I think, right?
Mushtaq Gunja:
I think we're going to be around there. So your prognostication skills, Jon, as always.
Jon Fansmith: Solid as usual.
Sarah Spreitzer: I can't see anything past the lights, so I'm going to assume it's entirely full.
Mushtaq Gunja: Okay. So friends, we just did one of these dotEDUs last week, and as everybody sort of knows, we usually try to recap what happened over the course of the last couple of weeks in the world of higher ed policy, and maybe we'll pick up a big picture sort of question or two, but we thought we would do something slightly different. Jon and Sarah are very jealous of my hosting, primarily hosting this thing. And so they wanted to come up with some questions, and they wanted to retake the host.
Sarah Spreitzer: Jon's looking confused.
Jon Fansmith: I was happy to give up hosting. Let me be abundantly clear. Way more work involved in hosting.
Mushtaq Gunja: So what we're going to do is we're going to ask each other a couple of questions each, and I think that'll probably take half an hour or so of this and then we'll open it up to the audience if you all have questions. I think there are mics in a couple of places, so probably in the middle would be easiest for us where at least I can see. I have, for those of you who are listening, I have a very snazzy dotEDU hat on. I don't know why you two do not. But for those of you who are in the audience and would like a hat, I think there are a couple more...
Jon Fansmith: Oh. Being thrown at us now.
Sarah Spreitzer: Going to be collector items.
Mushtaq Gunja: So sometimes you worry about getting pelted by tomatoes, but Frank Dooley is throwing hats at us. So that's good. Okay. So friends, how about I start? Okay. The last year, the first year of the Trump administration, I think was really dictated by a real focus on DEI, trying to reduce the number of international students, and then this whole significant effort, I think, to try to restrict what campuses could do or what they wanted campuses to do by conditioning federal funding. That was the focus of the last year. What do you guys think? What's the focus of next year going to be? Is it-
Sarah Spreitzer: I think this year.
Mushtaq Gunja: A little bit more... This year, I'm sorry. This year, more of the same or do you think there's going to be a shift in focus? Let's go Sarah first then, Jon.
Sarah Spreitzer: I think it's going to be the same. I think it's going to be less perhaps in the news cycles, but I think with the DEI executive order and the specific definition of DEI that they're trying to incorporate throughout the federal government, we've already seen it being proposed to be used in grant standards. I think it's going to be used as they reorganize agencies such as Department of Ed, the National Science Foundation. So it may not be on the front page of the New York Times, but it's definitely not going away.
Mushtaq Gunja: What do you think, Chump?
Jon Fansmith: I agree with Sarah. I think what we're going to see, it's a little bit different. The first year we saw the administration target individual institutions, and that's still happening. We saw UCLA and Harvard just got hit with additional lawsuits recently, but I think they're operationalizing these efforts more broadly. And Sarah mentioned the GSA guidance, which if you're not familiar, essentially says that to essentially receive federal financial assistance, you have to sign, certify that your institution is complying, not with the law, but with the administration's interpretation of what discrimination laws say. So the executive order on DEI, Department of Justice guidance on that, which to be abundantly clear is not actually the law. That's their interpretation of the law, which is very much in dispute. And like with the Department of Education's guidance was rejected by a court and had to be rescinded. So to say that this is a clear case where an institution could certify that, of course not. They couldn't.
But what it is, is an attempt by the administration to say, "If you want federal funding, you have to follow our rules the way we see them, not necessarily the way the courts interpret them." And it's across a couple other things too, that Title III and Title V. We talked about this on the show before, but this attempt to say that those programs, which have been in law for decades, which have been funded by Congress annually throughout that time are unconstitutional and discriminatory. This is the sort of efforts we're going to see. It's not, we're going to pick one institution and make an example of them. It's we're going to start building the framework by which our policy views are held, every institution is held to them. So a different way of going about it. And I think to Sarah's point, probably a lot of people are thinking, "Well, there'd be a quieter news cycle and maybe this will be better."
It's actually, I think, probably worse. I think the impact's going to be much broader, but we won't get the attention we have because you won't have big public pronouncements coming out of the White House. You won't have hyperbolic rhetoric, but what you're going to have is administrative procedures that mean something to every campus in the country.
Mushtaq Gunja: It's funny, I spend not as much time as I would like with you two, but I spend a decent amount of time. I'm actually a little bit surprised by both those answers.
Sarah Spreitzer: Really?
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah. I might have thought that you would say, "The velocity and ferocity of the attacks from the first year are," they seem to me to be lessened a little bit. And it seems to me too that maybe the center of gravity, and maybe this isn't about verbal velocity or verocity, maybe it's just about center of gravity. The center of gravity is moving a little bit from the White House over to the Department of Ed, which I think is probably a good thing overall because I think we know how to deal with some of those structures in a way that we don't quite with a freewheeling White House that is using executive authority in some ways that we aren't. But am I wrong about this?
Sarah Spreitzer: I mean, I think that it's almost, I don't want to say, "Insidious," but we're talking about putting this DEI interpretation into a federal regulation that will be done through rulemaking, which means another administration coming in would likely have to unwind it. And the GSA is what? The General Services-
Mushtaq Gunja: Services administration.
Sarah Spreitzer: ... Administration, it's not something that people think of on campus. And so I think our institutions are going to have to be even more vigilant to understand where some of these definitions and policy goals are being pushed and they're just not going to go away.
