The Rant Podcast
A bi-weekly podcast focused on pulling back the curtain on the American higher education system and breaking down the people, the policies and the politics. The podcast host, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, is a known innovator and leader in higher education. The podcast will not pull any punches as it delves into tough questions about the culture, politics and policies of our higher education system.
The Rant Podcast
Navigating the Next Four Years with Ted Mitchell
The American higher education system stands at a crossroads, facing unprecedented challenges that threaten its very foundation. In this revealing conversation, Eloy Ortiz Oakley sits down with Ted Mitchell, President of the American Council on Education (ACE), to discuss how colleges and universities across the country are responding to these threats.
Mitchell, whose organization represents over 1,700 diverse institutions, offers a compelling perspective on how higher education is uniting across traditional dividing lines. "Higher ed sticks together, especially in times of crisis," Mitchell explains, highlighting the solidarity forming among institutions from community colleges to elite research universities as they face common threats from policy changes, funding cuts, and declining public confidence.
The conversation takes a deep dive into the devastating impact of recent research funding cuts, which Mitchell calls "one of the single worst policy initiatives" of the current administration. Beyond the immediate layoffs at institutions like Johns Hopkins and hiring freezes at the University of California, Mitchell paints a vivid picture of the long-term consequences: potential medical breakthroughs abandoned, the next generation of scientists left without training, and top researchers fleeing to more welcoming countries.
Perhaps most refreshing is Mitchell's candid acknowledgment of higher education's self-inflicted wounds. From dismal completion rates to opaque admissions processes at elite institutions, he doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable truth: "We've earned some of the disrespect we're being treated with." Mitchell outlines ACE's "Higher Ed Builds America" campaign, which aims to refocus all institutions on their primary mission: student success.
Looking forward, Mitchell offers a compelling vision of education transformed through artificial intelligence—not merely as a technological tool, but as a force that could revolutionize student services, faculty capabilities, and learning itself. His call for integrating humanities scholars into AI development to ensure technology partners with humans rather than replaces them reveals a nuanced understanding of both innovation's promise and its potential pitfalls.
What emerges is a portrait of an education leader determined to guide institutions through turbulent times by returning to higher education's core purpose: creating opportunity and success for all students. For anyone concerned about the future of American higher education—whether educator, policymaker, or citizen—this conversation offers essential insights into the challenges we face and the changes needed to overcome them.
ACENet.edu
https://www.acenet.edu/Pages/dotedu/home.aspx
eloy@4leggedmedia.com
Hi, this is Eloy Ortiz-Oakley. Welcome back to the Rant Podcast, the podcast where we pull back the curtain and break down the people, the policies and the politics of our higher education system. In this episode, I get to talk with a good friend and colleague, ted Mitchell. Ted is the president and CEO of the American Council on Education, ace. Ace is one of the largest higher education membership and advocacy organizations, with roots going back to World War I. It represents more than 1,700 colleges and universities of all types and across the country. The membership also includes several other advocacy and membership organizations, such as my favorite, the American Association of Community Colleges, as well as other well-known associations like the American Association of State Colleges, as well as other well-known associations like the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and my least favorite organization, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. I sit down with Ted to talk about what's happening in higher education today, how his membership is holding together in this moment of crisis for the American higher education system, how he's thinking about the impact of AI on higher education going forward and how he himself is dealing with all the pressures that the new administration has brought on to the American higher education system. But before I talk with Ted, I just want to take a moment to reflect on this moment in time.
Speaker 1:I'm here in California and I'm a lifelong Californian. I've lived through some very difficult times with regard to immigration policy here in California, but this moment, this moment, seems different. Watching images of the National Guard and US Marines in the streets of Los Angeles and its neighboring cities is unsettling, to say the least. Not only is it unsettling, it's also, in my view, dumb politics and dumb policy. Dumb policy why? Because in states like California and really nearly all 50 states, states like California, illinois, new York, florida, north Carolina, tennessee the list goes on and on and on there are hardworking immigrants living in those communities and, yes, in some cases they fled their countries of origin to come to the United States, some through legal means countries of origin to come to the United States, some through legal means, some through non-legal means. But they are here to work hard and to serve our communities and they're a huge part of our economy. Think about the debate we're having over deportations of agricultural workers. Think about what would happen to the agricultural industry if we suddenly started mass deportations. It would fall apart. It is dumb policy. Good policy is going after criminals that nobody wants in this country, people who are doing bad things to good people, doing bad things to our economy. There's no argument there. There's no argument there.
