| 0:00:15.72 | 74.0s | Ingrid Nuttall | Hi AACRAO community. Welcome to H.E.A.R.D. It's December and the presidential election was just over a month ago. There is a lot of speculation about what the next Trump presidency will mean for higher education and the student experience. In this episode, we were joined by Bill Gil, senior Director of Government Relations for AACRAO to unpack what we know and what we don't about President elect Trump's plans. Bill walks us through some of the current work of the Biden administration and how that might wrap up or be left unfinished. The impact of committee leadership on how proposed legislation might fare and whether or not we are likely to see a dismantling of the Department of Education. Bill also talked about how we can get involved and make a difference. So one note, Pre Wall Bill will be hosting a webinar on December 18th with AACRAO’s government relations team beginning at 2 p.m. Eastern titled a fireside chat with AACRAO’s government relations team. This session will focus on what the election results could mean for the sector from both a congressional lens. And in terms of the new administration, there will also be time for Q and A So check that out for more information and to sign up, go to www.aacrao.org, navigate to events and training and you'll find webinars under the training section. All right, let's get started. |
| 0:01:33.91 | 4.1s | Ingrid Nuttall | Hi, AACRAO Community. Welcome to another episode of her. I'm Ingrid Nuttall. |
| 0:01:38.34 | 1.7s | Portia LaMarr | I'm Portia Lamar and |
| 0:01:40.1 | 1.2s | Tashana Curtis | I'm Tashana Curtis. |
| 0:01:41.80 | 18.9s | Ingrid Nuttall | And joining us today is Bill Gil, senior Director of Government Relations from AACRAO Bill. Thank you so much for coming onto our podcast to talk about all of the current events happening in the political landscape that we know um are affecting. What's on the minds of the membership? Welcome to H.E.A.R.D. |
| 0:02:01.9 | 6.7s | Bill Gil | No, thank you so much. And I, I didn't know there was anything happening in the higher education space. It's, it's such a, it's such a |
| 0:02:07.84 | 3.9s | Ingrid Nuttall | shock. Should we take a pause to catch you up? |
| 0:02:13.2 | 6.2s | Portia LaMarr | I think we need to pause. I need a cocktail |
| 0:02:20.39 | 6.3s | Ingrid Nuttall | Bill. Um Can you introduce yourself to her listeners and just tell us a little bit about who you are? |
| 0:02:26.97 | 88.1s | Bill Gil | Sure I'd be happy to my original name was or is William Rafael Gil. But when we moved up to the United States from Venezuela and moved to the Heartland of Latino culture, uh Milwaukee Wisconsin, um that beautiful name became Bill Gil. And so I did, I did have my formative years in, in Wisconsin. Um I did uh you know, I had the opportunity to do a lot of great things during my undergrad. I studied in Spain and Brazil, um, I came to Washington DC. I only expected to be here for two years and I was going to get my MB A. But, uh, as, as everybody that it's, everybody been here that decides to stay here, I got potomac fever and, um, I fell into the public policy space. And so, um, I feel so honored to, um, be the voice or one of the voices of AACRAO within, um, this space because I truly believe wholeheartedly that if AACRAO wasn't in this space, there would be a huge public policy vacuum. And I think our members um do an amazing job and provide an extraordinary uh amount of insight into how public policy can impact the inner workings of an higher education institution. |
| 0:03:56.32 | 5.4s | Portia LaMarr | I loved hearing the story of your, your background and your name. That is, that is beautiful. Thank you. |
| 0:04:01.86 | 28.5s | Bill Gil | Oh, please. I'm, I'm, I mean, I'm the first one to go to get my um undergraduate degree, much less of my master's degree. So, um I feel like I'm truly part of the American dream. Like where I come from, you either have access or you don't. And this is the land of where it's truly as um you get an equal playing field for, for lack of another word, |
| 0:04:32.7 | 24.4s | Ingrid Nuttall | Bill. We reached out to you after the election in the hopes that you could help the community understand some of the things you're keeping an eye on for the next Trump presidency, you sent a really rich outline to us and there's a lot to dig into and it started actually with laying some groundwork with what has been in place with the Biden administration. So what should we highlight regarding what the current administration has in flight? |
