College Counterpoints

Gary (00:02.574)
Hey, it's Thursday, so it must be time for another episode of College Counterpoints. This time is for April 25th, 2024. Welcome back. My name is Gary Stocker. Dr. Pellerito and I are planning to rock the boat a little more than usual this week. Dr. P?

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (00:21.056)
It's good to see you, Gary. Yeah, I'm still, uh, still bruised and battered from last week's score, but I'm ready. I'm ready for today and, uh, looking forward to it.

So let's talk about today's topics, Gary. We're going to be talking about, and yes, we're going to continue talking about college collapse this fall. I'm not so sure about it, but I know you have different ideas. So we'll be, we'll be getting into that again. Gary's favorite punching bag. We're going to talk about accrediting agencies. I think they're doing a pretty good job. I know there's room for improvement, but you know, Gary has different ideas. So.

We'll get into that. Waiting too long can doom a college merger, experts say. And are we asking the wrong questions about chat, GPT and other.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (01:22.176)
AI.

Gary (01:24.846)
Well, thanks, Joseph, for getting us into the topics this week. And I know you're on the scoreboard this week. Remember it's called the Good Points Scoreboard. And after the trouncing I gave you last week, I'll be honest, Joseph, I'm a little anxious about the outcome. How fair do you plan on being to me this week when you're keeping score?

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (01:46.304)
Well, you know, I think the emphasis on that statement is I'll be keeping score, so we'll just leave it at that.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (02:00.768)
So Gary, let's get into the first topic. And you sent me an interesting email this week that centered on college collapses. And you did it in an interesting way because you used AI to develop a scenario. Tell us about that.

Gary (02:22.286)
And you know, we've had these, by the way, happy anniversary for our 12th episode today. You pointed that out in our pre -show prep. It's been a pleasure doing these with you. And I like to think of myself, Joseph, as thinking beyond the next day, the next week, next month, even the next year in many cases. And I've watched this FAFSA mess with everybody else. You know, my college viability app, what it does in terms of comparing colleges. And there's a process called red teaming.

It's a project management process where you create a scenario that's reasonable but maybe not likely and you try and fix it in advance. And while this isn't a perfect example of a red team, I just went to chat GBT and I said, hey, give me a...

300 word, I think it's that 300 word scenario about college collapses in the fall of 2024 based on the FAFSA mess. And it gave me something that I shared with you and a handful of other folks. I didn't post it because as you saw, it was scary. It was scary. And then I'll go back into my into my story here in a second. But for the for the listeners today, I know it's a couple of hours after I sent this out to Joseph, the man is sharp as a tack. He used AI. He used Gemini, I think.

as a tool to do a rebuttal. And again, while I'm not sharing mine and Joseph is welcome to do what he wants to with his, it really, when you read both of them, Joseph, they both make good points and really makes us think about the scenario, even though it's still probably unlikely, somebody needs to think about it.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (03:54.016)
Yo, you know, Gary, first of all, chat GPT is in my view, and I use AI daily. It's inferior to Gemini. And that's why I jumped over to Gemini. But the thing for people to remember is, you know, your input is is going to your prompt is going to affect your output. And your prompt was, hey, give me a doomsday scenario. And so the AI obliged. I simply asked Gemini to respond.

to your original prompt and response. And so, you know, the bottom line was the narrative of a catastrophic collapse in higher ed during the fall of 24, you know, it just, it simply paints a bleak picture, but a closer look, it really reveals a period of stress, not systemic failure. And this is an ongoing sort of thematic thing, Gary. You continue to yell fire in a crowded theater.

And I'm going to continue to use that metaphor. There are a lot of really smart people that are working on fixing this problem. I'm not defending the folks that created the debacle, but I am defending the infrastructure across this country that will get it figured out before the fall.

Gary (05:11.31)
And.