Speaker 1:And to get Congress to actually enact fair and good immigration policy that gives a path forward to hardworking Americans who may have come here through other means other than those currently codified in statute. It's also bad politics because these people may or may not become full citizens at some point. They're going to remember this moment. The people around them family members, friends, the people who work side by side with them are going to remember this moment. If the administration would take a chapter out of the Reagan administration and find a path forward for many of these immigrants, they would reap the benefit for years to come. Instead, they are turning them away in droves, getting them angry and making this an unwelcoming country to immigrants.
Speaker 1:So it is bad policy and it is bad politics to immigrants. So it is bad policy and it is bad politics. So for those reasons, I and my colleagues at College Future continue to push forward, to push back on these policies and remind policymakers of the importance of creating opportunity for those individuals that work hard every day in our communities and to give people an opportunity or a path forward to citizenship and a right to live, work and breathe and reap the benefits of this country. That's what this country was built on and that's still a huge part of the American dream. So with that, please enjoy my conversation with Ted Mitchell, who heads the American Council on Education. Ted, welcome to the Rant podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. Good to see you.
Speaker 1:It's always great to see you, ted. I hope you're surviving Washington DC these days and I just want to say thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to join us here on the Rant. I know there's a lot going on not just in higher education but all across the country and all across the world, so it's exciting times these days.
Speaker 2:How have you been? I've been great and I have to tell you this is the high point of my day, week and maybe my month to talk to a great colleague, a good friend, and to get a little perspective on all of this craziness.
Speaker 1:Well, we will certainly talk. I don't know if I'll add much perspective, but we can certainly have a therapy session. Love it. So, Ted, you lead the American Council on Education. It's the nation's best known higher education membership and advocacy organization, has a long, long history. Many leaders in higher education, many of our listeners, know about ACE but don't really understand what you do there. So, for our listeners, tell us about the history of ACE, the mission and how you support the needs of your diverse membership.
Speaker 2:We've sent all these, mostly young men, abroad in service of America. They're coming back and we're not sure that there's room in American colleges and universities for them. So we started in a way as a veteran service organization, making it possible for veterans of World War I to attend colleges and universities. Making room in American colleges and universities and really that's been the heartbeat of ACE from the beginning is providing opportunities for those who typically don't have opportunities to enroll in and succeed through the very best American colleges. So we've consistently worked to expand opportunity.
Speaker 2:The GI Bill we were one of the chief architects of the GI Bill. We built the GED exam early on to provide opportunity for people who weren't yet completing high school. And then, more recently, hard work on the Civil Rights Act, title IX other things that have expanded opportunity. Now, eli, as you and I know, opportunity is one thing, success is another, and so we've had to couple our focus on access with a focus on creating opportunities for students to thrive in their colleges and universities. So HELL grants effective student loan programs. That's all been a part of our federal policy portfolio.
Speaker 1:Ted, tell us about your membership. What does your membership look like? Who are the members of ACE and how do you actually get the business of ACE done?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. We do represent all sectors, so two-year, four-year, public and private, and so that means that our members come from small community colleges in rural areas, major flagship research universities, and one of our challenges is creating, out of that great diversity, sort of a centralized position on important policy issues. And that's really our work is to bring people together to identify issues of common importance, either positive or negative. Fight for those things that we think will make a positive difference, fight against those things that we think will be harmful. And you know, I have to say that I've been doing this job now for eight years and while some of us think of the sectors as very divided and having very discontinuous interests, my experience has been the reverse Higher ed sticks together, especially in times of crisis, and we're in one of those right now.