| 0:04:57.5 | 231.0s | Bill Gil | You know? Um First of all, I just want to thank you Ingrid Portia and Tashana for inviting me to be part of this. Um It's always great to talk to the Acron membership and hopefully I can provide some insights of the intricacies that are kind of and the conversations that are transpiring here in DC. Um It's really interesting and kind of weird to see this transition from one extreme to the other um from the current administration to the incoming administration to what the current administration trying to like finalize in their final whatever um couple weeks versus the weather balloons that we're hearing from, you know, the incoming administration. And so, um first of all, and, and this has been a shifting ping pong ball for a while, but um we have the president, the current president, Mr Biden trying to do finalize student loan repayment programs and we don't know what everybody is going to land on. All we hear is that the new administration will significantly alter the student loan repayment program that, that Mr Biden currently put in place. So it's everyone's kind of rushing to the finish line to see what they can do before the new administration transpires. The second thing that I find is completely super interesting is the whole reporting requirement that we have regarding uh gainful employment and financial value transparency. You know, the deadline to submit that information was moved from October 1st to uh January 15th and then we have a new administration coming in on January 20th. And so, um there's a lot of questions within the higher education um community in regards to the vehicle to submit the information, what information is gonna be submitted? Um There's a lot of confusion in regards to um completer data that's out there and the ability for institutions to provide data. Um My sense is that there's gonna be a lot of data that's gonna be submitted to the Department of Education, but nobody's, it's gonna take a while to figure out what is the correct data and what is the incorrect data. Um So there's also questions um regarding um and this is totally Washington Insider um the Congressional Review Act. Um So, at the same time, we have all these things that are transpiring with the outgoing administration, the new administration is reviewing what they can nullify under the Congressional Review Act and that normally happens um when the incoming administration wants to rec receive guidance um to from an outgoing administration. And so, um there's a lot of moving pieces and so it's certainly, it, it really is interesting to kind of be on the ground floor hearing all the things that are kind of transpiring and the various moving pieces um that we have going on. Can I just say something else around? Um the community is super engaged regarding um gainful employment and financial value transparency. We've heard loud and clear from our members that this is a priority one and there's a lot of confusion. So we're not just only sending um a community letter, we're also sending a acros specific letter for the um the, the current secretary and the members of Congress to understand what this really means for our institutions. |
| 0:08:48.41 | 11.0s | Portia LaMarr | OK. This whole notion of the doe being eliminated is that a thing? Can it really happen? Will it really happen? |
| 0:08:59.90 | 9.7s | Bill Gil | You know, where do we go from um political rhetoric to actual reality? |
| 0:09:09.92 | 1.9s | Portia LaMarr | Exactly. Um |
| 0:09:12.9 | 49.3s | Bill Gil | It's, it's a lot of rhetoric. Um So the Republicans would have to have a super majority and would have to be filibuster proof, which they wouldn't have that under the current, even the new makeup of the, of the new, of the new Senate. Um Plus, um during the last time that this was brought up, there were nearly 60 Republicans that voted against the measure. So from my perspective, I don't see this as a reality. Um I don't see that really having any long term legs. Now, we can talk about some of the implications of what the new administration can absolutely have within um the scope of their sphere. And that can be impactful in and of itself. |
| 0:10:04.9 | 19.6s | Ingrid Nuttall | So, Porsche kind of touched on this, but can you take us through what we know about the President elect's plan, president elect's plans for his 1st 100 days and the impact that it could have on higher education. So, if, if not. Yeah, and specifically on the student experience, I think that's something that we all care about too. |
| 0:10:23.90 | 28.7s | Bill Gil | I think we need to take a step back and look at what the composition of Congress is really going to be. Um, so we already know that the new Senate chair will be Mr Cassidy from Louisiana. He's going to be the new chair of the Senate Health Committee. We don't know who the chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee. We have two individuals that are vying for the position. Um There's, um, |
