74. Let’s Learn About THESIS: Trends in Higher Education in International Spheres Podcast with Kelly Davis.
Girl, Take the Lead!June 14, 2023x
74
00:36:1920.84 MB

74. Let’s Learn About THESIS: Trends in Higher Education in International Spheres Podcast with Kelly Davis.

Kelly Davis joins Yo to discuss THESIS, an independent podcast, created by a group of international students who are currently in a Masters Program in Higher Education at the University of Oslo in Norway (the podcast is not affiliated with the University of Oslo). The theme for their first season, which just recently ended, was to discuss geo politics and the use of higher education as a form of soft power in autocratic regimes. Their second season which began June 7 and will focus on first generation students and higher education on a global level.

 

Kelly is also a special guest because she was in Girl Scout Troup 2136 which Yo led.

 

During the episode Kelly and Yo explored higher education trends and how it’s changing.

 

Here are the 3 Takeaways:

 

1. We can expect a drop in enrollment in the years to come due to a declining birthrate.

2. The reasons for not going to college cannot be easily defined and we can question if the motivation and role of higher education leads to more social mobility.

3. Our views on higher education are U.S. centric and outside the U.S. it’s a different story - if we think higher education has no value we should look outside the U.S.

 

We hope you’ll enjoy this inspiring episode!

 

As mentioned in the episode – Direct links to podcast:

 

Anchor.fm:

Spotify

Apple

Google

Stitcher

Amazon Music

 

Ways you contact the THESIS team:

 

Kelly Davis

Maria Angeles Hidalgo 

Ayla Rubenstein

Tracy Waldman

Ekaterina Kurinskaia

 

Podcast Website: https://thesispodcast.com/

 

LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesis-podcast-trends-in-higher-education-systems-international-spheres/

 

Twitter (@THESISpodcast): https://twitter.com/THESISpodcast 

 

Ways to reach Yo:

eMail 

yo@yocanny.com 

 

Public FB group: Girl, Take the Lead!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/272025931481748/?ref=share

 

Linktr.ee/yocanny

 

IG:

https://www.instagram.com/yocanny

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yocanny/


00:00:06
Welcome to episode 74 of girl. Take the leader each week we

00:00:09
explore Womanhood and Leadership and I'm your host.

00:00:12
Yo Kenny Kelly Davis. Joins us today to discuss the

00:00:15
podcast thesis Trends in higher education in the international

00:00:20
spheres and I'm thrilled, she's here, these us' an independent

00:00:26
podcast created by a group of international students who are

00:00:30
currently in the master's program in higher education at

00:00:34
the University of Oslo. So in Norway, by the way, the

00:00:39
podcast is not affiliated with the University of özlem Kelly is

00:00:43
also a special guest because she was in my girl scout troop 21:36

00:00:49
and I love her and the work she's doing with her podcast.

00:00:53
I just had to share with you. In this episode, we'll explore

00:00:57
Trends in higher education topics, we will cover include

00:01:02
dropping enrollment changing reason.

00:01:06
About students going to college the impact.

00:01:09
Alternative ways of learning could have on higher education

00:01:13
and the importance of broadening.

00:01:15
Our view about education beyond the United States.

00:01:18
Enjoy the listen. Here you go.

00:01:22
Kelly Davis, I have so excited to have you today.

00:01:26
I am. I can feel my like body is

00:01:29
excited. I'm just so thrilled for my

00:01:31
listeners to hear from you. We go back.

00:01:35
Like I don't know how many years like how many years since we

00:01:39
were in Girl Scouts? Oh gosh.

00:01:43
I don't know. I know it's been sometimes.

00:01:47
I forget my age. So it's hard to pinpoint it when

00:01:51
I think about you guys turning twenty nine twenty, you know,

00:01:56
getting closer to 30 and hearing about the remarkable things

00:02:00
you're doing. I'm just so thrilled and honored

00:02:04
to hear and did Hopefully, pass along to our listeners, some of

00:02:08
the great things you're doing. So thank you for being here.