Speaker 1:We are certainly in one of those right now and it's good to hear that higher education is coming together. All the organizations that make up ACE it's interesting, you know, over time those of us in the two-year sector I'm sure look at some of the more or better resourced private universities that are part of the ACE membership and have our differences. But at a time like this it seems to me that attack on one is an attack on all. So hopefully that's the attitude of the membership of ACE?
Speaker 2:It certainly is, and I think that there are headline issues of just the in the last little bit, the headline issues around immigration, issues of just the in the last little bit, the headline issues around immigration the delay in visas, the treatment of domestic students who may not have full documentation.
Speaker 2:All of these are issues that really impact every institution back and forth, across from elite private institutions Some of them, I think I've started to call celebrity institutions, because they can't seem to stop themselves from being in the news, you know all the way down to the institutions that I think are the bread and butter of American higher education, which are community colleges and regional publics, where the majority of our students live, work and, hopefully, prosper.
Speaker 1:Well, that's right. Your membership, as you mentioned, includes a wide variety of institutions and I know you mentioned your advocacy role and I've certainly read your comments recently regarding the budget proposal that made its way out of the House and it's moving on to the Senate. Given the barrage of executive orders and attacks and congressional action that's taking place right now, how do you manage that broad spectrum of needs across your membership and advocate on behalf of all of us in higher education.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's my day job, so thank you for noting it. You know there are places where you have to lean a little bit. So there was quite a great conversation going on now about the federal support for research. I think, unambiguously, we all believe that research is important to the future of society technological progress, biomedical advances, et cetera. They don't come from thin air. They come from the hard work of our research universities. So, as you said earlier, we all have an interest in that.
Speaker 2:But the interest of a big research university is different than the interest of a small liberal arts college in that regard, and so I think we can lead with a group that is most impacted to make sure that everybody else is providing moral and advocacy support. So we have a lot of support from community college members for continuing research in the major research universities, and I'm very proud of the community colleges' willingness to do that. On the other side, I think that we know that community colleges are beginning not beginning continuing to offer shorter degrees, shorter programs and certificates. Right, and it's very important to the community college sector to be able to have a Pell Grant program that meets the needs of those students, and so the community colleges are leading on that one, but we're pulling all of the other sectors in behind, saying that this is going to be important for all of us. So there may be a leader, but as long as we can organize followers, I think we'll be in good shape. And then, as I mentioned, with immigration, there are issues that just cut across everybody's life.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's for sure, particularly in states like mine, California, and other states that rely so heavily on the immigrant population. I mean, that is our economy in California and if you're not an immigrant yourself, first or second generation immigrant, whether you're fully documented or not, that's a big part of our communities and members of the communities have friends, neighbors, family members who are touched by this. And it's just amazing to me how the administration is looking at this and really undermining the economies of the biggest states in the country and therefore ultimately undermining the economy of the biggest states in the country and therefore ultimately undermining the economy of the country. So we'll see where this all comes together at some point.
Speaker 2:You know, uli, if I can interject, I think that's absolutely right, and one of the things that I find encouraging is that in unlikely places like the state of Texas, there has been broad recognition of the importance of educating an immigrant and first and second generation population to serve the needs of one of the most dynamic economies in the country. One of the most dynamic economies in the country, and it seems to me that we need to work hard at getting that message through, and there may be parts of the country that aren't as directly I want to say, both reliant and benefit from the richness of the immigrant population. There are a lot of people in pretty conservative states who kind of get it that this is the future of the state and if demographics are destiny, we better do our job with people who don't look like me.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely Absolutely. So. I had a couple of your colleagues on recently. I had John King from the State University of New York on and also had Janet Napolitano, former president of UC. Of course, both of them also spent some time in the Obama administration along with you. They express deep frustration over an issue that you just mentioned the recent moves by the administration to gut research funding, basic research funding across the country and across Research 1 universities. The impact on innovation and our competitive edge in the world, they express, will be significantly stunted, if not completely undermined. What are you hearing from your members about this issue?
