Badrinath: Welcome to Ideas and Insights, a show devoted to exploring novel perspectives and contemporary issues.

I am Badrinath Rao, your host.

Not too long ago.

Going to college was an exciting prospect for students and their parents.

A good college education was a passport to a secure, decent life.

Not anymore.

Higher education in America is passing through a turbulent times.

Everything about going to college is now fraught with challenges.

Getting admission to a good school, a good program, paying for college, and thriving in school are all mind bogglingly complex problems.

It is not easy for college faculty either.

The advent of AI and other digital technologies has forced professors to reconsider the foundational premises of their occupation.

Besides stagnating incomes, diminishing support for research and disaffected students in classrooms have all eroded the sheen of a quiet life of the mind in academia.

University administrators are also a frazzled lot.

Several private, tuition driven universities face the daunting prospect of imminent closure due to declining student enrollment and decreasing revenues.

Administrators have to constantly scrounge for resources to keep their colleges open to compound issues.

Advances in AI, machine learning, and other digital technologies have cast ominous shadows on the future of work and the value proposition of a college degree.

How do we resolve these multiple crises assailing universities?

Are we at an inflect point in higher education?

Do we have to redesign education to make it more meaningful, affordable, and valuable?

I shall explore these issues with our guest, Doctor Robert McMahan, president of Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, and a professor of physics during his long and illustrious career as a faculty and a college administrator.

He has amassed a wealth of experience and a nuanced understanding of the unique dilemmas of his profession.

welcome to ideas and insights.

Doctor McMahan, thank you for joining us.

Robert: Thank you very much for having me.

Badrinath: Let's begin with an issue that faces colleges big and small.

Right.

And that has to do with declining enrollments.

And this problem has afflicted colleges all over the country.

Many have closed down.

Some are struggling to survive.

As the president of, mainly tuition driven institution Kettering University.

You are well aware of the dire consequences of low enrollments.

So tell us why enrollments are declining.

And what can we do to get students in our classrooms?

Robert: Well, I think there's a the answer to that is it's a great question.

And it is a dire situation for many institutions across the country because there are there are and there are a number of factors at work here.

Some are internal to the institutions themselves.

Others are external.

The biggest external factor, of course, is the demographic shifts that are currently that we're currently experiencing as a country.

Populations are declining, college going populations are declining.

And as well as there are shifts of population from different regions of the country to other regions.

If we think back, you know, one of the interesting thing about enrollment in colleges is, is we know where the students are, right?

We can count them.

They're in high school, junior high, and we can just count them literally.

So it's not a mystery where they are and in what numbers.

And one of the interesting things about the, recession in 2008 was the, the the childbearing rate went down as well as, as a number of other issues that we faced as a society.

And if you add 17 years to 2008, you get 2025.

And that's where we are now.

And in 2025, there is a large demographic cliff that we are going to see in the college going population.

And it's due to the fact that there just aren't weren't that many weren't as many children being born then and now.

They're not as many children who are going to enter college.

And it's something that, any industry has to face, not just, not just universities, but but, a rationalization of the demand to the supply.

Badrinath: So if I have understood you correctly, we are now at the point where all institutions, big and small, are vying to draw students from the same shrinking pool.

Robert: Yes.

Badrinath: That have graduated high school.

Yes.

And this is a big challenge.

And some institutions are better equipped than others.

Now, what can smaller, tuition driven institutions realistically do to get students into the classroom?

Robert: Well, I think they I think they they have to be realistic, for starters.

And they have to say, okay, what what we're facing is, is a mismatch of supply and demand.

And so ultimately, you're going to see over the next few years, a number of institutions engage in increasingly, increasingly dramatic and increasingly and maybe even desperate, strategies to try to keep what they had.

Whereas probably, ultimately, what's going to happen in the sector is you're going to see large scale consolidations, mergers and many closures in response to the, the declining numbers of students, because they're just simply aren't enough students to fill the number of chairs at institutions that we have that we've built.

Badrinath: Given the, demographic challenge that we have in this country, have you thought of getting students from abroad, from India and elsewhere?

This is a strategy many universities are pursuing.