00:02:12
Well, thank you so much. Yo, I mean, I remember those

00:02:15
days, very, very fondly. And I remember when you came out

00:02:18
with this podcast, it was, I thought, yes, this is exactly

00:02:21
what you should be doing. You have always been so

00:02:23
supportive of not just your daughters, but all of the people

00:02:28
who all of the young women who have kind of fallen into that

00:02:31
Circle. So, I'm so excited to be here.

00:02:34
Thank you for inviting me too. And I'm excited for

00:02:37
conversation. Why don't you tell our listeners

00:02:39
what you're up to? And if you could introduce

00:02:41
yourself a little bit that I think that will provide some

00:02:43
foundation for our discussion? Yeah, absolutely.

00:02:47
So I mean I'm sure it's going to be said, but my name is Kelly

00:02:50
Davis. I am currently getting a

00:02:53
master's degree in higher education at the University of

00:02:56
Oslo. In Norway, when I say Masters in

00:02:59
higher education, people don't always know what that means and

00:03:02
so you can think of it as a masters in higher education

00:03:05
studies. I like to say that I study

00:03:07
higher education systems and your fellow students in are your

00:03:12
colleagues I guess I should say in your program got together and

00:03:16
put this podcast together. Yes.

00:03:19
So we started the program in August of 2021 and I think it

00:03:24
was a month and a half in where this idea kind of started to

00:03:28
form that we all got kind of busy because we had our first

00:03:32
exams and that was a bit stressful.

00:03:35
So we Circled back to the idea in March or April of 2022.

00:03:40
And that's when we really started to focus on it and so

00:03:44
there's five of us who are involved and I'll definitely say

00:03:48
their names here. My co-producer is our ala

00:03:51
Rubenstein Ekaterina kerensky Maria on the list.

00:03:54
They'll go and Tracy Waldman, so it's the five of us right now.

00:03:58
Open to growth, open to growth. So the podcast is called basis,

00:04:03
which is an acronym for Trends, in higher education.

00:04:06
Systems in international spheres.

00:04:08
And what we are doing is we're taking a global approach to

00:04:12
higher education. So we're trying to look at

00:04:14
different topics within higher education, kind of from

00:04:17
different angles around around the globe.

00:04:20
And when I say higher education, I actually mean post-secondary

00:04:23
education. So any education that occurs

00:04:26
after secondary school at this point in time?

00:04:29
We are, we have just really looked primarily at your typical

00:04:34
kind of universities. So bachelor's and Master's and

00:04:39
PhD awarding institutions, and the systems that kind of are

00:04:45
encircled around those types of Institutions.

00:04:48
But we are you know, we are just getting started.

00:04:52
We have so many different topics that we want to tackle.

00:04:55
That we it's totally possible that we'll be diving more into

00:04:58
say the vocational side of things or other elements of what

00:05:02
might be deemed post-secondary, education in the future.

00:05:06
Sure. So just to kind of give an

00:05:08
example of what it means. Our first season looked at

00:05:11
higher education, the role of higher education and foreign and

00:05:14
domestic politics. And through that season which

00:05:18
was eleven episodes we included somewhere between 10 and 12

00:05:22
different countries into the conversation which was just

00:05:26
really cool. It's very fun.

00:05:28
I love this. This is what I'm this is why I

00:05:30
do it and your passion started in high school or did was it

00:05:34
basically in In college because I know you worked at the Menlo

00:05:38
College for a while, right and stuff.

00:05:41
How did how did you find your lane to go in like about this?

00:05:46
It's that's a longer story but I in when I was getting my

00:05:51
Bachelor's, you know, there were kind of signs poking at me that

00:05:55
maybe this was something I should focus in.

00:05:57
I actually got a Bachelor's in European studies.