Speaker 2:And how are you advocating to Congress to reverse these actions? Yeah, I think it is one of the single worst policy initiatives of this administration, because it has both short-term and long-term impacts. The short-term impact is that Johns Hopkins University had to lay off 2,000 people who were doing work in international development.
Speaker 2:The University of California has already put in a hiring freeze, so it's having a short-term impact on the work that's going on, and let's remember that a lot of that research is time-sensitive. So we know colleagues who are working in labs that depend on cultures that are growing in test tubes, and if you're freezing the funding, you're getting rid of all that research. So who knows which cancer cure just went down the drain at UC Riverside as a result of these freezes? And then, long term, not only are we depriving ourselves of these scientific discoveries, but we're depriving ourselves of the next generation of scientists whose training is being interrupted by these grants. So, short-term and long-term, this is nutty policy. It's also bad international politics, because we're already seeing some of the nation's best researchers moving their labs to Europe, canada, to Australia, where they're being received with a warm embrace and a lot of startup money. So I just think that this is awful.
Speaker 2:What are we doing? We're doing a couple of things. First, and I think the most important, is that we're trying to demonstrate to the administration pain, long-term and short, that these cuts are putting on our people. And I think when the government, in its short-sighted way, thinks about research, they think about giant labs and cyclotrons and big telescopes. Well, that's one kind of research let's go down to. You know, let's talk to our friends at San Luis Obispo about the research that's funded there, that is, examining health disparities in their community and using research funding to be able to direct funds to support people who don't have access to health us to help. So we need to remind Congress and we need to remind the executive branch that when we talk about research, we're also talking about direct services to people, and that's why. Second is you know, like anything else, the way the government funds research is old. The current funding mechanism was developed in 1992. It probably deserves a refresh.
Speaker 1:So, in the words of Bill Clinton, we're trying to reform the policies around research and trying to suggest to Congress different ways of supporting research that we hope will have some traction that will not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Beyond the political challenges that every higher education institution is feeling these days, there's also been measurable decline in the confidence of our institutions, and this has been going on before the administration. How is ACE thinking about improving the value proposition of higher education and improving the image of colleges and universities in the mind of the public?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a really important and basic question and, eli, I think you'll remember because you were on the ACE board when I was interviewing for this job, and one of the things we talked about even then was the negative narrative that was emerging around higher education. And you know, I think, that we're proud of the work that we do in higher ed, and so I think our first, second and third attempts to stem that flow of negative imagery was to talk louder and make better videos of the work that we're doing. For those of your listeners who are sports fans, I have the image of those halftime videos that everybody puts up in NCAA football games, which I don't think have had an impact on anyone in the universe since they were first minted.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you know we like to tell the good story, and so we tried that for a long time and it didn't work. And then I think we've begun to get serious. In the time that you were in the Biden administration, we got serious about looking at some of the real shortcomings in higher education and say, well, wait a minute, american people aren't stupid. If they really think we're doing something wrong, maybe we minute. American people aren't stupid If they've got. If they really think we're doing something wrong, maybe we are, let's look for it. Maybe we are here. We are here we are. I think we got a load of it and it came a lot faster than we can manage it. But you know things that you've worked on in your career, that you worked on in the administration completion rates. Let's just take that one Completion rates at four-year universities, 100% of the students who show up want a degree.
Speaker 2:That's why they're out there at our front door. Only 60 out of the 100 who show up get a degree. Is that a good thing? Well, for a long time we just thought of that. Well, you know, is that a good thing? Well, for a long time we just thought of that. Well, you know 40% of the people. They just couldn't hack it.
Speaker 2:And we now know that it's not about whether they could hack it or not. It's about whether they could afford it, whether their family circumstances and life circumstances allowed them to take classes between 10 and 4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And we learned that that low completion rate was a stain on all of us. And what's new is that every one of those 40 out of 100 who didn't graduate now has a giant megaphone that we call social media. Right, and they are making their upset note, and it's not just to Uncle Fred at the Memorial Day barbecue, it's to the 10,000 people who are following them on one variety of social media right now. So I think we've come to understand that we've earned some of the disrespect we're being treated with. The admissions process in elite universities is the opposite of transparent. It's a game and you've got to pay to play, and not just in the varsity blues angle of it.
