Penn State President Discusses Obligation to Engage Students

with education and looking at very different aspects. Tell us about when you look at the current um educational environment at universities, how is it going to be different in five years? Well, you know, I would say one of the things that is of particular significance is the fact that people will change careers and they will need new things. How do they continue to be a student and have access to that information? And so we're looking at this very directly, and just to give you an idea about

doing this, we have something called one Penn State. You keep your I D, you keep your student number, you keep your email, and if you were a student in good standing or got a degree, you walk into the portal sign up for anything you need. There's no transactional time, no need to reapply, and you may go in there and get a micro credential. Maybe you're an engineer and you decide to get a business minor. Maybe it's because your company is doing something in chemistry and you'd like

to have a little bit more chemistry. Maybe you like the opera and just want to take take a course. So the whole idea is, let's make it easy online residential. We have twenty one campuses. So imagine the difference if you look at someone and say, not goodbye, I hope you have a successful life, but congratulations on that degree. You're still a student, come back any time. And that's

very appealing in in many ways. I wonder when you describe that, whether it changes the whole notion of and Carol and I both have uh juniors in high school, so we're thinking about this all the time. This notion of a four year degree and and going off to school for four years, does that in itself become a little antiquated? Yeah, it may. Actually we we more and more encourage students to become engaged and think about that time,

even to graduate a little bit more quickly. Because of the amount of money, you say, days, education is expensive so uh, four years, five years. Um, if if we if we do things that enable you not to have roadblocks as you go along, not to make mistakes, we ought to be able to deliver it even faster. Well, you say education is expensive, I think that is an

understatement to say the least. I mean it is. Uh, it is breathtaking for many people when they start to consider, you know, even at you know, a state university, how much it can cost, what can be on, what should be done, and what's realistic in terms of bringing the

cost down. So literally we watched with the last recession and the sort of clawback of dollars that universities weren't the same part of the public good and the resources were not there, and then in many cases didn't even keep up with inflation over years and years, and so then the cost come goes higher and higher, and it's more expensive when you start to consider the laboratories and other things, and and the the the digital education needs

that you have. So what can you do about it? Well, you can spend a lot of time cutting the budget, and I work hard at that, But the other possibilities are to think about every roadblock you have, are you prepared to go to college, So we're incentivizing preparedness. Are you placed in the right course or do you take calculus the next course after calculus and you think your calcul list was good but in high school and it wasn't, So you don't do well, you go back and take calculus,

then you take the next class. I just spent three semesters on to get to a prerequisite um fast start for a student that has to work too many hours, drops too many classes, gives up because they can't graduate on time. So we've got programs to help a student have summer job scholarship six credits in one summer twelve

and another. They get the hating credit head start, and we see that their attention rates are higher, their grade points are higher, they're dropping classes less frequently, and they might graduate in three and a half years when they're a need based student graduating in five or six and borrowing an enormous amount of money to do it well. I do wonder about access in equality in terms of access to good universities and colleges, you know, like yourself, Um,

how do we make sure it is more equal? Are we doing the right way? Because I do feel like something's out of whack at this point. There's a lot

of money coming to schools. We have, you know, huge endowments, and yet you know, as we know with the college admission scandal, there's a lot of you know, games kind of going on, and frankly, I worry that it's it's going to get worse if you go back a decade or so, we have seven states for which the majority of their high school graduates were federally defined as need based. Today we have more than twenty states that are in that category. So you're looking at enormous population that doesn't

have the capacity to pay. So if we don't have this reinstituted as part of the public good, how are we going to help that that group advance and really contribute to the economy. So we're going to have to have a lot of programs and that we work on to do to enable that student. Penn State also has twenty one locations, so we have catchment areas that allow you to live at home and in living at home, keep your summer job and say the significant portion of

the cost as well as discount on a tuition. And this enables that those campuses are about pel eligible students, And we're here with Dr Eric Barron, president of Penn State University, here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. So Dr Barron, one thing I want to ask you about is we just got a ruling here a crossing the Bloomberg a story about Harvard defeating an anti affirmative action groups lawsy to stop the school from using race as

a factor uh in admissions. We're expecting this to go all the way to the Supreme Court. What do you think about that? Well, so we'll have to watch to see how how it uh, how how it evolves. Of course, we are constantly evaluating our admissions to make sure that we're we're being as even as we possibly can, that we have strong criteria that bring in an academic class that's strong. But at the same time, we value the diversity of the class um part of the educational experience.