Again, I'm going to stay focused on it's not a likely scenario, Joseph, but it's certainly a reasonable scenario. And here's the point I would make both to you and those listening to the podcast is, is anybody thinking about this in the unlikely event that it happens? What would a response of a college be, a state legislature be, a federal government be, a regulatory agency be if between...

August, October 1st and December 31st, 45 colleges, 55 colleges closed because they were already in financial trouble and the FAFSA pushed them over the edge. That's my point.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (05:54.496)
Well, you know, Gary, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but those schools that do fall off the edge, if that scenario did happen, would have probably failed anyway, right? You're saying it yourself. It's accelerating that process. Really, what I'm more concerned about is talking about, you know, meaningful consolidation moving forward and staving off these sudden announcements. I mean, this is the theme that we've been talking about, right?

Let's get it right. Let's have transparency. We're not talking about self -fulfilling prophecies, although you could make that argument. We're talking about full transparency and giving faculty, staff, and students enough time to find an exit strategy that's viable. We know that half of the students from closed institutions do not continue with their education, and that is tragic.

Gary (06:52.238)
Well, in the category of my vision is better than your vision. The big factor that I didn't even have in my in my chat GPT and thanks for insulting my tool, by the way, in my chat GPT was what the market psychology piece. And we saw it with the pandemic. We've seen it with gas shortages. We've seen it with bread shortages and toilet paper shortages during the pandemic. There's a market psychology risk here.

It doesn't matter. And you may be disappointed that these colleges are going to fall off the cliff anyway. But what if they all fall off the cliff in the same 90 day period? The market psychology could be happening now. I don't have any proof of this, but I have just some anecdotal observations that more and more families are choosing public over private because there's some developing innate concern that privates may...

while they may or may not close, may not be as financially healthy as Publix. And if this happens quickly, that's my concern. That's my concern.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (07:53.632)
Hey, Gary, I don't think it can happen quickly enough. I think that's a good thing to wake people up to the reality that we've got this trend that's not going to occur, but that is occurring and that people need to make better and more informed decisions. I think it's a good thing. It's tantamount or similar to COVID in a way. There are many positive lessons learned from COVID as we moved out of the pandemic.

And I feel the same way with this. If there is large scale closures because of this fast for debacle, then it will lead ultimately yes to closures. But I think there's positives that will be taken from it, including what you just said, uh, more awareness on the part of the public. And so I don't know if that's such a bad thing. The end of the day, undoubtedly.

It would expose vulnerabilities, but framing it as a catastrophic collapse, you know, it ignores the resilience of higher ed and the system that I, you know, that I believe in because I still think there's a lot of good people that are, that are a part of it.

Gary (09:03.534)
Resilience, schmizzilience. You know, folks have used that argument for forever and to an extent they're correct, but this is still a market. We may not recognize, most people may not recognize this market. You and I do and many others do, but the resilience doesn't have to be lifelong, doesn't have to be eternal. There are certain financial, numeric, statistical, enrollment, graduation rate.

factors at play here that could make that resilience simply a historic reference, not a prediction of the future. And then the cuts and layoffs. And again, I give you credit for the rebuttal. I was so cool when I got that rebuttal from you over the weekend. You know, that news reports often sensationalize program cuts and layoffs, as do I. In my weekly episode of This Week in College Viability, the first section I talk about is layoffs, cutbacks and closures. And you and I have talked about this before, Dr. P.

There's a human cost. There's a human cost when one a month closes, when one a week closes. What happens when 10 a week closes? What happens when 20 a week closes?

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (10:01.856)
for sure.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (10:06.816)
And I, yeah, I agree, Gary. One, one concern I also have is that people are going to have fatigue from too much doom and gloom, you know, and I put doom and gloom in, in air quotes. It, it is a reality. Closures are happening and will continue to happen and people are being affected. You're absolutely right. But I do worry that people are going to stop listening.

to that messaging because they're becoming fatigued. And so we really need to transition quickly toward accountability and transparency. That's really where we need to be now.

