Tools for Achieving the American Dream

political issues of the day. We talked a lot about equal access, we talked a lot about E s G. We talked about leadership, which is kind of where I want to start with. Our next guest joining us right now is Carrie Healy. She's president of the Milk and Center for Advancing the American Dream and she joins us now. She, by the way, former president of Babson College, former Massachusetts Lieutenant governor, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Carrie,

so nice to have you here. You are joining us via zoom. I have a lot to ask and we want to talk to you about your work at the center. But first of all, I've got to ask you about a woman who has had several leadership positions. You were the first female head of babs on perhaps in college. Excuse me, um to see someone like Cheryl Sandberg stepping down as the chief operating officer, a very prominent position

certainly when it comes to big tech just overall. And I don't even want to just say, you know, a top woman, a top individual when it comes to the global corporate world. What are your initial thoughts down? But my my guess is that she'll have another reincarnation and and come come forward and do something very interesting in the future. One of the things that I've noticed about women now is that they have longer workspans, and so you can really afford to have many different types of

career over the course of time. And I'll just be looking forward to seeing what she does next. Yeah, it's certainly. Uh. You know, I made the joke to Emily when she was in our studio earlier that she has so many interests outside of meta platforms already, and she has continuing on the company's board, so it's you know, she's certainly going to find herself busy. Carry I want to move on to what you're doing at the Milk and Center

for Advancing the American Dream. But I want to start somewhere basic because I think some people would I would even hear the title the Center for Advancing the American Dream and say to themselves, wait a second, the American Dream in this day and age is not what it used to be. With rising prices, with the rising cost of education, with healthcare costs increasing, it seems to be out of reach for so many people. What do you make of that? Well, I think I think that's true.

And I think that any kind of stereotype that we bring to the American Dream is going to be challenged in our current economy, and and I think we're going to probably end up talking about higher education and healthcare and all the things that are actually making the American Dream more difficult to achieve today. But I also want to go back to just that notion of our understanding

of what the American Dream is. Everyone has their own individual definition, and for some people it might be that college education or owning a house, owning a car, you know, having having a certain lifestyle. But for other people it might just be freedom to do the to pursue the thing that they want most and so I think we should try to not make assumptions about what the American dream means, and we actually need to be asking young people more and more, you know, what what would the

American dream mean for future generations? And how can we help you achieve yours? And forgive me because I want to go more into terms of the straight line of what you guys are doing at the center. But I gotta tell you when I think about the American dream, and this is hard for me and I think many Americans to get away from. It doesn't conjure up a

picture of young innocent children being killed by guns. I ask you, as a former lieutenant governor of a well known state and who worked on some really tough issues, whether it was sexual abuse, children abuse, you know how, and you did this in a bipartisan way, why is it that we cannot get something more constructively done in a bipartisan way when it comes to gun legislation. Well, well,

first and foremost, it is abs salutely heartbreaking. I think for anyone you know, to to witness this and to imagine this happening here in our country again and again, so it is horrifying spectacle for us to deal with and when I was Lieutenant governor and I served with Mitt Romney, we were able to actually bring both, um, the gun advocates and also the gun control advocates together

on some gun control legislation. And it was not easy, but I think that it was extremely important that some common sense regulations were put into place at the same time, some some fairness was you know, also put into place around how applications are handled. Massachusetts is very unique in how they deal with gun licensing in that it's actually local.

The local police chiefs get to decide who gets a gun, and I think that actually makes a lot sense because that's where people are best known in their own communities. And so we had a little bit of a leg up there. We could show respect to local officials, but we also needed to control some of the guns that we see involved in in some of the worst crimes. Now, but do we have to get to a point and you know, certainly our allies are saying, this is a

this is a US problem. It's not a developed world problem. It's a United States of America problem. I mean, most people on a logical level would say, why do we need automatic firearms out there? Um, why can't we just take them away like we do in other countries? Do you see that as a as a you know, violation

of rights? And forgive me for going there, but I just because I mean, it's it's an incredibly important issue, and and that was the decision that that we made in Massachusetts to limit those those high capacity UH munitions and guns. But but I think that what I'd really like to see is an honest debate about this is an honest one UH that that doesn't have to do with politics, And it upsets me terribly to imagine that this could be politicized in the upcoming UH cycle of elections.

So I think now is one of those moments where people have really gotten completely fed up with the with the repetitive nature of this horror, and and hopefully good people on both sides will come together. I know that there is a growing number of people in the middle right now in the Senate and in the House UM, whether it's the problem Solvers Caucus or or the loose association of of people who have more moderate and collaborative values in the Senate, and hopefully UH they will come

together and and promote a reasonable compromise. Well, given your experience and what you were able to accomplish as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. How would you advise Democrats and Republicans? You actually come to some sort of meaningful conclusion here In politics in general, I think right now is a moment where people need to put their own re election aside. Uh. There is too much focus on each person's personal career and not enough on the good of the country and

the good of the people. And so we need more people to have genuine courage and step up and be leaders in the true sense of the word, and not be looking to that next election cycle, and to be able to go back to their constituents and say I did what was right. I did what was right for you and your children, and if you would like to not re elect me, there will be others to serve. Do you have hope We've got thirty seconds and we're gonna come back and talk more about your work at

Melcombe thirty seconds. It doesn't feel like there's many who do stand up like that. Do you have hope that this is There aren't many, But this is a time that should bring political courage. This is a time when people should look at what is happening, for example in Ukraine, and say that is the that is the personification of political and courage to you know, to be able to stand up and say this is my country and I'm going to defend it and I'm not going to compromise.