Speaker 2:People who are more affluent people who are legacies, they have a leg up. More affluent people who are legacies, they have a leg up. And you know, it just says to people it's not for me. So I think that we've become more honest over the last, I would say, five years, and I want to compliment you and the Biden administration not getting a lot of compliments these days, but you really did shine a light on some of the ways in which higher education didn't serve a broad swath of American society. And so what we've been doing at ACE and this goes back to your very early questions what is it that could bring higher education together around this negative narrative?
Speaker 2:So what's the? You've got research institutions over here. You've got community colleges and other trade institutions that are focusing on trades and careers. What's the common denominator? The common denominator is undergraduate student education, and so we have been on a campaign we call it Higher Ed Builds America to get everybody in the country who is engaged in higher education to focus on job number one, and job number one is student success. So we're pushing as hard as we can to get institutions to commit to broad access at the front end, but then hard, hard work all the way through a student's career, to help them succeed and walk across that platform with an AA, with a certificate, with a BA, with a master's degree, and make sure that they're equipped with skills and habits of mind that will set them up in the new economy.
Speaker 1:I hope all of our colleagues across higher education ecosystem hear that call and come together to work together to improve the value proposition, because the direction we're going is not good for anyone. And speaking of things not going well, I was at your former institution, occidental, not too long ago and I've been visiting a lot of different colleges and universities, sort of hearing their thoughts about what's going on. You've been in higher education a long time, you've been in the UC system, you have led a private university over at Occidental, you've been the undersecretary and now you're over at ACE.
Speaker 1:There seems to be this continuous downward spiral in the business model of traditional higher education institutions, and you know there's a variety of reasons. But what do you see as the solution for traditional higher education institutions? I mean, we all read the headlines here in california, the cal state system is going through some significant crisis. Uh, one, one could say that it's a existential crisis. In the CSU, a lot of private nonprofits are closing their doors and there's concern about enrollments. And then you see other universities, like the big online, continuing to grow at a rapid pace. What do you think we need to do different in traditional higher education?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a great question and you have not only a bird's eye seat but an important role to play in helping probably one of the most traditional set of institutions sort of spread their wings. And I know that that's a challenge of a new chancellor coming in and a new president coming in. I'm sorry, president right, and JD Malik is himself an innovator and I think will be an interesting partner for you as you move on. What we have failed to recognize is that the population, the potential population of purchasers of our services have changed dramatically in the last 50 years, but the structure of our enterprise hasn't. So I joked a moment ago about not being able to take classes between 10 and 4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, between 10 and 4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Well, you know, the reason we have so many classes at 10 and 2 Tuesdays and Thursdays is because that's what the faculty wants to do, and it's easier for the faculty to be able to, you know, be on campus for two or three days a week, do their research, do whatever you know the other things are that are compelling parts of their professional lives and to essentially force students to live their lives around the lives of the administrators and the faculty on the campus.
Speaker 2:I think we have to flip that, and I think that the institutions that will succeed in the future are institutions that mold themselves around the needs of their students. And so I think, if you look at the extremes, why does Western Governors University have 122,000 students? Well, it's because Western Governors University understands that their students who, by the way, their average student age is just the same as most of the flagship universities, but their students are able to move through their coursework at their own pace, they're able to do it at a time that fits into their lives and they are able to do it with intense one-on-one mentorship that you just frankly, you don't get it. And so what's not to like about a model that is focused on students, not on the adults in the building wave of learners for us, who are learners who may already have a degree, may not have a degree, but are looking to improve their economic circumstance by getting more training, and the institutions that are finding their way to those students are the ones that will succeed.