Jon Fansmith: And the other thing too, that is we are seeing consequences of things that were done in the first year. The reconciliation is the big one. The interpretation of what the law meant is going to take effect July 1st. And those interpretations matter a lot as we've already seen. Graduate professionals, the most obvious example, but there's lots of other elements of that, that the administration is very intentionally going to seek an interpretation and hold institutions to these standards they devise that we probably would disagree with, but certainly in many cases have already disagreed with, and there are more of those on the way. So I think this is actually, to your point, I think we're going to have a whole lot less bluster and noise, but the stakes are much, much higher. They might be more the kinds of things we're familiar with, but the stakes are much, much higher and the impacts are going to be much, much broader.
Sarah Spreitzer: And I would just add, Mushtaq, the executive orders, this is about the implementation. So the executive order is super flashy. It's announced by the president, there's press, there's pictures, but now we're talking about the agencies actually implementing it and incorporating it. And so I think that's almost something to be more worried about because we can actually see the plans for how these are going to be carried out.
Mushtaq Gunja: Okay, great. On that very optimistic note, I'm going to pass it over to you, Sarah.
Jon Fansmith: Nobody's coming here for optimism time.
Mushtaq Gunja: By the way, I mean, we were texting a little bit this morning and Sarah said that she was going to be peak Sarah today on her questions.
Sarah Spreitzer: Really?
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah.
Sarah Spreitzer: I forgot all about that already. Oh, do I have to ask you a question?
Mushtaq Gunja: You sure do, my friend.
Jon Fansmith: You've already forgotten the format?
Sarah Spreitzer: I didn't even realize I was supposed to. I was sending you questions, Jon.
Mushtaq Gunja: Let me pass it over to you.
Sarah Spreitzer: I'm going to think of my question while you ask your question.
Jon Fansmith: So I think my question actually is in some ways the opposite of what you were just asking, right? I really do feel going into last year, we had a sense of what to expect from the administration and what we didn't predict was the scale, the ferocity, the intensity of the attacks, the constant sort of churn nature of it across various areas. So that was probably the thing that I don't think we expected. This year, again, we enter it as we're talking about thinking like we have a good sense of what we're going to say. So I'm really curious to find out what you think at the end of this year will be the story that we will be talking about as the biggest deal that happened, but we probably aren't anticipating right now. Tricky, right? See, you shouldn't pass, Sarah.
Sarah Spreitzer: No, I thought of my question too. It's a good one.
Mushtaq Gunja: Were you listening to the question, just thinking about what you're going to say?
Sarah Spreitzer: It's just February. I had really high hopes for 2026. I'm so exhausted already, but one of the things we're now talking about is the fact that we may be at war with Iran as of this weekend. That's going to have far-reaching consequences for what policymakers are going to get done this year, the direction the country is going to take. And then for our institutions, we have students from Iran on our campuses. What does that mean? I don't think we've started thinking about what that might mean for our institutions of higher education, likely restrict travel, how wide-ranging will it be? But I don't know. I mean, right now I'd say that's going to be a pretty big story at the end of the year, but we're only two months in.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. Armed conflict. Mushtaq top that.
Mushtaq Gunja: I have two answers, but just one quick thought on Sarah's. Regardless of whether we go to war with Iran, and I really hope that we do not, I think that this is going to be a year in which we're really going to start in for real seeing the effects of the administration's war on international students. We haven't seen the full effects, but it's going to be... I'm very worried about what the effects are going to be, especially for our graduate students.
I think for those who are trying to decide whether or not to matriculate, I'm not sure it's the most welcoming country in the world right now, which is really the opposite of what we've been for the last 20, 30 years. I mean, I think if we've been a magnet, I'm worried. Here are the two things I guess I might say. So the question is, what are going to be the stories in December 2026? Is that right?
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah.
Mushtaq Gunja: Okay. I would say first, one that I think we can see is all things accreditation. So we're about to have a negotiated rulemaking about accreditation. I think the administration signaled even back during the campaign that they really wanted to change higher education by making some changes to our accreditation system.
I think of the things that are probably coming, I feel most comfortable with us as a field talking about this. I think we've known it was coming. I think we know that there are places where the accreditation system needs to improve, needs to shift. I feel good about that. And I think if we're having a conversation about changes to accreditation, I think that'll be positive actually. I mean, I'm sure that we will not agree with all the places that it will end up, but I think at least that it's a topic that I feel happy talking about as opposed to war with Iran or huge DEI changes to GSA.
The thing I think, I have no idea how this is going to happen, but I feel confident we are going to have some big headlines and December 2026 about this are all things college athletics, which seem like a complete mess to me. It's not something I follow from a policy point of view. Frankly, it's not even something I watch from a fan's point of view anymore now that my Pac-12 has been disintegrated and I don't even know what it is. It feels like as somebody coming from the West Coast, the idea that we're having students from UCLA go to Penn State on a random Thursday to play volleyball seems crazy to me. It is bad for our students.
It's not good for the quality of the athletic competition on the field too. Something has to give here. And I'm not as focused on the NIL part, but the conference realignment just feels insane to me. So I think that this is not going to be able to last forever, this grab by the conferences to take as much sort of television money. You can only do that for so long without really harming the product. And I'm worried that the product has been harmed.
Sarah Spreitzer: You just had to bring in college sports.
Mushtaq Gunja: I did.
Jon Fansmith: Just sports generally, Sarah.
Sarah Spreitzer: I mean, I think that-
Mushtaq Gunja: Look, you talked about the war with Iran.
Sarah Spreitzer: If the American people are waking up on December 2026 and accreditation is on the front page, I'll owe you $5. College sports maybe, but...
Mushtaq Gunja: College sports definitely.