But do you think accelerate this where you go after, say, the top 10% of the population in other parts of the world which have, purchasing power equal to or greater than that of middle class and upper middle class Americans and offer them access to superior American education.

Is that a strategy?

Robert: Well, you know, I would I would take exception on that.

I agreed with your question up to the very last point, very last statement.

And that's and therein lies the rub, is that, yes, this is a strategy that we employ.

This is a strategy that many institutions employ.

Smaller, less well-funded institutions are less able to, to, to reach out that far, especially when we talk about India and China and some of them and these markets.

But the the point of exception I would take is one of the things that is competing in this, in with this is the markets, this countries themselves, because over the past decades, the quality of educational options available to students in their native countries have increased significantly So it's no longer a situation, no longer just, a fait accompli that if you wanted a great education, you need to go to the United States.

There are actually domestic, opportunities that rival, in many cases, what they can achieve in the US.

Badrinath: If enrollment is a big issue for colleges.

The other major challenge facing colleges of all shapes, sizes in this country and in fact, globally, is the advent of AI and machine learning and other digital technologies.

Now, I am sure you know that there is an AI powered software, like Google's Notebook LM, which gets summarized lectures that professors deliver in classes.

And it can also pull in things from YouTube and come up with an auto summary of everything, and also produce a synthetic podcast of this.

Yes.

Topic.

Now, all of this means that young people do not have to endure cognitive discomfort.

Taking notes, laboriously reading large tomes and so on.

And this facility is, changing the expectations of our students.

They are.

We are dealing with a different, generation of students.

Now, some say that AI and related technologies are good.

They are desirable, and they can be leveraged to enhance learning outcomes.

And then there are others who are pessimistic and say that this, new way, a new set of technologies will, radically change how we teach.

What, in your view, doctor McMahan is going to be the impact of AI, machine learning or other digital technologies.

And do we have to now examine the foundational premises of pedagogy given these challenges?

Robert: Absolutely.

You know, I would say what to as far as your your some of your question, your your question actually begs the answer.

I mean, I would say as to what the benefits and the and the negatives associated with AI I would say all of the above and the, the the reality is, is these these technologies exist.

They are here.

They are not going away.

They're going to get more impactful.

They're going to be more integrated over time.

And students and professionals and students and and as professionals when they when they graduate, ultimately they will be employing these technologies aggressively over the course of their careers.

So we can't simply ignore the ignore them.

And I don't think probably a successful strategy is to say you can't use them, any more than it would be to say you can't use, you know, a pencil, or a computer.

In your education, they're going to be a part of the fabric of it.

What?

And as a result, pedagogy has to shift.

Now it's going to make, it's going to make it more challenging in some ways, because I think it's kind of an aside.

One of the interesting things about AI is that students don't typically use AI the way we think they do.

Badrinath: That's true.

Robert: Right?

And in fact, what we think is they use it simply to crib something.

They say, write me a five page.

You know, five page paper on this topic and let it spit it out.

And then they make a few modifications.

Now some of them do of course do this, but typically how the more thoughtful students are using it is they will say they will say something like they'll ask an AI chatbot, they'll say, provide me with five thesis statements for a paper on on this topic.

With this constraints, and then it'll blow up the mountain and say, take thesis statement three.

And what would an outline for a four paragraph paper on this essay on that topic look like?

How would that be?

So in other words, they're they're actually not using it to compose the prose.

They're using it to do what we really want to teach them, which is the integration and synthesis part of learning.

And that's where the challenge, I think mostly the pedagogy, the biggest challenge the pedagogy comes in is we can't ignore that because that's what we actually want them to learn.

Because ultimately these I had a conversation with an engineering student, recently, and he was asking.

He asked he is asking me, does it make sense in his particular case to get a PE, professional engineering certification?

And I said, absolutely.

It does.

I said, think about in the world of AI, when more and more of the kind of rote tasks are being offloaded to these, to these language models, there's always going to be a place in the, in the chain of authority for a person to say, yes, this I've, I've, I've looked at this and this makes sense and I approve that's that.

So you know what how students approach their careers are going to change as well.