00:06:01
The I took a class when I was studying abroad in Berlin, that

00:06:04
was about Theology of globalization of higher

00:06:07
education or something like that.

00:06:09
And I found that really fascinating went to New York

00:06:11
University. I think I said, and they have

00:06:13
kind of these global satellite campuses in Into their full

00:06:19
institutions into other countries.

00:06:22
So it was a really, really interesting class to take

00:06:26
because we had students from NYU Abu Dhabi which is a whole other

00:06:28
institution. Anyway, it was really

00:06:30
fascinating. It still didn't click at that

00:06:33
point but it was maybe a year and a half later and I think

00:06:38
what really? So there was a movement.

00:06:40
I think they're still around but the there was a lot of movement

00:06:43
around student debt and at NYU at In oh gosh was 2015 2016.

00:06:50
I was really you know engaged with a lot of the activists

00:06:54
around that and then or are you know they were a lot of them

00:06:57
were my friends and so there was this conversation about student

00:07:00
debt and I knew that in Germany, you did not have the same issue.

00:07:05
There are students who end up with debt, but it's not

00:07:08
anywhere. I mean, there's nowhere that's

00:07:10
as close to the amount of debt that we see in the United States

00:07:14
and I thought, well, Jeremy Just there's different systems out

00:07:18
there and so I actually ended up doing adding on a fifth year to

00:07:23
that degree. And I got a master's.

00:07:25
My first Masters is in European politics and policy and I

00:07:28
focused on looking at Ireland, and Germany, and my Master's

00:07:32
thesis and did a lot of other, like all my classes classes

00:07:36
focused somehow on higher education, in different parts of

00:07:39
Europe. So that was kind of my first

00:07:41
foray and then I ended up working at Menlo College, which

00:07:45
was fantastic. Hands-on experience for three

00:07:48
years. I was, it's a really, really

00:07:50
small college. So I wasn't just an advisor, but

00:07:54
I kind of tell people, I was a career services and study abroad

00:07:57
advisor and that was perfect place for me to kind of get this

00:08:01
experience and be further exposed to higher education

00:08:05
learned within what I was doing and not side of it.

00:08:08
Through articles podcast books, Etc.

00:08:11
I mean, it's like very interesting to be obsessed with

00:08:14
something like higher education. You would Think, thank you so

00:08:18
fascinating but it is. No, I gotta tell you what having

00:08:22
been inside with San Jose State as an adjunct lecturer.

00:08:27
I found it extremely interesting because the students, the

00:08:31
students are terrific and you love working with the students

00:08:35
but then there's this whole Administration and what they're

00:08:40
after what their concerns are and the marketing of the

00:08:45
institution and what they They stand for and then there's all

00:08:49
of the faculty and what they do it's complicated it's like its

00:08:53
own little ecosystem so I can totally get when you say it's

00:08:58
fascinating it is it totally is because we tend to think oh well

00:09:01
it's only about the kids but it isn't exactly tell the listeners

00:09:07
a little bit about some of your episodes because I want them to

00:09:10
check it out and kind of see the theme that you had for your

00:09:14
season 1 and congratulations. Congratulations on season one,

00:09:19
that was terrific. Thank you.

00:09:22
Like I said, there's about 11 episodes.

00:09:25
I'm thinking back. Yes, 11, it's really hard to

00:09:29
kind of pick a favorite because that doesn't seem fair.

00:09:32
But I will say that one of my favorites is one that I can't

00:09:35
actually talk about. And if you go listen to it,

00:09:37
you'll learn why. So, curious to know what that

00:09:40
is, go take a look and it's the only episode that doesn't have a

00:09:45
country or region. In in the title at the.