Sarah Spreitzer: Accreditation is going to be big.
Mushtaq Gunja: It will be anyway.
Sarah Spreitzer: I have a feeling under Secretary Kent will touch on accreditation, but I don't see that as an issue that resonates with the United States.
Mushtaq Gunja: I didn't say the front page of the New York Times, front page of the Chronicle and Inside Higher Ed. I think that's going to be the story.
Sarah Spreitzer: Okay. Well, I mean, I went for...
Mushtaq Gunja: Hopefully we're just off the front page of the New York Times, so that would make me very happy. Jon, how would you answer that, your own question?
Jon Fansmith: So athletics, I agree with too. And I think one of the things about that is especially everybody agrees there's a problem. It's not Democrats have a concern or Republicans have a concern or the NCAA has a concern for the conference. Everybody thinks the system is broken and wild and unpredictable and not good for anyone involved in it. So I'm with you on that.
I think this is a sort of thing where everyone agrees there's a problem and the problem right now is what is the solution? But you look at the proposals, there's a lot of bipartisan bills. Even the ones that are competing with each other have lots of overlapping tendencies. So I think this is the kind of thing where you could get to a resolution. The thing I was going to say, and it's a little bit of a cop out because I've recently been talking about this, but learning more stuff recently, graduate education, I don't think we understand the scope of what's going to happen in graduate education by the end of this year.
We can go into it if we want to later or questions, but if you look at the amount of money that students currently are borrowing to go to graduate programs versus the amount of money they'll be allowed to borrow going forward on July 1st, and Jordan Matsudaira, who I think was speaking tomorrow on a panel, and the Philly Fed put out research on Friday. It's eight to $10 billion, so you can't borrow that as a grad student. So you could go to the private market, right? That is the solution that has been advanced in Congress. So you'll just go to a private lender.
The problem is the current private loan market for graduate loans is $3 billion. So you presume they'd have to triple the volume of lending. And I'll tell you, when you talk to private lenders, not that interested in that. The other thing Jordan found and his colleague Debravka found is that if you applied the credit standards the lenders use, 40% of those borrowers who have need wouldn't qualify for a private loan to begin with.
Mushtaq Gunja: Right, of course.
Jon Fansmith: So you have a huge population of people going to graduate school right now who will need to borrow, who will not be able to borrow. And then the question of course is, what do they do? For every campus in this country that has a graduate program, there are going to be real impacts. And nobody can entirely predict because there's a range of responses institutions can take, there's a range of responses students can take, there's a range of responses lenders can take, but it's not leading to any positive outcomes, certainly given the system we're currently in. So I think we will start to see, and the other thing I'll say is, "When you talk to people on the Hill now about that, there is a growing understanding that we are headed towards a problem and that maybe there's even some openness to trying to roll back some of these changes have been made."
Sarah Spreitzer: Yes, but the staff will also say, "Let's wait three to five years to see how this plays out." There's no sense of urgency.
Jon Fansmith: As we get closer and closer, I think there's going to be more of a sense of urgency. I think it's going to be a very disruptive change and it's going to come all at once.
Mushtaq Gunja: Sarah? Question?
Sarah Spreitzer: Oh, is it time for my question?
Mushtaq Gunja: Sure is.
Sarah Spreitzer: Okay. So both of you, political nerds.
Jon Fansmith: Just a nerd.
Sarah Spreitzer: Really into the government for some reason, I don't get it. Do you think the federal government right now is actually functional?
Mushtaq Gunja: Jon?
Jon Fansmith: I think it's highly functional if you believe in the power of a strong executive, right? I mean, this administration is proof positive that the government can implement the goals.
Sarah Spreitzer: I think for the short term, but I think when you're trying to get, you're calling up an agency that has no one on staff anymore and you're trying to get answers, I don't know if that's exactly functional when you're looking.
Jon Fansmith: But that's functional from the perspective of somebody trying to access a program or a service that the current executive branch probably doesn't want existing in the first place. That's not a fault. That's not a flaw. That's not an accident. That's an intentional policy shift.
Sarah Spreitzer: I would say, "That I think everybody wants a functioning government and wants to see non functioning-
Jon Fansmith: I think sane people and people who benefit from a functioning government want a functioning government.
Sarah Spreitzer: We saw the Department of Homeland Security suddenly reverse course after 10 hours on TSA PreCheck because they realized how non-functioning that would be. So I just wonder going into 2026, are we going to see more of these inflection points where what the government is doing from the executive branch is just not workable when you're talking about a functional government?
Jon Fansmith: Yeah, I think we're getting there, but again, I think that's part of the plan.
Mushtaq Gunja: I think maybe two things I would say. I mean, I'm heartened by the funding levels in FY26. I mean, there was a real possibility. I mean, if DOGE had really come in and really tried to take a full acts of everything, I think they tried, but Congress rejected it. And I think it's sort of hard to say, "That we're going to have a non-functioning government when the funding levels for what the government's supposed to be doing is essentially level." Okay, so that's thing number one. I guess thing number two I would say is, "Policy is people," at least partially. And just I think you both know I used to be in the White House doing vetting and confirmations, nominations, that sort of thing. And the lack of vetting standards from this administration up and down the administration is a real problem. And I think those will continue to sort of rear their head.
I mean, are they going to be operating on all cylinders? I mean, hard to know. But to Jon's point, I think the decision making process and the implementation process in this administration is pretty different than what it was in the Obama administration and the George W. Bush administration.
Sarah Spreitzer: I'd say, "The first Trump administration."