Gary (10:50.19)
Well, if you will please ensure the judge referee and jury this week give me a lot of points for at least bringing up the topic realistic or not in the eyes of many.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (10:57.024)
Yes, you'll get at least a part of one point for that. Good job.

Gary (11:01.07)
So our second topic is one that we've talked about before. And this is the High Learning Commission. It's just representative of really all the six, I think it's six or seven accrediting agencies across the country. And there was a post in a big higher education dive about the HLC leadership conference. It was, I think recently in Chicago.

And the essence of the story, Joseph, was that HLC thinks they now have a responsibility to step in and it looks like they want to predict the viability of colleges. Joseph, ain't their job, dude, ain't their job.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (11:36.736)
Well, you know, Gary, I couldn't disagree more with you about this one. I think the people at HLC, and I know some of them are good people and they're very concerned about college closures. They're realizing and waking up to the notion that, you know what, they could play a really important role in helping at least facilitate conversations around thoughtful consolidation and

how to communicate to stakeholders when a college is in trouble and how much time it requires to be able to do that. I thought it was very bold and brave of them to come out publicly and talk about the fact that you know what, many institutions by the time they start looking for partners, it's too late. That took a lot of guts, Gary, because that wasn't a popular message, especially among some of their.

their stakeholders across the country. So no, I think HLC is right where they need to be and they should help continue leading the charge with conversations around thoughtful consolidation.

Gary (12:44.91)
You know, Joseph, clearly I'm going to have to get another partner to do this podcast because because you're not thinking it through. You're not thinking this through. You know, history lesson first. All right. And I'm not going to another partner. You're too good. I would never do that. But I'll teach you about it all the time. The history lesson is back in 2018. I think it was 2019. Edmet .me was ready to run with a story with Inside Higher Education that was going to predict closure dates for a large number of colleges based on a formula and algorithm they put together.

And the inside higher education reached out to a handful of these colleges that were negatively going to be negatively impacted by this prediction. And the colleges threatened such litigation that both inside higher ed and EdMitt .ME backed off what essentially HLC is saying they want to do now. So let's look forward. HLC, God bless them, finds a way to do it. I don't think that's possible. And it only takes one college to threaten litigation saying you can't

say to the world that my college is going to close because they will have litigious aspects and probably justifiably so. And so the point I make and then I'll give it back to you, it's nobody, there's no single factor that says Gary Stocker University is going to close and Pellarito University is going to survive. It is the trends, it is the patterns, it is the comparisons that matter. That's what HLC should be doing.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (14:08.288)
Yeah, well, you know, I have to agree with you on that, Gary. I think that HLC needs a more robust formula for prediction. And the only way we're going to get to that formula is for HLC and other groups to work with analysts like yourself, as well as nonprofits. I think faculty are another stakeholder group that we can connect with, especially in some of the outstanding business schools around the country.

I mean, it's really going to take a group effort to not only analyze the problem and define it clearly using, you know, solid data, but then come up with a viable application, a formula for moving forward. And it begins with meaningful dialogue though, Gary. So I'm not going to criticize HLC. I stand by what I said. I think the fact that dialogue is occurring.

is the most important thing. Now we've got to, we've got to expedite this, no doubt, because, you know, we're in the midst of it and it's only going to get worse. I know that, but it's a good start.

Gary (15:15.598)
Well, go ahead and turn your volume down, Joseph, because you heard me say this before. This is a market adjustment period for higher ed. There's too many college seats and not enough students willing to pay whatever for those seats. College closures and consolidations will continue for the foreseeable future. It's just going to happen. And there's two other points that I want to make on this. And there are two kind of divergent points from what we've been talking about. And, you know, the good folks at HLC, even if they want to do the viability predictions,

They're too late to the party. They should have done this 10 years ago. This is not like it was a train, not like it was something that's just now jumped up. This is a train wreck that has been coming for a long time. And they should also add something, I think, I can't remember if you and I have talked about this or not, but program completions, graduation rates.