Carrie Healy, she's president of the Milk and Center for Advancing the American Dream. She was former president at Babson College, former Massachusetts Lieutenant governor, member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She really has seen the world from so many different angles. She's still with us via zoom for those who are watching on YouTube. So talk to a little bit more about the Milk and Center. You know, I mean it when Tim and I were there, we were there in

the fall as well. I do always love going to Milk and because, yep, there's a big financial focus. But you guys are looking at these big macro issues in terms of what ails us in the world, global issues, and you know, the last two to three years we're now going on, we are talking so much about the inequities that are out there in the world, and you talk about this American dream. You know, how do we need to think about getting to the American dream? Going

forward for more. Yeah. One of the ways that I think we should be thinking about it is how do we help people reach their full potential. How do we remove the obstacles that are in the way of regular people who are just trying to make sure that they can make a good life for themselves and their families.

And one of the things that we've seen right up front is that this whole notion of a college education being the doorway to the American dream has actually become, in some cases, a stumbling block to the American dream. I'm so glad you went here because this is what I was thinking about. Go ahead. Yeah. So, so what's fascinating is there was a Mackenzie study recently um that said there are thirty million Americans out there who have

the skills to be making seventy percent more income. Now imagine that seventy more income, but they can't because they don't have the degree necessary to get that job. And a number of employers and I don't blame employers for doing this, but I think that now I'm asking employers to reconsider this approach. But a lot of employers have simply said, it's going to be easier for me to

find well qualified people for my job. If I make a bachelor's degree necessary, if I just make it a qualification, right carry Tim and I are saying in the background, were like, college is telling you, Jerry, and you were the former president of Babson College, would you did you come to this conclusion recently? Did you come to this would you have said the same thing? Well, you were the president of Babson Was there something that that changed

your opinion about this? I think I'm just starting to see in the last year or so, the statistics, you know, I've started to dig into what are the what are the obstacles for people achieving the American dream? And I was really lucky at Babson College because it was a

business school. It was an undergraduate, undergraduate business school. So the kids coming there, the young people coming there, um were they wanted to go into business, they wanted to be entrepreneurs, and they got to start their first company in the first year and and have that experience. And so they went just charging out into the workforce and either started their own companies or got jobs immediately of them get jobs, you know, in the first six months

after graduation. So I didn't have to worry about them. I actually didn't even have to worry about looking their parents in the eye and saying, you know what, this is a good investment. You should go ahead and pay this tuition because I knew for a fact that it was going to pay off. And so what I became very aware of it when I was at you know, Babson, was that not every college has that same return on investment for their for their kids and their students and

the parents. And so that investment can either be a good investment or it can be a bad investment, depending on what your major is, what the quality of the colleges, and what you're you know, what your ambitions are, what you want to do with your life. And so I I have become very frustrated with this idea that colleges are ranked based on their elitism, their reputation, based on

perhaps how much research they do. Those are the things that that more likely drive the rankings that you have traditionally thought of, rather than how do graduates of those institutions do for the rest of their lives. You know, are they able to support themselves in their families, and are they able to achieve their dreams? So there needs to be this this this turning of the corner around that issue. So, Carrie, how do we as parents in a society? My dad was first generation, my mom was

second generation. I'm one of seven kids. You know, from the get go, since we were kids, it was all about going to college. And you know, kudus to my parents for doing that with all of us, um, but you know, we had no doubt that that's what our our goal was. How do we as parents in a society where we tend to look down. I think it's fair to say, on people who don't have degrees, how do we do that? Rethink and over in Europe, you know,

apprenticeships and other things are valued. I mean I kind of would like to be a plumber because plumbers are in demand and they make a ton of money. I see what that is actually a very good career path. At this moment, I think I think it's important to start the conversation by saying that the typical person who goes to college makes more money over the course of their life, more than a million dollars in most cases,

than you know, the person who does not go to college. Right, So, so your parents were right, My my parents were right. In saying this is this is a pathway to being more economically secure over time. But and and this is where the granularity of those kinds of UH discussions needs to come into play. So, but sixteen percent of high school graduates actually make more than the bottom fift of college graduates. Wow. What so yeah, So let me see that again, six of high school graduates make more money

than the lower fifty percent of college graduates. And and they don't have the debt, and and they don't have the debt. And if you have some college it's twenty three percent who do better than the lower half. And it's twenty eight percent of associate degree holders who do better than college graduates, the bottom half of those. So so so there it's more nuanced than just go get a degree. But the options, but the options are different.

And just in the last minute that we have with you, Kerry, talk a little bit about what you're doing at the milkn Center for Advancing the American Dream with companies like Corsera. Yes. So, so what we have done is we have put together with Corsera and Google, UH and META and other organizations that offer tech based skills certificates, we put together a a certificate that is recognized by a hundred and fifty

different employers UH. And though that certificate will give you a technical skill, there's a whole menu of ones to choose from. There about six or seven different types of skills that you can choose from. Plus it has an entire range of liberal arts skills, soft skills, things like critical reason critical thinking, or communications skills, things that are going to help you be employable again and again throughout

your life. And we're putting these together. They are available through us UH free of charge to to anyone who would like to do the work to get this credential. And this is the sort of credential that we're hoping will allow people to make that extra sevent without having to invest in the debt that is involved in college. Well, Carry, so glad we got time keep us in the loop about how this is all going. Carry Healy, President of

the Milk and Center for Advancing the American Dream. This is Bloomberg Radio