Mushtaq Gunja: I think that's probably right. In the administrations I'm familiar with, there are decision memos that are written, you get information filtered up to decision makers in a clean way, and I don't think that's exactly happening here. Then again, their strategy 2024 document, is that what it was called?
Sarah Spreitzer: 2025.
Mushtaq Gunja: 2025.
Jon Fansmith: 2025, yeah.
Mushtaq Gunja: I mean was, had a bit of a blueprint. So I guess yes and no. I mean, I think that there are, I think it's probably functioning. It's probably not functioning in quite the way that we want it to, but I think I'm a little bit more optimistic that the worst of the... If we rewound to June 2025, I think I'm more optimistic now than I was then that we are on a path to sort of get through the next couple of years without too much damage.
Sarah Spreitzer: I'm more pessimistic.
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah, I know. Everybody knows.
Jon Fansmith: And I'm apparently.
Mushtaq Gunja: Everybody that's ever listened to this podcast.
Jon Fansmith: I'm more pessimistic than you. I'm the one arguing it's not even a functioning government now.
Mushtaq Gunja: And so typically what happens is that I would be sitting in the middle trying to keep these two away from each other, but...
Sarah Spreitzer: A moderating influence.
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for that question.
Sarah Spreitzer: Oh, it was good.
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah, I thought it was amazing. Yeah. And now you have time to think of your second one.
Sarah Spreitzer: I'm glad I ignored those numerous Teams messages and texts about how we were going to structure this.
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah. No, no. Thanks, Sarah.
Sarah Spreitzer: You're welcome.
Mushtaq Gunja: Okay. I'm going optimistic.
Sarah Spreitzer: Okay. You're always optimistic though. That's why we love you.
Mushtaq Gunja: Over the course of the last year, what's the one sort of lobbying moment that you are most proud of? And then I have a follow-up question after that.
Sarah Spreitzer: I mean, Jon doesn't really lobby, so I can't wait to hear this.
Jon Fansmith: Oh, shots fired. Somebody has to supervise you, Sarah.
Mushtaq Gunja: Seriously, Sarah, I'm going to have to switch places.
Sarah Spreitzer: Jon go first. I want to hear what his is.
Jon Fansmith: You want me to hear what... Look, I've said it a million times.
Sarah Spreitzer: I want to see what he takes credit for.
Jon Fansmith: And it's true. And it's not my lobbying moment. It's ACE's lobbying moment. Reconciliation, right? If you looked at the bill the House introduced, if you looked at the bill the Senate first introduced and you looked at the final bill, it's not something we would support, but the degree of harm... I'm talking about the impact on graduate education. There were the same provisions worse being put in for undergrads too. There were changes that would've gutted the Pell Grant program and disproportionately hit the lowest income students in the program.
There were things that were absolutely terrible and destructive in that original bill and they were not in the final bill. And it's partly, frankly, people in this room and people listening who were really activated, and we helped to activate them and it coordinated with the work we were doing, but it made a real difference. You could see the difference being made. And we have an amazing team who did that work and we really rose to the moment of leading the community and pushing back on something that really could have been very damaging. So I will always be proud of that.
Mushtaq Gunja: Sarah?
Sarah Spreitzer: I mean, I'm going to take credit for that too. No, I'm just kidding. It's been an interesting time because I think that we've used... We've had to learn new skills when you're facing all of these executive orders, you can't call people at the agency, they're just not there or they're not going to take your phone call.
I think one of the things last year that I actually saw movement on was when you would have conversations with policymakers, whether it was on indirect cost or whether it was on what was in the reconciliation bill, that they were like, "We have real concerns about elite colleges." We're not worried about the community colleges, the regional schools. We're really focused on these elite colleges, but there wasn't an understanding that what they did to the elite colleges was going to have an enormous impact across higher education.
So trying to put a cap suddenly on indirect cost at 15%, there seemed to be this story within the administration that this would actually help competition and smaller institutions would perhaps be more competitive for federal grants. And that's just not true that sudden cap would harm all institutions across all different types of post-secondary institutions.
And so there was, I think, some movement on that last year, and I think that that's going to continue. I think this administration also came in without understanding the diversity of the type of institutions that we have. They tend to paint us with a very broad brush without understanding that one of our strengths is that we have so many different types of institutions to meet learners in different places, and I think they're finally starting to get that.
Mushtaq Gunja: Okay. Quick follow-up. What's the one sort of place where you've done some lobbying, you've had some conversations, and the facts on the ground just don't seem to be resonating with the folks that you're talking to. Where are you just running your head against a brick wall? I'm sure there's a few, but...
Sarah Spreitzer: I think international students, we used to traditionally make the economic impact argument that those international students are coming to the United States and spending dollars in their communities, in their cities, in their states on a lot of different things. It's not just good for the institution of higher education, it's good for the overall economy. That's just not resonating. And I've heard from policymakers, both parties, who somehow assume that we can make up enrollment with domestic students without understanding that there's this demographic cliff that we're facing.
Mushtaq Gunja: Well, I think this goes to your point about the administration not fully understanding the diversity of our higher education institutions, not really having a clear eye about what college is. I mean, it seems to me that they have this view that every institution's sort of a selective institution. And so if you don't enroll an international student, there are 75 American students who are applying that would just fill that seat. Not understanding that the vast majority of our institutions are open access institutions or close to open access institutions and they are enrolling international students too.
And there's not just a, forget the enrollment cliff, which is of course a problem that's coming if we're not already here. But I mean, the thing that struck me most about the compact, the proposed compact was that it really did seem to indicate that they thought that the whole country was selective private institutions.