00:09:48
But another one, that I will highlight that I really, really

00:09:52
enjoyed one of our final episodes of the, of the season,

00:09:56
was with someone named who died with Zen, and he is originally

00:10:00
from Syria. He's now getting his Ph.D

00:10:04
actually at Cambridge, and he was just talking about, he was

00:10:10
talking about the Syrian higher education system leading up to

00:10:13
actually so on the crisis in Syria began and then also about

00:10:21
kind of how higher education has I guess been affected by what's

00:10:28
going on and he oh, he was just so on it and I was really,

00:10:32
really impressed by him and you know, II feel so naive and

00:10:35
saying this because it kind of makes sense, but I think

00:10:38
sometimes be, especially because these things go in and out of

00:10:42
media and the way that they do, we think we remember Were when

00:10:47
when kind of Crisis started and we remember that, we remember,

00:10:51
people like posting things that internet asking for help, and

00:10:54
then we just know that things haven't really been right since.

00:10:58
And so, to really kind of do the research for this and learn

00:11:02
about what's been going on with the higher education systems.

00:11:06
And you know how the students have been impacted the choices

00:11:10
that they are making to stay into higher education, so that

00:11:13
they won't end up in the Army, hang it, as a way out.

00:11:16
Way to delay when you asked me about takeaways from this

00:11:20
season, this is going to be difficult to articulate.

00:11:22
I think I'm still kind of processing but there was

00:11:26
something and sort of talking about all these of all these

00:11:29
elements of the role of higher education in politics.

00:11:33
Essentially in terms of how higher education institutions

00:11:37
can play a mediating role if they are allowed that the

00:11:42
choices that higher education's higher education institutions

00:11:45
can make that Their individual actors can make.

00:11:48
If they are allowed that. And that is something else that

00:11:51
gets touched on. In some of the episodes.

00:11:53
I came away from some of these things.

00:11:55
Some of these conversations thinking about how lucky we are

00:12:00
in the United States, in some respects to have the kind of

00:12:03
University autonomy. So the freedom to decide what

00:12:06
you do with your institution and rules to have that so that

00:12:10
they're separate from the government and the United

00:12:12
States, we kind of have, I don't think it's altogether unique,

00:12:15
but many other countries will have Like a National University

00:12:18
or a National University system and we do not have that the

00:12:20
federal government plays, not very strong role in higher

00:12:23
education in the United States. Even when it comes to funding,

00:12:28
it can be a blessing and a curse.

00:12:30
And we I think a lot of the conversation right now is that

00:12:33
we want more of that government support.

00:12:36
I don't know if we want the government control but

00:12:37
oftentimes there's going to come a stick-up, strings attached and

00:12:43
you know I would say on the whole I am fully on board.

00:12:46
Board who has higher education in the United States being a lot

00:12:49
cheaper than it is, but it was just really interesting to have

00:12:52
some of these conversations and think.

00:12:54
Yeah. Like where we might want more of

00:12:57
kind of, in some cases. Not everybody wants this, but

00:13:01
maybe a little bit more of the government to have a bit more of

00:13:04
a role to play. But we have to find balance.

00:13:06
Sometimes, I catch this obscure showing us that how the scales

00:13:11
can tip in different countries and how we look at education.

00:13:16
As kind of a freedom almost like a right to have and in other

00:13:22
countries it's not. What are some of the trends

00:13:24
going on that? You can see I know one thing you

00:13:27
and I talked a little bit about before was this drop in

00:13:31
enrollment and what that's about and you had some great insights

00:13:35
into that. Yeah.

00:13:36
Well you also just alluded to kind of You know, the role of I

00:13:41
think academic freedom as well on campuses and also students

00:13:45
rights to protesting. And, and I would to just kind of

00:13:49
touch drawl think they're, I think that University autonomy,

00:13:53
it can be so important because it can actually provide some

00:13:56
protection of students and some cases if they choose to act on

00:14:00
it, of course, that can also be a blessing and a curse because

00:14:04
we often times put a lot of parental role on higher

00:14:08
education. Ian's.