| 0:10:54.73 | 104.2s | Bill Gil | um, and Mr Owen from, um, from Utah and Mr Wahlberg from Michigan. It should be important to point out that Mr Wahlberg um, challenged Miss Fox during the previous, um, a change of the administration. So I don't, they don't necessarily see 100% eye to eye and, but Mr Burgess is the uh the chair of the sub-committee for Higher Ed. So it'll be very interesting, very telling what who actually ends up being the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee. Um That's the first one, leadership matters, leadership drives the agenda. Um That's the most important thing that you have to understand about Congress. Nobody likes other folks stepping on their toes in their jurisdiction. Um The second thing I will mention and within the 1st 100 days and we've already seen weather balloons from this. Um I think um immigration is going to play a huge part. Um Priority number one is gonna be um immigration bans. We heard about tariffs just today. 25% on both Mexico and Canada. We also heard um about deportations and utilization of the, of, of um the military for helping uh deport individuals. And first and foremost, it's a and I think title nine is gonna get absolutely addressed within the 1st 100 days. |
| 0:12:39.80 | 4.3s | Portia LaMarr | What are DACA students have to like, what, what will they encounter? |
| 0:12:44.44 | 23.5s | Bill Gil | That's a great question. Nobody knows, nobody knows. And that's, that's a great question. Um because unfortunately, in order to be part of DACA or be a dreamer, you had to register with the Federal government. And so you actually have that data at the fingertips of the, of the Department of Homeland Security. What they're gonna do with that is, is a huge question. |
| 0:13:08.35 | 9.5s | Tashana Curtis | What about DEI initiatives? Because we hear a lot of things that this incoming administration wants to cut out of DEI. |
| 0:13:18.54 | 42.2s | Bill Gil | So that's, that is definitely um are gonna be under greater scrutiny. Um DEI initiatives um have been facing an uphill battle in many, many, many states. Um And so I foresee that DEI um will face further scrutiny that being said, um as we all know, and, and what we value with within AACRAO regardless of the administration, access and equity will continue to be a core value of the association and we will continue to fight on behalf of access and equity um regardless of the administration. |
| 0:14:02.85 | 40.0s | Ingrid Nuttall | So I'd like to circle back to one of the things you said we could expect that has been talked about in the 1st 100 days. You talked about the use of the military on deportations. And I think that's been, that's shared before recently as something that the President elect was considering. I have um wondered about what that looks like or if it looks like anything for college campuses. Um is there any, are, are there conversations happening within higher education that you're aware of, of, you know, institutions thinking what they can do to protect students? |
| 0:14:43.64 | 39.3s | Bill Gil | Um You know, that's a great, that's a great question. Um Ingrid, um I have not heard anything of the sort yet, but that is something that obviously we're all concerned about. Um and the impact on students. Now, what I have heard is that many institutions are sending messages to international students um encouraging them to come back before XY or Z date in order. So they don't have to um get any visa issues or anything like that. |
| 0:15:24.83 | 15.9s | Ingrid Nuttall | And I know I'm mentioning students, but I, you know, I also think about staff and faculty like at all, at all levels, right? Like um it is sort of, it's, it's real scary, it's real scary. |
| 0:15:41.16 | 14.4s | Portia LaMarr | The other huge piece is money. What is that gonna look like under the Trump Administration, Financial Aid? Um I cannot think of it because my mind is going blank Pell Grant. There we go. Pell Grant. All of that. What, what will that look like? |
| 0:15:55.84 | 221.8s | Bill Gil | So let me take a step back and look at what the um incoming leadership is going to look for, which is the College Cost Reduction Act. Um That was introduced at the beginning of last year. Um It has some decent things. Let me just kind of walk through people. Um And so actually let me take a even so call. Now I'll talk about college cost reduction. So the college Cost Reduction Act does have some pross, for example, it does include reverse transfer legislation which acro has been at the forefront. Um It doubles the max uh Pell grant for juniors and seniors who are on track to graduate. Um It would repeal gainful employment and financial uh value transparency. Um It does prevent interest from capitalizing on student loan and, and would on and would require students to only pay back what they would have owed on a 10 year standard repayment plan, things that all higher education I think would support. There are some issues that are red flags for higher education. It would eliminate the federal