And I feel like that is a place where it would be difficult for... I mean, the facts are what the facts are. The facts are not difficult to sort of understand. There are 3,920 some institutions that we classify in the Carnegie classifications. There's a lot of different types of institutions, but trying to convince the administration there's more than, as my colleague Sarah Gas said, "37 institutions," the ones they think about all the time or it seems to be a tall order.
Sarah Spreitzer: Jon? Oh, wait. I was also going to say, 'College cost," because it doesn't matter what type of institution you're talking about, they'll say, "It's too expensive." Or this idea that not everyone can access higher education when there's lots of pathways into post-secondary education, but there's this assumption that you're going to be paying full cost, living in a dorm, staying at a four-year institution, and studying for a degree that's going to lead directly into a job. So that's also very problematic, I think.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to answer when Sarah gets six answers. No.
Sarah Spreitzer: I have another one too.
Jon Fansmith: No, but I mean, college cost is one of them and I'd actually sort of an element of that.
Sarah Spreitzer: See, I was just teeing you up.
Mushtaq Gunja: Oh, thank you.
Jon Fansmith: There's been an argument made and you hear it more and more and sort of started on the right and it's moved towards the middle, that financial aid is somehow a benefit to institutions rather than a benefit to students. And everything about our system is centered around the student. How much aid do you get? Where you can take it, all those things. But that's not this kind of viewpoint. And whether it's a justification to say, like last year, a $1,700 cut to the maximum Pell Grant proposed by the administration.
Some of the things we've seen with the caps on grad lending, it's this idea that like, look, that's fine because either private lenders will make it up for schools or just cut tuition prices. It's all in your hands and you can solve it. And this money doesn't actually benefit or impact students' access or achievement or chances for success. And I mean, everything we know, this is not even a question, is that securing financing for students, not just in tuition and fees, but for cost of living expenses, things like that is a really critical element to their ability to just decide to attend college in the first place, much less stay in and succeed. So it's particularly frustrating. And I get it. There's a little bit of frustration with the amount of money that is going out and the broad perception that value isn't being returned, which to Sarah's costs of college, also incorrect. The data doesn't support it, but they're so baked in as these things that are believed that it leads to those kinds of conclusions gaining ground.
Mushtaq Gunja: Sure. I'm keeping an eye on the time, and I want to make sure that we leave time for folks to be able to ask questions. So I think I might ask for you guys to ask your questions in as short a way as possible and maybe we could-
Sarah Spreitzer: I get to come up with a second question?
Mushtaq Gunja: Dear God, do you really not read your Teams, Sarah? Okay, this is excellent. Actually, we can skip Sarah. She's awesome. Jon, ask one more question. And as Jon is asking, if folks have questions, there's a mic in the middle, come there. And if not, then this will give Sarah more time to come up with something.
Jon Fansmith: See, Sarah, this is why you should have read the Teams chat because I-
Sarah Spreitzer: I was doing work.
Jon Fansmith: I know, but I'm going to pass my work onto other people. I have to speak tomorrow morning. I'm going to be speaking after the undersecretary. I don't know what he's going to say. So I'm just going to say whatever I want to say. So I'm going to ask the two of you and maybe the audience, if they want to come to the mike, what should I talk about?
Sarah Spreitzer: Definitely Section 117. That's all I got.
Jon Fansmith: That's all you-
Sarah Spreitzer: I think reminding folks that what the undersecretary talks about is coming from the administration, not from Congress, that there's certain things that they can do. I mean, I keep reminding audiences when I speak with them is when things are announced, don't panic right away. Be thoughtful, take some time, talk to others, talk to your campus. There's nothing that's going to require you to react within a 24-hour period. So the undersecretary may say, "We're going to redo all of accreditation." That's going to take some time. The other thing is I think that he is engaged with the community and conversation, and so there's time to have conversations with him about whatever he's proposing. And so I think encouraging institutions to have those conversations about whatever he's going to talk about tomorrow is important.
Jon Fansmith: Mushtaq?
Mushtaq Gunja: I think the question I always basically end every segment with when I'm talking to you guys is, so what do you want our campuses to do? What can they do? How can they help? And I would just make sure that you spend a little bit of time on talking about that for each of those sections. And I mean, a lot of it, you give the same answer a lot, which is contact your member of Congress, which is right and it seems like it's working and that's great.
Jon Fansmith: Or your state senator or your governor-
Sarah Spreitzer: Or the undersecretary.
Jon Fansmith: ... or whoever represents you in whatever capacity. Call them all the time.
Mushtaq Gunja: But if there's anything else that we want to say, I think you're going to have a huge group of college presidents. And I think if we've heard anything over the last couple of days of the ACE experiences that they're... I mean, people are here because they want to be engaged, and I think they want to work together. And so if we can think about all those ways that we can do that together, that would be great. I have no topics for you though.
Jon Fansmith: You didn't help that much, guys.
Mushtaq Gunja: No, not at all.
Sarah Spreitzer: Sorry.
Mushtaq Gunja: Though we can put together a 40 slide deck for you. I mean, that is something that we-
Sarah Spreitzer: We have plenty of time.
Jon Fansmith: I mean, sure. I'll edit it. I'll probably disagree with most of your slides, Sarah.
Mushtaq Gunja: Hi, friends. Do you want to introduce yourself and then ask the question? If you want to be on the podcast, actually. If you want to be anonymous, that's okay too.