00:14:09
That's something. We also have to Grapple with and

00:14:11
the university has to really decide, you know, at what point

00:14:14
are we still responsible for these students, is it when

00:14:18
they're on our campus, where they physically things of that

00:14:20
nature and academic freedom is also an interesting one,

00:14:24
especially when it comes to just kind of what two words are used.

00:14:29
And what we talked about in the school setting or in the

00:14:32
classroom setting, I should say. And I don't think that those are

00:14:36
totally, you know, separately linked from Things that happen

00:14:40
when students when students protest.

00:14:43
So, I think there's a, there's so much going on there and it's

00:14:46
kind of a reflection of a lot of the tensions that are in the

00:14:50
United States. In general.

00:14:51
I think that it's kind of a really amazing thing that

00:14:54
students at universities exercise that right to only

00:14:59
right, that they have, they have the right to do it and it's,

00:15:02
yeah. And they're safe.

00:15:03
Yeah, retribution. I think you pointed in some of

00:15:06
your episodes about. That's not the case.

00:15:09
Case in the world. But so some of that may be

00:15:11
lighter trends like this, the enrollment Cliff.

00:15:15
I also have afraid to go too far down, because I'm not a

00:15:18
political scientist animation. Thank you.

00:15:22
Thanks a, reminder, but I think it's important to think about.

00:15:25
But in terms of the enrollment Cliff, this is something that's

00:15:29
been talked about within higher education for several years.

00:15:32
So it's kind of been this looming thing, over institutions

00:15:35
that the population of people, All in the United States, who

00:15:40
will be College age in 2025 2026 is going to drop and I was just

00:15:46
reading that it has something to do with the 2008 recession.

00:15:50
So all the sudden people were less inclined to have children.

00:15:54
So you kind of have a people just didn't have as many babies.

00:15:57
What that means for higher education institutions is that

00:16:02
there's just going to be full fewer people to draw from and

00:16:05
then they're typically used to at least in that age group

00:16:07
people were talking about Us before covid.

00:16:10
And now that covid has kind of made things really walkie, so

00:16:13
difficult to tell. I mean there's so many different

00:16:15
kind of elements that play. Now people are really starting

00:16:20
to question what kind of what the value of a higher education

00:16:24
degree is. So they might be looking to

00:16:26
other options. I'm not sure what the stats are.

00:16:29
Don't think that's necessarily like there's a this Mass Exodus

00:16:32
from going to a university or a college, and getting a degree

00:16:35
and instead going and learning how to be.

00:16:39
A computer programmer. So I think that there's still a

00:16:43
lot of people are seeing a lot of value in higher education

00:16:46
degree. And you see this kind of like

00:16:48
thought leader /. I don't know General did

00:16:51
technological CEO later, kind of debate where you've got CEOs,

00:16:55
who are saying, oh you don't need to get a college degree and

00:16:59
it other people are pointing out.

00:17:01
Well you horses from Harvard? So okay, in Norway, it's very

00:17:05
different. We have been mask free for over

00:17:08
a year. So it's kind of a different

00:17:10
context but that first, let's say phase of covid pre vaccines

00:17:15
or maybe a bit after was when I remember Google saying that

00:17:21
there are they at least had certain roles open where you

00:17:24
didn't have to have a degree or something along those lines.

00:17:27
I think you had to learn through their programs be qualified for

00:17:32
some of these roles it depended. I mean, there were all sorts of

00:17:35
different I suppose policies that were being suggested

00:17:39
proposed. One thing that I think we were

00:17:42
both interested in was the aspect of first generation

00:17:47
students. If you look at the drop in

00:17:50
enrollment, it's got to be offset by the growth of first

00:17:54
generation students, who are either recently migrated to the

00:17:59
United States, or whatever it is that?

00:18:02
Because in my class, I think I mentioned to you out of the 90

00:18:05
students Most I would say, at least eighty percent were first

00:18:10
generation and a lot of the students, you know, because it's

00:18:13
a commuter School, San Jose State, and it's also a lot of

00:18:18
transfer students. So, you know, they could get

00:18:21
started at a community college obviously, and then move in.