I'm working on another app right now that will let users compare for the first versions for private colleges the number of graduates, number of majors in a given discipline. If Palo Rico University has four journalism majors and Stalker College has 44,

wouldn't you want to go to a college that has 44 majors? It's like the brain surgery thing. You want the guy doing brain surgery on you that does one a month or that does one a day. And that's the argument that I've made before. And then I'm going to be a smart aleck and then we'll move on from there. And I wrote and posted, I think on LinkedIn this week, a sarcastic, I've been sarcastic on occasion, you've noticed that, a sarcastic PS. It was a love letter to HLC and the PS was...

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (16:29.344)
Yeah, that's a fair point.

Gary (16:47.854)
I'm gonna read this. Please get out of the merger and consolidation approval business. Your plotting involvement may lead to additional college closings. I don't expect you to concur, but I thought I would ask love and kisses, Gary. I did not do the love and kisses part, Joseph.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (17:04.96)
Yeah, you probably did them a favor by withholding the love and kisses. But yeah, I think, uh, I think the good people at HLC, uh, are going to play an important role in a group effort to address this, you know, monumental tasks that that's before us. So, you know, we talked about making informed decision, Gary's, Gary, let me tell you about college viability. Gary had a host on his.

this week in College Viability podcast recently. His guest was an alum from a small private college in trouble with a leadership and board that was not communicating very much. As his guests shared the story, it was readily apparent that the faculty, students, staff, and their families and the community had no easy access to data, real data, that would help them understand the financial

enrollment, and outcome problems at this college. That is why the College Viability app exists. It is a resource for college leaders or faculty or students and their families to be able to easily compare private colleges in their region of central Illinois. If you have concerns about your college and need to make comparisons with others, go to collegeviability .com.

Click on the app link and choose the version of the app that is best for you. There are versions of the app for both private and public colleges in the US. That's collegeviability .com, where data helps inform your decisions about college.

Gary (18:51.214)
And we're running a bit long today, Joe. So the first news story is one you briefly mentioned earlier on in this episode of College Counterpoints. And it's from Higher Education Dive. And it quoted a man I work with, Dr. Ricardo Aziz, who is one of the, if not the top, merger and acquisition, merger and consolidation experts in higher education. And one of the points both the reporter and Dr. Aziz made was that colleges are waiting too long.

and waiting too long can do any merger effort. You can't wait, Joseph, until the last financial dollar is circling the financial drain to say, hey, I want to get in a relationship with Pellarito University. It's just too late. And for those colleges that are not having the last dollar circle, please, please, please look out three to five years, Joseph. It's going to all be about scale because all be about scale, Joseph. And with that, any comments from your end?

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (19:50.24)
Really, this is a good example, Gary, of an individual who's writing a dynamic copy that's getting the word out. But again, HLC is also having the same conversation. And so I think we've got numerous locations where these stories are being told and discussed, and that's a good thing.

Gary (20:14.286)
And the last news story, news story two, and again, we always do two topics and two news stories as a format for college counterpoints. And we talked about this in the last week or two. It's a different application, but the story is from the Chronicle. And it was about, are we asking the wrong questions about GPT? And for those listeners who heard Joseph and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, I took a position that I didn't necessarily agree with. And that was that I agree with many college faculty that

chat GPT and other AI, Gemini and others are just cheating tools. I take the position because that's a format, but you know what Joseph, I don't believe that for a second. AI is valuable in so many ways.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (20:57.568)
Well, absolutely. You know my position on this. I think that, you know, I'm sorry to say that some of my colleagues in higher ed are skeptical about AI. They see it as a potential risk or a threat that will undermine critical thinking. But, you know, I remember the day we've talked about it when Texas Instruments came out with their

with a calculator and there was the same debate should students be able to use a calculator and math class in the classroom? Of course they should. You know before the internet we struggled right in the library with with old -school methods to research information. Well the internet came along and bam and now it's an interesting comparison the internet with AI because

Internet, we know what you get on the Internet isn't always accurate and you've got to be really mindful of that. But that process, if that isn't critical thinking, I don't know what is. So yeah, I'm excited about AI. It reminds me, I'll give you one more metaphor. It reminds me of someone who gets upset that I'm using a camera to capture an image when they think I should be drawing it by hand. You know.