Beverly Lyman: Beverly Lyman, Augusta University in Georgia. I'd like to hear your thoughts on reputational risk for higher education, particularly how we're perceived by Europe, by other countries. And maybe it's not stringent, but a gradual erosion leading to more thoughtful decisions to pursue a degree in the United States versus another country. Or we heard this morning about students taking not study abroad for a semester or a year, but their entire college education. Thank you.
Mushtaq Gunja: What do you guys think? Reputational risk?
Sarah Spreitzer: I think one of the saddest things I heard from last year was after we had the issues with the Fulbright Program where it was paused and students that were in the Fulbright Program couldn't get funding to pay their rent, pay for food, and institutions were having to step in to provide support to these students. And there was so much confusion.
Congress restored funding for Fulbright in this one in the FY26 of Probes Bills. But I've heard from several countries that people aren't applying for the United States Fulbright. They're choosing to go to other countries. And I thought that that is an impact that we are seeing right there. I think reputationally, I think our academics or others that work in the world of higher ed policy are watching what's happening in the United States very closely. Our friends in Canada often say, "Whatever happens in the US happens six months later in Canada or will bleed across the border." So I think that there's a lot of concern, I think, especially when you talk to other countries that we have close relationships with.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. I mean, I don't even think it's risk at this point. There's reputational harm for this country. We've seen new student enrollments drop 19% from the previous year. It's not supposition, that's a fact. Lots of international students are looking at the US and have no confidence in their ability to access an education here or remain enrolled here until they complete their course of study. And it's hard to fault that judgment. I always say, "We've had this before, post-pandemic, post-first Trump administration, we had big declines. Last two years, we've had the largest classes of enrollment, current academic years that decline." It can bounce back. I think the one element that gives me pause in that it can bounce back is the attacks on the research enterprise. A large part of the reason international students want to come here is because we offer what no one else can.
We are the best place to do research in the world. That's still true, but continued sustained attacks on research, strangling funding, even if Congress is providing it, making it harder, limiting the kinds of research that can be performed. Even if there are still those opportunities, that just adds to this narrative that if you're one of the best and the brightest in the world, maybe you think, "I want to start a research line. I know that I can do it in Canada. I know that I can do it in China. I know that I can do it in Germany. I'm not sure I can do it in the US." And that might last past whatever this administration's rhetoric is.
Sarah Spreitzer: I would say, "We've already lost an entire generation of domestic and international students who suddenly saw PhD programs or postdoc opportunities shrink last year because of the uncertainty in federal science funding." Those are people that are likely not going to return to their programs or going to go off into industry. So I don't know what that impact's going to be five, 10 years from now.
Mushtaq Gunja: I feel like I'm reminded a little bit of the serenity prayer at the moment, which is to really think about the things that we can control. And I think the things that we can control vis-a-vis the international students are ensuring that our academic programs are the best that they can be and are meeting the moment in ways that maybe our competitors abroad can't.
We operate from a position of strength in some ways. I mean, the brand of our institutions and the quality of our instruction in this country is higher than it is in other places in the world. That's why people have wanted to come in the first place. So I mean, I think making sure that we are relevant for the market needs of what the world sort of needs, what industry needs is going to be our task. I mean, I think that we're not going to be able to solve the reputational problems that the Trump administration are going to be able to create. That's out of our control. What is in our control, I think, is making sure we're recruiting well, that we're not resting on our laurels. I mean, this is, I don't want to say, "It's an opportunity," but I think it is the challenge that's in front of us. And I would say, "It's not a whole generation." I mean, will we have lost a year?
Sarah Spreitzer: Yes. We can still bounce back.
Mushtaq Gunja: Absolutely.
Sarah Spreitzer: But I think that there are people that we've lost already that are likely not going to come back into the system.
Mushtaq Gunja: I think that we have to think a little bit about how we message to those sets of folks that have gone off to industry right now about the ability to come back to us once things are on a better footing. Let's go here and then there.
Merodie Hancock: Merodie Hancock, Thomas Edison State University. Quick tactical question. Most of our institutions now aren't neatly within our region. So when we go to our representatives, it's one piece. But who are maybe the top five representatives that you think Trump listens to that are worthy of our time to try and reach out to?
Mushtaq Gunja: And are you thinking mostly in Congress or are you thinking somewhere else?
Merodie Hancock: Congress.
Mushtaq Gunja: Okay, great.
Sarah Spreitzer: I think that changes on a daily, if not hourly basis. I think that there's a lot of problems within the Republican caucus keeping it together and there's constant trading going on for votes. So it would have to depend on what day is it?
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. Well, and the other thing, I'm being the negative guy again today. The people Trump listens to are not persuadable. The reason he listens to them is because he shares their views. They share his views. They are giving him the information and the perspective he wants to hear. That's what generally he seeks in counsel. So I love the idea of it, of trying to find the targets, but I mean, I will come back to, there are 19 House seats that are up this cycle that are seen as tossups. They will control who runs the House next year. We're not going to persuade Trump. And I don't think Trump, I will say this, "I think he cares about higher education from a certain perspective, but for him, it's very much a political issue and we're not that important right now versus immigration and affordability and the economy."
So we're going to slide off the radar there. I don't see that as a pathway to improving our situation. 19 people whose political lives depend on winning independent, persuadable voters to their cause are exactly the kind of people who are looking right now to hear what do you care about? What does this mean in my district? Am I going to lose employees if the administration does X, Y, and Z? Will we have enough nurses if they continue with this policy? Those are the persuadable people. And those are the ones that... Mike Johnson, who Trump does listen to, has to listen to if he wants to be speaker next year.
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah.