00:18:25
But I think I think it's still holds like when I was growing

00:18:30
up, it was for my dad. He had to he eventually got his

00:18:35
Ph.D And for him, it was the way out of poverty.

00:18:40
Like, that was the way you did it and when I was growing up, it

00:18:45
was you need to make a living. You need to have a good

00:18:48
education to make a good living. And when the girls came along,

00:18:53
it was you need to have an education to be competitive.

00:18:58
Because the person next to you is probably going to have a

00:19:01
master's degree and you need to have higher education of that.

00:19:06
To be competitive. I don't know what the rallying

00:19:10
cry is anymore. You know?

00:19:12
Because the reasons people go to school aren't as easily defined.

00:19:17
It makes it hard for the marketer.

00:19:19
I'm going to. I was looking at that marketing

00:19:21
perspective going. Well, what do put out there, you

00:19:25
know, but I guess you, I mean, I could get into a whole marketing

00:19:30
of it. But, do you think it's changing

00:19:32
that? It's shifting why.

00:19:33
Now you're, you're, I think it. What you said you have a

00:19:37
curiosity about the world and about what's going on.

00:19:41
That's fueled that, you know, it's like your purpose is being

00:19:44
fulfilled in what you're doing. I wonder if there are reasons

00:19:50
that kids go to school. Go to college is now better

00:19:53
different. I think that's a really good

00:19:56
question. I don't know the answer off the

00:20:00
top of my head. There's and I feel like there

00:20:04
are so many people who Really, no kind of admissions our

00:20:09
enrollment and call it and and they would have a much better

00:20:13
grasp on kind of that what's pulling students into college in

00:20:18
general. I think that to, you know, while

00:20:21
the, the idea that higher education is your ticket to kind

00:20:26
of upward social Mobility, that's kind of an idea.

00:20:29
It's becoming a myth that, you know, people are questioning it.

00:20:32
Yeah. Yeah but I think that it still

00:20:35
holds true True to some people's at least ideas, about higher

00:20:40
education. And I think that some people

00:20:43
would point to studies, maybe not studies but kind of

00:20:47
different data to say, well, you are still much more likely to

00:20:52
get that social Mobility Mobility.

00:20:55
If you do get a higher education degree, as you said, it makes

00:20:57
you more competitive and I guess is for whatever the for sake of

00:21:03
is here because sometimes like the forsake of And I went was so

00:21:08
you could help make a living like you could have money.

00:21:11
That was that was a bit of the success.

00:21:14
You know, that it was about money.

00:21:16
And now I think there's more options to go and be fulfilled

00:21:21
in what you do. You know, I think of you and

00:21:25
you're following your path and your learning.

00:21:28
I mean, I love my podcast because I get a chance to learn

00:21:32
about so many different things like listening to you.

00:21:35
I'm getting connected to the world differently than I ever

00:21:39
would have just by what I was doing before.

00:21:41
It's an opportunity to learn. Yeah, and I think that one of

00:21:45
the things that kind of made my mind very much open to this

00:21:50
idea. There are other ways to learn.

00:21:52
I was doing a little bit of traveling after my first Masters

00:21:57
and I met several people who did not have higher education

00:22:00
degrees. They either were in the middle

00:22:03
of it and you know, took a leave of absence or Were in their mid

00:22:07
to late 20s and it was not something they were going to do.

00:22:11
I think there was someone I met who did a vocational.

00:22:14
So now I'm kind of separating between University, Research,

00:22:17
academic track versus vocational but somebody who did some sort

00:22:22
of vocational learning, and New Zealand or Australia, and

00:22:26
somebody else who just started and was like, this is not for

00:22:29
me, and they went their own way and but, you know, you but

00:22:33
people learn through different methods and these people were

00:22:36
Learning through actually, you they're traveling.

00:22:39
So they, you know, saved up money in different ways.