Cameras are a tool just like AI is a tool and there's a lot of post -production that goes into a really beautiful photograph. So it's a similar, there's similarities there with AI. I think it's going to radically change what we do and yes, we should be using it not only as faculty to build and strengthen our syllabi, but we should be teaching our students how to be really expert users of AI as well.

Gary (22:38.83)
And just think about the example you and I used earlier in this College Counterpoint podcast with the potential of a collapse of colleges in this fall. And we spent about 10 minutes talking about it. And I don't know about you, Joseph, but maybe 30 seconds using my AI tool gave us the content to think about. If I'd had to type those 300 words, it probably would not have gotten done. But if I had made the effort to do it, it's going to be a lot longer than 30 seconds. And think of the vast...

the discussion you and I had going back and forth with a result that we cheated with, right? We went and asked.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (23:16.448)
Right, no, you're bringing up a great point, Gary, that when we create something with AI and then we work to build it and refine it, the real learning occurs after the fact when we then analyze the output and we have a meaningful conversation and dialogue. And that's what has to occur in higher ed with students and faculty and others. So no, I think this was kind of a fun exercise that you and I went through this week with using AI.

to create one of our topics. And yeah, it's a no brainer to me. I would encourage institutions to develop their white papers, their position papers, their policies on AI with various stakeholders giving input into that and remembering that you can try to outlaw it, but students are going to use AI and they already are using AI and that's not gonna change.

So let's figure out how to help our students use it in an ethical and productive way.

Gary (24:19.054)
And before I take you to the point where you give us the good point score for today, I've got one final point. I've got a tagline for us. I'm going to steal something from you, Joseph. AI, here's our tagline in quotes, AI is a calculator, end quote.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (24:32.96)
I like it, Gary.

Gary (24:35.822)
So if you've got the score and I'll take us home.

Joseph Pellerito Jr. (24:37.856)
Wow, you know, I was ahead until you made that last point. And so, so I'm, I'm, I'm kind of stunned here, but Hey Gary, I'm going to give you 11 for this week and I'm giving myself nine. So you've got two weeks in a row, brother. Good job today.

Gary (24:55.214)
Oh man, I was expecting to be trounced on this one. All right, Joseph. Well, thank you very much. Hey, the topics we talked about today included the substantial discussion on a college collapse this fall. Be thinking about it. If you're a higher education leader, if you're a faculty member, if you're a local community leader, even a parent or a student, it's not likely, but you know, kind of sort of just in case plan for it. We talked about accrediting agencies, in particular HLC and their interest in trying to predict college closures.

I think, Joseph, we disagreed on that. That's not the first time. It's not going to be the last time. And then we talked about AI and then other topics as well. In our pre -production and our pre -broadcasting, pre -recording session today, Joseph was telling me a story about some of the folks who are listening to the podcast have made a point to share with him.

While the topics are good and they enjoy, they really like the discussion approach. And again, one of the reasons we do college counterpoints is because we want to model disagreement. We want to model proper and respectful and entertaining disagreement.

And we will do that each and every time you saw it today. I'm guessing, you know, Joseph probably made up the score in the last couple of seconds. Well, that's fine. We have fun with it. And it's a good point score for a reason. We're trying to score good points, whether we're in agreement or opposition. So thanks for listening. Thanks for making time and as always share this podcast with your colleagues, with your family, with your neighbors. And we'll do this again next Thursday on College Counterpoints for my good friend and colleague, Dr. Joseph Pellerito Jr. I'm Gary Stocker.

We'll see you again next Thursday.