Badrinath: This is a related question, doctor McMahan, concerning AI.

And it's role in education.

You know that there is a great deal of talk about how AI is going to drastically change the nature of work and is likely to, in fact, eviscerate all professions.

Now, some, don't subscribe to this view and think that this is all exaggerated and some others say, no, this is going to happen.

Whatever the truth, the perception matters.

And it's important for our students because they are spending a huge amount of money to get into college, and they will obviously want to know if in the age of AI, a college degree has any significant value proposition.

And what makes them wonder about this is this shift towards short term online courses, micro-credentials video based learning, open educational sources, and all the rest of it, giving young people burdened by student loans the sense that maybe, just maybe, they can access everything they need to now without going to college.

So the question then is does a four year college degree still have relevance or must we're revamp our curriculum completely such that we, equip students to deal with the challenges that come in the wake of AI.

Robert: It does, and there's a lot to unpack in that question.

But what I would say is this that the true value of a college degree has never really been the knowledge that the direct kind of domain knowledge that ‘s imparted during the during the education.

And what I mean by this is it's been long been recognized that, you know, and I'm making this number up, but it's something like, you know, 75% of the factual data that you learn as a student in college is obsolete by the time you graduate.

And in fact, there are all sorts of lists that say, you know, the top ten professions today weren't didn't exist 20 years ag And that that has been true for some time and will continue to be true.

So if you're preparing, if you're going to school specific, to prepare for one of the professions that are hot, that are hot today, you are likely not to be preparing specifically for the profession that is going to be hot when you are ready to to enter it.

And so the that begs the larger question, what is the value of a college degree ever?

Has it ever been about what what it has always been.

And that is really not the factual data, but the habits of mind that come from the education that they receive.

So it's not the fact that they know specifically how to solve this equation.

It's how they know to break up, how they deal with complexity in a system, how to how to decompose a problem into tractable pieces, how to solve the pieces and reassemble them into a solution.

Those habits of mind are what has always been most valuable about a college education, and which continue to be valuable.

again, because the professions that we're preparing for don't exist today.

Right?

So we have to retool ourselves.

And all of these pieces are part of that spectrum of opportunities to do so.

Badrinath: Even if one concedes that there is intrinsic merit in accessing education in order to acquire the habits of mind, as you put it.

and and become a full person, which is what we generally say education is all about.

The fact remains that as things stand, institutions of our higher education are going through turbulent times.

And students are in, great.

From framework in all sense, they have a sense of worry and, faculty are disaffected.

They are kind of demoralized because the support they are getting is declining.

They feel undervalued.

Their salaries are stagnant in many instances.

Administrators.

And you know this better than me, are always scrounging for monies.

They are trying to make everyone happy.

All the stakeholders.

Higher education doctor McMahan is no longer a happy place to be given this.

Do you think the time has come to completely reimagine this whole enterprise of higher education and redesign it from scratch, such that, such that we become relevant to the times in which we live?

Now, if that is so, where do we begin and how do we do this?

Robert: I think that I think the time is very ripe for this.

I mean, Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School had a, you know, he, he, he wrote very, very extensively on disruption and of of markets and higher education is facing that phenomenon.

Right now.

The higher education business model is being disrupted by all sides.

That, I would argue, is not for individual institutions, perhaps on a case by case basis, but for the sector is going to ultimately be a very healthy activity, because what you're going to see out of this right now, we have a mismatch of capacity and demand, and the demographic cliffs that are coming are going to exacerbate that.

And it if you had you know, there was a time when, large metropolitan areas had four or 5 or 6 daily newspapers, right.

Now, would you could argue that that is a lost, you know, that was a lost model and lament that loss.

But now what has been replaced with ultimately, you know, zooming forward to today is a is a, you know, as a plethora of options for media content for, for, for media, for news, for others.

So something similar is happening in India.

Something similar is happening in education.

And it's going to happen.

It is.

It is I think it is, inevitable.

And and you're going to see some really creative solutions emerge.

You're going to see, a lot of institutions ultimately merge.

You're going to see, some closures.

You're going to see some consolidations across the industry, just like you see in any industry that is facing this kind of disruption.