supplemental education opportunity grant program eliminates a plus uh loan program for graduate uh students. Um It changes the overall need analysis formula um and could impact low income students. It repeals a 9010 rule. Um It would also make institutions responsible for loans that former students don't pay off. Um It also establishes loan caps. So for example, um it would be a cap of 100 and $50,000 for professional degrees, um doctors and such. Um and, and it estimates that under the current proposed formula, about 86% of institutions would be required to make an annual payment back to Department of Education. Under the um college Cost Reduction Act. It also um would create a secondary student data system and I mentioned all this because I don't think that higher education as collective, we have focused on this and there is already conversations transpiring of the Congresswoman Fox bringing this down to the floor for a full floor vote. The Senate is not gonna act on it. Mr Biden's not gonna sign it into law but is a marker that again, it goes back to the leadership of a of, of the new Congress and what they're going to push if it's a marker that's a pretty heavy steep um impact to higher education. Um There's also conversations regarding uh state accreditations and every state being responsible for their own accreditations. It's, it, it, it could impact higher education in a way that um we have not seen it for a long time. But I will also say that um this is some of the some of the proposals under the CCR A are are gonna get eventually watered down and it's gonna be critical for institutions of higher education to become engaged in this process, to understand truly how this is going to impact their institutions. I mean, can you imagine 86% of institutions requiring to send a check back to the Department of Education? |
| 0:19:37.93 | 2.7s | Portia LaMarr | Well, yeah, I know. No, I can't |
| 0:19:41.88 | 5.2s | Bill Gil | or, or the fact that institutions would now be required to pay for outstanding student loan debt. |
| 0:19:47.41 | 7.1s | Portia LaMarr | Yeah. And then, and then what happens with that? What happened? What's the, what's, what can, what's the domino effect if something like that happened? |
| 0:19:55.76 | 40.5s | Bill Gil | Um I think, I think that's, that's where everybody engagement is going to be critical, whether it's gonna be state and regionals, individuals in um, presidents of institutions. Um I mean, if we get to that junction, we're gonna have to become engaged. I mean, it's not gonna be Acro Hill Day, it's gonna be higher education. Speaking to members of Congress, I cannot understate this enough. Um, 245 million individuals were eligible to vote. 90 million people didn't vote in the last election. Elections have consequences. You know, |
| 0:20:38.31 | 62.8s | Bill Gil | you know, we had lower turnout, 64% of us voted in the last election. That's down from 66% in the previous election of 2020. Um, you know, we have a 34% population. We're the greatest country in the world and we are the most economic powerful country in the world yet. Only 30 per, 34% of the entire United States population has an undergraduate degree. That's a, that's a sobering thought. Right. Um And, and, and, and it really comes down to and I'm not being facetious about it, but I mean, your vote matters, your vote matters and elections have consequences. Um And again, I mean, acro is not going to change its values or its priorities, we're still gonna maintain what we feel strongly about. Um We'll just have to all work collectively a little harder to make sure that our voices are heard. |
| 0:21:42.42 | 101.6s | Ingrid Nuttall | Bill. I wanna push a little bit on the um the the sort of rhetorical questions that you asked about. Can you imagine? Right? Can you imagine if institutions had to write a check? Can you imagine if they had to be accountable for outstanding loan debt? And one of the things I have been thinking about with um or reflecting about even personally with my own higher education world is the power of narrative because I think from one perspective, I could see that message of we are going to have institutions be accountable for the loan debt, we are going to reclaim dollars that you have have not realized in opportunity for you. Like I could see that being a really powerful narrative. And I'm, I wanna pause in how I individually or institutions respond and counter to that because I think as a, as an administrator personally, the first thing I think about is the pain it would be to develop processes to deal with that, which isn't really the problem either, right? Like yes, that's a problem. But the problem is the impact to the people, the impact to the students, the impact to the quality of education. Like there is a powerful narrative that I'm wondering if you can help us think about how we surface and address those narratives rather than at least again, for me falling back on the, we can't do this. It's too burdensome. We don't have the staff that takes away from our ability to do these other things. Like how can we shift our arguments to be different and more effective? |