Speaker 1:Well, that is for sure, and one of the changes that's obviously impacting all of us, personally as well as professionally and in education, is the tidal wave of artificial intelligence and its various use cases and how it's being deployed. And how it's being deployed you and I both make the pilgrimage to ASU GSV, and you can't help but seeing all of the different technology that's powered by AI being put into motion. So, given that AI is changing the workforce as we know it and impacting the skills needed for learners to be resilient in the economy, how is your organization, how is ACE, supporting its members to reimagine what higher education should look like over the next 10 years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a great question and certainly a challenge, and I'll be honest that, amidst all of this incoming sort of thinking about the future in any sort of generative way is a little bit difficult. But we do think that AI is going to be very important in three ways. One is, I think, the most basic level. I think that it will revolutionize our ability to use data to help students succeed. We already saw the front edge of that in places like Georgia State, university of Hawaii, a couple of other institutions that really used early chatbots and early big data analysis to intervene in students' lives when they needed a hand, and we're going to see more and more and more of that.
Speaker 2:I think that it's going to. Ai will revolutionize student services, revolutionize everything from financial aid to advisement. I think that that's good. I think the second thing that AI is going to do is it will put power tools in the hands of faculty to be able to create better courses, to create better assessments Simulations, for example, instead of multiple choice tests but really put students into experiences where they've got to solve problems in real time, curated by the power of AI that sets up a circumstance, changes some things around so that students need to adapt, assesses the ability of students to solve that problem. It's typically the way engineering programs have worked, but they've done it with real, pliable materials and we'll be able to do that in a variety of ways with AI.
Speaker 2:And then the third, which I think is where this flips a little bit, is that we then have a responsibility to teach our students how best to use AI, and that has two parts to it. One is how to use it technically, how to get AI to do your work for you, enhance the ability to do your work, but it also means responsibly, and I think that that's where I want to put in a pitch for AI and the resurgence of the humanities.
Speaker 2:I think that if we let AI become a tool of computer scientists and engineers, we'll get one kind of AI. I don't think we'll like it, but if we intersperse those computer scientists with artists and philosophers, we will have an AI that isn't aiming to beat humans at our own game, but really to partner with us Sage advice, and I hope that we all take you up on that, because I think we are right in the throes of what the future is going to look like.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, Ted. Let me ask you one last question before I let you go, so you can get back to advocating on behalf of all of us. What do you want your listeners to know about ACE and its role, particularly now, in this chaotic environment?
Speaker 2:Two things. One is I hope that your listeners, in addition to following you avidly, I hope that they will tune into our live podcast. That so we call edu, where we try to do a weekly summary of the events in Washington, and we've been heartened to see 5,000 or 6,000 of our colleagues on those. So please stay in touch and we'll do our best to keep you informed, you know. The other thing that I'll say, Eli, which we haven't had a chance to talk about, is that ECE has recently taken on the stewardship of the Carnegie classifications and we've been talking throughout about student success, and I'm really pleased and hope your listeners will take a look at the new Carnegie classifications to see that we are now classifying institutions on the basis of access and student earnings, hopefully sending a message that that's what we want people to focus on amidst all of this noise. Is that job, one of making college whether it's community college or four-year college, graduate school a stable path towards success?
Speaker 1:I'm also very happy to see the new Carnegie classifications, this notion of creating a classification that highlights opportunity opportunity at colleges and universities. They're creating opportunity for the entire diverse section of our student bodies and highlighting that instead of the previous metrics that we use to classify institutions. So I'm heartened by that. I think it aligns very well with my day job, which the work that we're doing at College Future is to highlight value and opportunity, and so I hope that trend continues. Listen, Ted, I really appreciate your leadership at ACE.
Speaker 1:Appreciate your leadership throughout the last several decades and I look forward to continuing to follow your leadership. See what ACE is doing and see how it leads us through this. I guess what some would consider a dark time, and hopefully on the other end of this will be a much stronger, much more resilient American higher education system.
Speaker 2:Thank you, eli, thanks for your leadership, and I'm just so proud to be doing this work together.
Speaker 1:All right, ted. Thanks for being with us and thanks to our listeners for tuning in. This has been the RAND Podcast. I've been talking with Ted Mitchell, who heads the American Council of Education. If you're following us on YouTube, hit subscribe and if you're listening to us on audio, continue to follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Take care, everybody. We'll see you all soon.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