00:22:41
And and they were really engaging and how they were going

00:22:46
about and physically seeing the world, which was really

00:22:49
incredible. And yeah, there's just there

00:22:52
are, you're completely right there.

00:22:53
So many different ways to learn and I think that's what people

00:22:55
are. Figuring out that, you know,

00:22:58
it'll take a while though. The issue is that, we still kind

00:23:01
of have an institutionalization of you, need to have a college

00:23:05
degree for. For this particular job.

00:23:09
And so that is really something I think that needs to change or

00:23:13
people can really feel that freedom to go a different track

00:23:18
how that happens. I'm not entirely sure.

00:23:21
Right. But I think everybody is kind of

00:23:23
wrestling with that question, right?

00:23:25
Like like what? What is it mean to learn?

00:23:29
Now with so many different options and something else I

00:23:34
wanted to say about trends that I think emit, I don't think it's

00:23:38
being talked about as much outside of the higher education.

00:23:41
Specific conversation is actually staff moving away from

00:23:45
higher education or out of higher education.

00:23:48
It started happening with the pandemic and I mean, I could be

00:23:52
wrong with us, but I first saw it happening in The kind of

00:23:57
International Education space, especially study abroad because

00:24:02
people were getting laid off, Etc.

00:24:04
So they would there, a lots of different especially kind of

00:24:07
tech related. Adjacent, rolls opening up

00:24:10
there's been articles about, especially actually admission

00:24:12
staff, leaving, people are just, it's becoming really hard.

00:24:16
So that's something that we need to be aware of because it was

00:24:19
really difficult in this kind of competitive environment.

00:24:22
So if I can speak out for a moment, there's this kind of

00:24:27
Channel scholar who described this triangle, where it's kind

00:24:31
of a who has power over higher education.

00:24:35
One corner is the state. So we have kind of government

00:24:39
but really exercising that power and then the other might be the

00:24:42
academic oligarchy so to speak. So really coming from the

00:24:45
faculty and their faculty senates and what not making

00:24:48
those decisions. And then the other one is the

00:24:51
market and the u.s. leans very much towards the market side and

00:24:56
I think that's something that That we have to recognize.

00:24:59
I mean, there's people really want a lot of different things

00:25:01
from higher education in the United States, like a lot of

00:25:04
different things. We want it to educate, people

00:25:07
kind of on a theoretical basis. How about, you know a

00:25:10
theoretical grounding knowledge some kind of knowledge.

00:25:13
Right knowledge. Now we also want the what we've

00:25:16
wanted for a little bit of the Practical piece.

00:25:18
So in addition try to integrating some of these

00:25:21
courses that you might frighten to udemy Etc, to really kind of

00:25:25
give those kind of Skills. We also want higher education to

00:25:30
be the parent ever children. There's just there's and there's

00:25:32
so many other things higher education institutions run

00:25:36
research which is like the Bedrock of our technological and

00:25:39
economic advancement and we want to do it and we want higher

00:25:43
education to do it in this market set up where the public

00:25:47
systems typically don't get a lot of funding and then we want

00:25:51
them to behave like the most altruistic kind of institutions.

00:25:56
So we want them to be a public good, but then, we're not

00:26:01
sending them up in a system where they can be a public good,

00:26:04
right? And it makes it very difficult.

00:26:06
So, when you have and I think, people don't, you know, people

00:26:10
get caught up in this idea that University presidents make so

00:26:13
much money, many institutions. And so do some of the higher

00:26:17
administrative staff people get caught up on the rock walls and

00:26:21
the lazy Rivers, which not that many institutions have lazy

00:26:25
Rivers. When you think about 4,

00:26:27
higher education institutions in the United States.

00:26:30
You can take those things away. Fine.

00:26:32
But you're still going to have a money problem and it's because

00:26:36
the other thing, one thing we want from higher education is to

00:26:39
make up for what we lack in our pre higher education systems.