Sarah Spreitzer: And I think we have to go back to almost grassroots activities. You have to be talking to your member of Congress about what the impact of some of these policies are at your institution. And there's a lot of real world examples that we can point to to say, "This is how the duration of status policy is going to impact my institution. This is how disruption in the federal grant process is impacting my institution. This is how the MSI grants are impacting my institution." And making it broader than it's not just like a MAGA policy decision to end this program, take the politics out of it. What is the real world impact of that funding or that regulation impacting your institution? And I think you could have a conversation with any Republican or DEM and hope that they're going to, if they get a few minutes with the president, that's what they're going to bring up.
Mushtaq Gunja: Sure. Thank you for the question.
Brian Alexander: Hi, Brian Alexander, Georgetown University on that stage a couple of hours ago.
Mushtaq Gunja: You were very good.
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah. How were the lights for you because-
Brian Alexander: I couldn't see any human beings.
Sarah Spreitzer: Good to know.
Brian Alexander: So I'm a human being, hi. I'm sorry I came in late. Did you already talk about climate change?
Mushtaq Gunja: No, not at all.
Brian Alexander: So I'm wondering if you could speak to climate change because how academics can do climate work given the current actively hostile political environment. And by climate work, I mean research, I mean teaching, I mean town gallon relations, I mean campus operations, the full gamut.
Mushtaq Gunja: Can I just broaden that question out just maybe even slightly? The question is great. How do academics, researchers, faculty, how should they think about operating in a climate where certain topics are a little bit disfavored? I mean, how does the work continue to get done? Advice in that realm?
Sarah Spreitzer: Well, I was going to ask if that question was placed by our colleague, Steven Bloom, who works on sustainability issues, but I'm not a partisan person. And so I always start from, if your research or your work is having a real world impact, you should be able to talk about it without kind of a partisan lens.
I think there's been a lot of changes to the idea of how we talk about climate change. There's been a lot of work, I think, done with the agricultural community to talk about how to respond to climate disasters or how to prepare for, they may not say, "Climate change," but kind of changing weather patterns. And so there's ways to talk about it again with that real world impact of how is this going to impact our food security, our transportation, our building industry, all of those things. And I think that there's a way to talk about it.
I do think that we should be smart and know if certain words are going to automatically close that door, that-
Brian Alexander: Climate change is worse.
Sarah Spreitzer: ... we need to be smart about talking about it, right? But I think that everyone should be nonpartisan in how they talk about their work.
Mushtaq Gunja: Sure.
Jon Fansmith: I agree a lot with Sarah. I mean, I think we've seen it already and she gave an example talking about climate change in terms of sustainability or resilience or sort of reframing the issue in a way that maybe has a broader appeal. And we've seen that in a bunch of places where people will talk about developing clean energy sources, not as clean energy, but as ways to make more affordable sources based on what's available to them and things like that.
There's a little bit of this with every administration. Every administration has their priorities. Every administration has the things they like and the things they don't like. And if you care very much about an issue, if you're an expert in this issue, if you're trying to advance research and thought in that space, there has to be a little bit of attentiveness to attune what you're doing to what the climate is if you're expecting to get federal funding.
This is a particularly tough one because I think what we have seen from this administration is a denial of pretty well established scientific fact. And in fact, policies, especially on the international front, that are going to exacerbate this. So it's hard to look at that and say, "I can just rename my work and that'll be great because the research will still get done, but if the research isn't being followed, to a certain extent, it's advancing human knowledge, but the practical implications are pretty significant."
So I think there's a lot of experience across our institutions of how to calibrate, how to represent the work that they're doing in ways that have the practical benefits Sarah has talked about. But ultimately, if there is this sort of firewall against using the science simply because the topic is verboten, it's not going to help a lot.
Sarah Spreitzer: But I also think being flexible enough to pivot, I think that's really difficult for higher education. I mean, we can do it, right? But look, I'm not a researcher. I'm not saying, "You should just completely shift your research focus," but there are opportunities here. The Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy has money for his nutrition research. So instead of talking about climate change, can you talk about the impact on some of these resilience for crops that you're trying to grow and how that's going to impact overall nutrition and health? I think that there are opportunities Congress put money into the appropriations bills, but they're likely going to slightly change from the priorities we had in the previous administration.
Mushtaq Gunja: I'm the resident optimist here, but I think you two are being too optimistic about the ability of our researchers just to be able to change their fundamental research to meet the priorities of this administration.
Sarah Spreitzer: But we've done that for every administration. I mean, every administration comes in with their own science priorities.
Mushtaq Gunja: But this is an administration that's been much more heavy-handed in this regard. And so I guess what I might say is, "Deeply sympathetic." And I think what we need to do at this point is probably start comparing notes about what are the ways that we might be able to, without fundamentally changing the research, figure out some ways to be able to either shift a little bit of emphasis, a little bit of wording, find allies and find different sorts of allies.
I mean, I am heartened that NSF and NIH and others were funded at pretty good levels. And I think that that's an indication that at least Congress sees value in a lot of this research. And climate change is like the tip of the spear here, but I think for much of our work... Anyway, I would just say, "Come find us. Let's see if we can compare notes as an industry and then see what might work and what might not."
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah. And I'll just add the money is there, but they are going forward with the reorganization of those agencies. And so again, the priorities are going to shift. The program that you previously applied to may have changed. The priorities may change.
Mushtaq Gunja: Sure. No, thank you for the question.