| 0:23:25.75 | 124.4s | Bill Gil | I think um higher education has just become an easy victim to go against. Um in regards to um the narrative that has been put out there regarding um the value proposition college cost, I think um high is fighting the impression that we're moving society quote unquote in the wrong direction. Um And I think we have to fight against that. Um And I think, um again, it'll just be our, our cumulative voice that has to be able to, you know, talk about the value proposition that higher education, I mean, and educate its workforce what does that mean? Increase and increased, uh, salaries, you know, all that kind of stuff? Um, I would, I would, uh, I would also kind of share that, um, what we're going to see in higher education is we're going to see an increased oversight, um, over the next couple of years, whether it be, um, civil rights free speech, um, especially anti-semitism, um, financial aid fallouts, you know, the whole issue of the FAFSA that set us back and I'm us as in higher education, set us back a huge amount. Um You know, we still have to deal with, you know, international students. Um There's, there's possibly the conversations regarding um international student enrollment and possible caps, especially a focus on China and, and students coming from uh from, from China that, that, you know, the impact our, you know, our, our economic well being. So I think there's a lot of things that we have to kind of |
| 0:25:32.93 | 11.2s | Bill Gil | juggle. Um and it's gonna be, and, and, and, you know, but I don't necessarily think that it's insurmountable, be quite honest with you. I don't um |
| 0:25:46.70 | 17.0s | Bill Gil | I think that um I think the largest conversation piece really has to go around um college cost and the value proposition. Um and we will see a lot more focus on um |
| 0:26:06.10 | 18.6s | Bill Gil | um alternative credentials, especially if we, if we get a short term p passed um apprenticeships, um all great salary jobs, all that kind of stuff. But I think that we do have to, you know, start figuring out how we're gonna change the narrative a little bit. |
| 0:26:25.18 | 35.7s | Portia LaMarr | What, um and this goes on with what Inger said and what you had said, Bill in the past about, you know, our, our voice higher Ed's voice, but to narrow that down to our listeners, you know, I, I'm, I'm hoping in my mind, listeners from all over the place, but the acro listeners, what can a registrar's office do? What can an admissions office do? What can they do to help feed to the VPs or the Provost or wherever, whoever their institution has this type of a uh uh voice to be like, this is important. |
| 0:27:03.43 | 33.6s | Bill Gil | You know, that's a really great question. Um I think, I think we all just have to be able to speak out on the value proposition of what a higher education degree um means to not only just individuals but just overall the um United States economy. Um I don't think, I mean, we're in the trenches, you guys are in the trenches more than I am. But um I think if we start losing focus on that, I think um it will become a little bit more difficult uh conversation. |
| 0:27:38.13 | 13.2s | Ingrid Nuttall | What can we um what about specific impacts to HBCU, us, tribal colleges, other, other institutions um that we might want to like, specifically call out and focus on. |
| 0:27:52.81 | 47.1s | Bill Gil | So the federal government has a lot of impact that it can do to public institutions but it doesn't, it, there's a lot of questions what it can do with private institutions. And so that is still TBD. Um I've heard that HBCUs and um tribal colleges and universities um are not facing any larger scrutiny, but I have heard rumors that HSIs could face larger scrutiny specifically under title five and title three. and so that could um mean um capacity building funds for HSIs. Um And that could be detrimental all around. |
| 0:28:41.55 | 17.1s | Ingrid Nuttall | Are there things that Non HSI again? Like besides, so we have the regional organizations, we have AACRAO but are there ways that institutions can creatively partner to inoculate each other from these threats? Like, is that something that's part of the conversation? |