Ultimately, I think it's going to you're going to see a lot of new and innovative and healthy approaches to how to deliver the the, the product to the, to the consumer and like in any industry.

Badrinath: Let me close this interview by asking one last question.

And this concerns the role of the liberal arts in education, as you know well, in all discussions about higher education, whether we like it or not, there is this sense that liberal arts are kind of expendable or at least they get, second class treatment, if you will, with the focus now on Stem.

Now, do you still think that liberal arts matter and students specializing in Stem areas should pursue liberal arts and take the subject seriously?

Before you answer that, Robert: I got a great answer for that.

Badrinath: I have a caveat.

You shall not say.

It will make you well-rounded because I heard that.

And there are better ways of becoming well-rounded.

So realistically and concretely, do you think liberal arts matter and should students take liberal arts seriously?

Robert: I do, and I'll say this.

I have two undergraduate degrees.

I have an undergraduate degree in physics, and I have an undergraduate degree in art history.

And if you go if you zoom forward to my PhD thesis in physics, I, I thank my art history advisor for what she gave me in terms of, my background and my and my ability to achieve that, that, that success they are.

And it goes back to my earlier point about habits of mind.

The liberal arts are an important component of developing those habits of mind and seeing connections in establishing linkages.

Because innovation and creativity occur at the intersections of of disciplines, primarily not within the disciplines themselves.

They're the they're the places where people say, this looks a lot like that.

And it's kind of similar.

And I wonder if I brought those two ideas together and what would that what would that produce?

I think that's why the liberal arts are and mean and and and, and and will continue to be important to achieving that goal of the habits of mind and preparing students.

Badrinath: I have one last question for you.

And then I can give you just 30s for this.

Someone watching our interview, student is likely to go.

The host, Professor Rao, is an academic.

The guest, doctor McMahan, is an administrator and a professor.

Robert: Professor.

So these folks have a vested interest in getting students inside the classroom.

So, tell our students, prospective and current, what they should do with respect to, pursuing, college education and why you think it matters.

Robert: I think I think you need to you need to you need to pursue an education.

Okay.

I think that's very important.

Beyond high school.

And I think you need to you need to think of education not as a thing that you complete, but something that occurs over the course of your life.

And then as to what what avenue you pursue in, in obtaining that education, be it a community college, be it a, be it a certification programs or, certificate programs or or coding camps or whatever, however you wish to pursue that.

I think it is the important thing is that you do so and that you engage it.

Fully with and and and make the make some demands of the programs themselves as to how this prepares you.

Don't.

Education is a, education is what economists call a credence.

Good.

And that is something that is whose value you really can't define until after you buy it.

It's kind of like a like an accountant.

You don't know how good your accountant is until you get audited by the IRS.

Then you find out how good they are at education is that way.

You don't find out how good it is until you have to use it later on.

And, but you can make demands of the institutions as your, as you're looking at your options and, and surveying your options.

You can make demands of the institutions and you should and say, what do I come out of here with.

What what is it that how how how how successful, how fulfilled are the are the graduates of this institution?

Do they go on to pursue the careers that they that they started out to do?

Are they successful in that?

How do you assess and make those make those demands of the programs?

Don't just engage education blindly and say, I'm going to go to school because I have a football team, or I'm going to go to school because I do this.

I mean, you can do that.

That's free to do that.

But I think an opportunity is lost to engage and say what?

What is.

And when you're there, when you're studying a particular discipline, ask, what?

What are m prospects within this discipline going forward and how do I optimize those?

I don't know, that's a bit of vigorous hand-waving, but.

Badrinath: well, you answer is very interesting.

You have provided a capacious account of, education and its tangible and intangible benefits.

Education has intergenerational benefits as well.

And, thank you, doctor McMahan, for coming and sharing your, insights.

It was a great pleasure talking to you.

Robert: My pleasure.

Thank you for having.

Badrinath: We would love to hear from you about this episode.

You can email us at Ideas and Insights at wgte.org.

Remember, you can access ideas and insights anytime by visiting our website wgte.org/ideas and insights.

That's it for today.

Thanks for joining me on ideas and insights.

Goodbye.