Frank Stella: My name is Frank Stella. I wear two hats. So I'm in the exciting world of insurance. I lead Marsh's global education practice, and then I'm on the board of the University Risk Management and Insurance Association, so representing them here. My question is related to, we're really good at collaboration, but under the spirit of what we've seen with our privates with antitrust, and then back to your comments earlier about athletics and name, image and likeness, where do we go? How do we guide our institutions with all of this pressure from antitrust and reputational risk and how that's going to impact, I think, in particular athletics?
Sarah Spreitzer: It's athletics.
Jon Fansmith: Both right at-
Sarah Spreitzer: Both of you.
Jon Fansmith: Look, there are lots of established ways in which institutions can work together to address consistent policies across campuses, especially in the athletic space. That's what conferences are. The problem, of course, is it's all the actors outside the conferences that are adding stress and uncertainty to the collegiate athletics system. And so that's where you need federal law to intervene. And again, I think that is coming to Mushtaq's point. I think the framework, and part of the reason it's coming is not just because it's these external actors disrupting the system, but because there's also a really anti-competitive aspect to this, right? Conferences want consistency across the teams within their conference. They don't want to be at a disadvantage to other conferences. Stability, some predictability, the financial impacts on these institutions, their ability to control what's happening with their teams, all of that is something they would like to see.
And again, something lawmakers want to provide. I don't think we're that far from a legislative proposal. Will we like it? I don't know. I mean, the biggest thing for me will really be, is it going to recognize that the institutions they feel have a problem is about 65 institutions, and the institutions that have collegiate athletics is about 2000 institutions and making sure that whatever framework recognizes that those are two functionally different systems and the rules of one should not apply to the other. But I think that's on the horizon. I don't know.
Mushtaq Gunja: I would just say, "Pulling up half a level." I mean, I think this question of collective action is a tricky one because we do run 3,920 institutions separately, and we can only coordinate so much before we've got problems of monopolies and collusion and all the rest. So I mean, if we're talking about things other than athletics. I mean, I think that associations really matter, but this is the constant sort of tension that I think our industry has. It is very difficult to speak with one voice when we have institutions that are supposed to be speaking individually and not always sort of collectively, but that's why associations are here to be able to do some of that work for you.
Anne Harris: Yes. I'm Anne Harris from Grinnell College in beautiful Grinnell, Iowa. I want to be sure to thank you for your voices, your discernment, your wit. They keep a lot of us going. They really do. You got fan clubs everywhere. So my question is for you, Jon, I had the pleasure of hearing you at the Law and Higher Education Conference in Florida last year. And you said, "In the wake of the Valentine's Day, dear colleague letter, whatever you were doing with DEI on February 13th is just as legal on February 15th." Would you say the same thing today? Would you say it in a different way? Eager to hear your thoughts.
Jon Fansmith: I wouldn't. Well, for one thing, that guidance has been rescinded. So there's something to that, which I'm laughing a little bit, but I want to underscore that. As soon as it went to a court, this really ridiculous interpretation of what SFFA said about how diversity could be handled on college campus, the department didn't look in all the other places they've lost in court. They don't rescind it. They don't reverse their policy. They pulled this one back because they know it's not defensible, and they know that their interpretation, which was always intended not to be upheld in the court, but to chill institutions, to scare institutions. It was a blast across all of higher ed. One of the things that's been great is it was challenged, it was reversed, and a lot of people know that. The law hasn't changed since SFFA.
Again, discrimination is discrimination. You should not be hiring somebody on the basis of race, but guess what? You shouldn't have been doing that pre SFFA. That hasn't changed. And I think if anything, we've had a really good reinforcement of that basic principle despite what the administration has tried to do.
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah. Just one quick thing I might say, just in addition, this goes to Sarah's point about taking a deep breath after some version of an executive order comes out. I mean, I skimmed the Art of the Deal a couple of months ago just to sort of see what in the world is going on. I mean, look, what is happening, it seems to me, is very clear. They go out with something that is indefensible in court, not because they think that they're going to get all of that, but just to sort of set the anchor so that you can bargain against that. We know this. I mean, we know this. We just need to be aware of this as we're thinking about what changes we're going to make on campus. And I think just putting my criminal hat back on, I mean, the amount of things that they are having to walk back once they actually are in front of a court is it's legion right now. It's unprecedented. So I'm not surprised that it's happening, not just in the criminal system, but in some of the civil parts too.
Sarah Spreitzer: I mean, I think another good example is the compact. It was sent to a dozen institutions. It was never posted on the Department of Education website. The cover letter was never posted. Yet we received phone calls from college presidents asking if they should proactively reach out to say that they were signing it, or if they should start making major changes based on this compact. I was like, "It's not even on the Department of Education website." So again, take a breath, but that is, I think, their hope to have this kind of shock and awe and see what kind of response they can get, what changes can they get, and then move on from there.
Mushtaq Gunja: So we shouldn't take the bait if we can, if we can help it. Trey, do I have time for one more question or are we out? We got to wrap it up.
Sarah Spreitzer: Oh.
Mushtaq Gunja: Oh, no, Frank.
Sarah Spreitzer: We're getting booted for another session.
Mushtaq Gunja: So actually, this is perfect because we are going to be hanging out at the reception after this next plenary. So please come find us. We're going to be in the... Where are we going to be?
Jon Fansmith: Exhibit Hall, right?
Mushtaq Gunja: We're going to be in the Exhibit Hall, I think to the right when you enter. We'll have some hats if you want to come hang out. Frank, please come ask your question. And thank you for all that you do for higher ed education. Thank you for contacting your members of Congress and everybody when Jon and Sarah ask. And thank you for attending it, friends. And if you clap, you're going to be on the podcast, so please clap.
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