| 0:28:59.9 | 54.6s | Bill Gil | I think um everybody is waiting to see what the president's uh elects budget priorities are going to become. Um we're all speculating, we all speculate that it's gonna be um a cut in research funding. We all speculate that it could be an impact on the just the overall Department of Education. We're not getting rid of the Department of Education, but, you know, they can minimize its impact by, you know, decreasing its funding, you know, in that regard. So I think once we have a clear sense of, of what the president elect um priorities are in regards into this space, I think that will um that will help mobilize all of higher education because there's so many unknowns. I mean, things change on a weekly, daily basis. |
| 0:29:54.42 | 11.1s | Portia LaMarr | Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and with that being said, how can we tune in to you or anyone? What, what can we do? What, what do you have, Tommy? How are you getting the message out to AACRAO? |
| 0:30:05.73 | 61.1s | Bill Gil | So, what one of the things we've already kind of planned about is when we're gonna see where CCRA comes down. Um And, and, and really kind of engaged uh the AACRAO community in the next congress and we're going to need all your help, please. We're gonna need everyone's help. Like it's gonna be super important for not only individuals but state and regionals to become engaged in this space because everybody's voice and I've been, you know, Portia and everybody else. But, you know, I always say things are local, right? Um Things end up being, you know, how is this going to impact, you know, my constituency, that's what a member of Congress wants to hear. It's, it's all about local. How will this impact my, you know, students in my, my district, my state, all that kind of stuff. And again, a lot of things still to be determined based on the president's priorities in the next budget, but we're gonna need everybody's engagement. |
| 0:31:07.50 | 22.2s | Portia LaMarr | Yeah, I cannot agree more. Um That was one thing that I encountered again, it was, I don't know how long I did Hill Day and I don't know whose administration we were under, but you will be surprised at the topics that we talked about that when I talked to my local representatives, they, they weren't knowledgeable about it. So that is very important that you are in, involved in your state and regionals to get the word out |
| 0:31:31.43 | 39.3s | Bill Gil | and, and, and I think that's kind of where, um, I believe AACRAO can make its largest impact. Um, and just talking about the, about how this will, what this will mean for students. Um and institutions, I mean, institutions are, you know, economic engines in their own forthright, you know, they, they provide so much to the community, so much to, you know, um a location. And so I don't think if people truly understand what that means. Um I think it's, it's, you know, it's up to us to try to help explain it. |
| 0:32:11.80 | 85.5s | Ingrid Nuttall | Bill. I have a theory that this is kind of like a left turn from the conversation, but I have a theory that I want to test with you. It kind of like popped into my head when you were talking about the feasibility of actually dismantling the Department of Education. One of the things that we've talked about, um we talked about just our last episode that comes out tomorrow is the unpredictability of humans to go in directions that you don't expect them to like to resist, to resist against things that feel inevitable. Um And what I have been wondering, is sort of these individual people who are in leadership positions of the committees that you're talking about, who are going to be part of the decision making or the Senators or the House, like everything, what their sort of internal motivations are related to their legacy, um, even related to their ego. And I think that that is so unpredictable and I, I'm curious what your thoughts are or maybe it's even your experience in the sort of unpredictability of individual humans in the political process to act in ways that you don't expect them to act and how we might think about that as a reason for hope. Um And a reason to motivate us into change in the future. Hopefully, that question and thought makes some sense to you. |
| 0:33:37.98 | 3.4s | Bill Gil | Sure, Ingrid, why don't you set me up some more? Um |
| 0:33:43.5 | 3.9s | Ingrid Nuttall | It's a fun set up, it's a thought exercise, don't you like that? Of |
| 0:33:46.96 | 0.6s | Portia LaMarr | course you do. |