Out of the educational experience, we always know that if you have a diverse class, it's a richer experience. And and as a public we feel like we have an obligation to to teach the students of America. And so that means you, if you're doing your job, you have a diverse class. So you're constantly looking at this without introducing something that appears to add a bias that that is inappropriate. So it's not an easy job, and these court cases become very important in making sure that we

analyze what we do and do it right. When you think about the Varsity Blues scandal, what's the real impact in terms of behavior changing, either on the part of parents or on the part of the institution. Well, tell you if someone is punished as severely as some of the people are being punished, I do think that puts a chilling effect on on attempting to buy your way in. UM. My personal feeling is that any time something happens where we trust higher education less, this is a this is

a bad thing. And you know, we work so hard to make sure that there's not a favoritism, that that you can't do it from political influence or donor influence, and that it's based on the credentials. Just think how unsuccessful it is for a student if they come in below the academic requirements of the university and then fail. That's a terrible experience for a student. So, you know, the trust is important, but the success of the student

is even more important. But I think it's safe to say that I think there was an understanding that some of this always went on. The varsity Blue scandal kind of took it to a whole other level. Um, But there has been always an understanding um that you know, we look at, you know, kids of alumni who maybe have made donations. Right, There is a little bit of

that always present. So it might be the you would look at an alum and say, we're more likely to yield that student, and so that's a that's a good thing because you your efforts and recruiting students might be stronger. But it is a mistake to bring in a student who doesn't match up with the rest of the class. It's just a mistake at least. And how much how

much has the expectation changed? This actually came up on a college toury had over the weekend in terms of producing a student who is absolutely ready for a job and really trained for a job, and not in a position where they come out from a prestigious institution like hers and say, well, I'm going to sort of figure out what I what I do next. It feels like there's more pressure on students and kindily from parents based

on the investment that there. You know, it changes with generations where some are more relaxed about or or or less relaxed about it. I like to think about training people for a career, giving them that breadth that is there, and that opportunity and the ability to be a lifelong learner. Those things make a tremendous amount of difference. We know, the more experience as a student has outside of the classroom, they have much greater success and careers than in other cases,

and they're building a resume. So internships and things in internships, study abroad, one on one interaction with the faculty members, consistently these students do better and are more ready for

jobs they always do. Wonder about what's the balance of I think, you know, part of what's great about going to college is you've just given an opportunity to explore different things that you might not have right and maybe just learn how to think um just so whatever comes your way versus you know, it's like people who used to teachers who taught to s A T. S and achievement tests, which we've now realizing isn't such a good thing. So what's the balance between So this this is what

I say. You come to pend State, it's not inexpensive. You purchased a blue and white sports car. If you just go to class, you're driving at twenty If you put you should put that sports car through its paces. And that's twelve hundred clubs that you can experiment with things that you've never done. That sets of classes and opportunities with interact with faculty. That's the outer classroom, experienced service learning, or something else that transforms what your educational experiences.

So and we know those students are more successful. I think we have an obligation not just to say here's your course, but here's what you can do to really make and literally there are surveys out there that suggests the more engaged you are as a student, the happier are you are for the rest of your life, regardless of income or age. So I think we have to do this. It's just not delivering curriculum only anymore. All right, what a treat for us to catch up with you.

We really appreciate the time. Dr Eric Barron is the president of Penn State University, and I'm just gonna say it, it's got a four and no football all team, a lot of expectations, high expectations, and they're also going to put out there that when he was the president of Florida State, they won a national championship. So anyway, I'm just throwing that out there. Thank you so much for joining