| 0:33:49.33 | 108.3s | Bill Gil | Um I like, I can't tell you as a former congressional Hill staffer, the importance of engagement. Um I, I information is key, remember, members of Congress are not just motivated by their own self interest, but they're also motivated by um you know, their constituencies and the number of, of, of like meetings that the staffers have and all that kind of stuff. I mean, um I can't, I mean, you're right. Um There is a large amount of unpredictability but if anything else, um that's the beauty of democracy. At least, you know, from my perspective, it's a, it's a system of checks and balances that doesn't allow for immediate actions to take, to take place. There is a process, there is discourse, there is conversations that need to happen. There are true conversations that talk about the negative and not the positives of, of XY or Z actions. I mean, um everybody complains about Washington DC, not being able to do XY or Z, but it's purposefully not reactionary. Um It's, it's based on the fact that, you know, you have various levers of power that need to have, have conversations about, you know, the disc, about the, about the possible impact of changing Xy or Z. So um consensus is hard, folks, consensus is really hard um And even more so um in this volatile kind of state that we find ourselves in um of a divided country. |
| 0:35:39.17 | 30.3s | Ingrid Nuttall | What I hear you saying Bill is that engagement matters in the full spectrum of things, it matters in terms of OK, now that we're here advocacy for the value proposition of higher education and what our um institutions are here for, like you said, as an economic engine, but also at the individual community level with people to get them engaged too. So pushing on sort of like both sides. |
| 0:36:10.72 | 11.5s | Bill Gil | Yeah, I think, I think my question would do my, my like everybody should take a step back, right and say what happened and why did it happen? |
| 0:36:24.76 | 2.1s | Portia LaMarr | I like that idea. |
| 0:36:28.5 | 9.1s | Bill Gil | I mean, we can all bring our own personal perspectives to the table, but the collective decided one way |
| 0:36:39.64 | 46.4s | Bill Gil | and whether you are a Republican or Democrat, um this is, these are the facts, this is the facts and, you know, higher education is facing um, some obstacles that's facing some value proposition questions. It's about, it's a, it's about, you know, lots of things. I mean, we're proponents of higher education. We, we are 150% proponents. I, you know, both my, my Children went to college, my son just came home from, you know, freshman year for Thanksgiving huge proponents. I'm a huge proponent, but again, only 36% of the entire United States population has an undergraduate degree. |
| 0:37:26.82 | 9.6s | Ingrid Nuttall | So what are some positive things that we might look forward to spend a lot of time talking about the those changes? What, what might go really? Well, this was |
| 0:37:36.52 | 1.7s | Bill Gil | supposed to be a nice conversation, |
| 0:37:39.76 | 2.0s | Portia LaMarr | those unicorns. Where are they? |
| 0:37:42.1 | 5.9s | Tashana Curtis | It is a nice conversation because it's very informative. So I am, it is |
| 0:37:47.94 | 0.6s | Portia LaMarr | and it |
| 0:37:48.55 | 0.7s | Tashana Curtis | is valuable. |
| 0:37:49.23 | 31.2s | Portia LaMarr | I totally agree with you, Tashana because um sometimes it's hard to find the source to give you the useful information that you're looking for nowadays. And I'm hoping that this will be the source for some of our listeners, um which yes, turns it into lessening my anxiety because I hear all this other stuff and now my mind is going everywhere. So, absolutely. But yeah, what, what are some of the, the, the bright, bright side of things? Higher |
| 0:38:20.41 | 101.0s | Bill Gil | education is not going to go away anytime soon? We have tremendous opportunity. Um Education continues to be the uh opens doors of opportunities for the entire uh entire um you know, United States population, the United States is still on a good sounding, it's still a tremendous, probably the greatest, the most fruitful economy that this um in the history of the world. Um So, well, well, you know, there are some challenges, I think there are also tremendous opportunities. I think, um um short term Pell, I think, um you know, uh apprenticeships programs, I think a lot of these opportunities are going to come up. Um And it's the way that higher education kind of adjusted those opportunities that will kind of determine how we move forward. Um I think that no, we haven't even touched it on the enrollment cliff or, you know, specific states that have seen a decline in high school students. It's the only country in many ways that has a free market higher education system and people take their money and go to different places the way that they choose how to spend their money. That's been the way that higher education has been built for the last couple of 100 years. And I think that we're going to continue to see that. And I think the market economy will kind of just balance itself out over the long haul. Um I'm not, I'm not totally gloom and doom. I think we have some challenges, but I do think that we have a lot of opportunities moving forward. |
| 0:40:03.86 | 35.8s | Ingrid Nuttall | So you hinted at specific action, kind of collective action we can take, I know when we were preparing for this conversation, um We're sort of thinking things out and you had some questions that you um kind of asked again, it was rhetorically one, there was like one in particular that people might ask themselves to do a little reflection and stock taking um related to how engaged they are in understanding like their political resources. I'm wondering if you can walk us through, maybe some ways that people can reflect um to help spur them into action. |
| 0:40:40.53 | 85.8s | Bill Gil | Yeah. Um I will, so there's a macro micro level. Um I will also say I'll do a little pitch for um the AACRAO Hill Day. It's a tremendous opportunity. Not many associations will, you know, cover as much as AACRO does for have its members to, to come to Washington DC. Um So I would always say you guys are the best resource that you guys can. Um like, you don't even understand how important you are. State and regionals are also um a critical um uh venue for individuals to get engaged in. And I would also encourage um state regionals to start looking at some of the um, state, uh, state legislatures and some of the actions that are transpiring at the state level, not only the federal level, we actually had a, had a webinar a couple of weeks ago where, you know, we talked, we talked through state regionals on their ability, how they could easily become engaged at the state level as well as federal level, um, for letter writing campaigns or, um, just individual engagement because, um, at, at the end of the day, that's, that's what's gonna really, really, really kind of matter for elected officials. |
| 0:42:06.92 | 12.9s | Ingrid Nuttall | So if you don't know where your congressional representative's office is, that was kind of one figure it out start there, think, do you know where your people are? Um |
| 0:42:21.20 | 8.5s | Bill Gil | Yeah, I asked you, I asked you if you actually know what the address of your local congressional representative and most people. |
| 0:42:31.9 | 0.6s | Portia LaMarr | Right. |
| 0:42:32.37 | 4.0s | Bill Gil | Right. And most people don't know that. So it |
| 0:42:36.55 | 3.0s | Tashana Curtis | sounds like a challenge put out there. |
| 0:42:39.76 | 10.3s | Portia LaMarr | Yeah. Along with the other challenge of what Bill was saying Hill Day is a wonderful event to be a part of through AACRAO. So I highly encourage people to do that |
| 0:42:51.19 | 14.3s | Ingrid Nuttall | build. There's also maybe um a couple of webinars, I know that we have coming up through Acro in the coming weeks. That would also be good, kind of foundational things to connect with. If people want to hear more about some of the stuff we've covered. Do you wanna plug those real quick? |
| 0:43:05.65 | 61.2s | Bill Gil | Yeah. I'll, I'll really quickly mention those. Um next week we're having a webinar um with uh the Clearinghouse, National Student Clearinghouse and AIR um to talk about some of these issues that institutions are kind of facing regarding gainful employment and financial value, transparency regulations and reporting. So would love to have that. I mean, and, and, and if you're able to just watch it um, afterwards, that's fine. That's great as well. Also, we have where um the government Relations office is introducing a uh a quarterly update webinar kind of what are the things that in a addition to transcript and connect articles and everything like that, the ability for members to kind of connect with us and ask us, you know, um this is what we're seeing on the political landscape and for them to be able to uh have a Q and A with us and that um is gonna start off on, on December 18th. |
| 0:44:08.82 | 31.9s | Ingrid Nuttall | It is really, um it is so positive and so um fulfilling to be able to get to bring you to the community in this way and selfishly for ourselves to be able to spend this time with you. It's super enriching. Um And we always walk away with a lot of reflections for what we can do and we just thank you so much for being here, Bill and come back any time to talk about anything that you want. We don't have to talk about this. We can talk about something else. |
| 0:44:41.97 | 17.2s | Bill Gil | You guys are so kind and I, and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to come and just share some thoughts again. You know, it's not, I don't have a crystal ball. I can't answer everything. I can just share what I'm hearing from the ground and share with their membership. |
| 0:44:59.40 | 4.7s | Ingrid Nuttall | Now, we know what kind of a gift we can get you. We will order up a crystal ball, crystal |
| 0:45:04.12 | 3.6s | Portia LaMarr | ball and a wizard hat |
| 0:45:08.43 | 1.8s | Bill Gil | and a wizard hat. |
| 0:45:19.29 | 15.1s | Ingrid Nuttall | Thanks for listening to another episode of H.E.A.R.D. We'd love to hear from you. Please send us an email at heard@aacrao.org with any feedback you have for us or show ideas. This episode was produced by Doug Macky. Thanks Doug. |