00:26:44
Uh-huh. So students come in and they're

00:26:47
not on an even Level Playing Field so you need support

00:26:51
systems, right? I'm sure you saw plenty of that,

00:26:55
San Jose State and what is that? Typically take it's not

00:26:58
necessarily something that could be the optimized, it takes

00:27:00
personnel. And that is your most expensive.

00:27:03
Maybe not but I mean I'm not a financial person over here in

00:27:07
the higher education space but that is a very expensive piece

00:27:10
of your costs. Yeah.

00:27:11
And you need increasingly more educated Personnel to complete

00:27:15
those tasks as well. And so people are talking about

00:27:19
how can we scale this? How can we deliver this for less

00:27:22
money? It's going to be really hard and

00:27:24
it's because we want higher education.

00:27:26
Of her so many different things. And so you get staff under so

00:27:31
much pressure fancy Under Pressure adjuncts, that but also

00:27:34
people who you might consider Administration who aren't as

00:27:38
high, who aren't like the, you know, top ranking people.

00:27:42
Yeah, there's it can be depending on the institution,

00:27:46
some places, they're totally fine.

00:27:48
But in other places it's a lot of work and you got all these

00:27:51
different things coming at you. Yeah and it's not easy if you're

00:27:56
an Ins you're working with students or you're in another

00:27:59
student facing rule. There's like a very big,

00:28:01
emotional toll. So, also faculty to have to work

00:28:04
with that as well, and it's really expensive.

00:28:07
And so we are kind of at this dichotomy of we want higher

00:28:10
education to be cheap. We want it to be free, which

00:28:14
free is awesome. It is a huge expense though.

00:28:18
And so I think that we look at other institutions.

00:28:21
And I can tell you, I have really enjoyed my experience,

00:28:24
the University of Oslo but there's definitely The service

00:28:28
quality that is unbelie--, it's not not the same and so you're

00:28:35
really kind of on your own which can be totally fine.

00:28:38
But when we talk about students who are first in their family to

00:28:42
go to college, maybe they're coming back or maybe they just

00:28:46
they've got a lot of other stuff going on in their life and they

00:28:48
need more kind of mental support.

00:28:50
Sorry, you know, those kind types of services.

00:28:53
Yeah, it just sometimes it needs you need more guidance.

00:28:56
To see their success. And so I think that's something

00:28:59
that we really need to be thinking about as well, which is

00:29:04
a monumentous task, tell the whole United States among the,

00:29:07
the kind of media surge that we get around higher education,

00:29:10
which is primarily around very top tier institutions.

00:29:14
So we're all a little I don't want to say informed, we're not

00:29:18
ill-informed but we're we're thinking about higher education

00:29:22
as if every institution is Harvard or something.

00:29:26
Like that. And this is an accurate, I think

00:29:30
also to what you've done for us and I so appreciate you sharing

00:29:34
your insights about this because it's would like to question the

00:29:37
status quo, right? And the status quo is, okay,

00:29:41
you've got to go to one of these top 20 schools.

00:29:44
In order to be successful, you mentioned to me once about Game

00:29:48
of applications and the big schools are not going to back

00:29:51
off from wanting more and more applications from students

00:29:55
because that adds to their Prestige, right.

00:29:57
Is that what you guys told me and yet those schools aren't

00:30:01
going to take but a small percent of those people that

00:30:04
apply ah it's such a painful. It seems students are set up for

00:30:09
suffering around this too when they don't get that for sure

00:30:13
when they don't get that school, it's I think so interesting.

00:30:16
But I just so appreciate you coming today and helping us

00:30:20
understand it a little bit more from a Global Perspective this

00:30:25
way. Is that what was so great about

00:30:28
it? If I can kind of just to add to

00:30:31
that Global Perspective just recently quickly because the

00:30:34
question is you know how is higher education changing and I

00:30:38
just want to say that in the US and this was something I felt

00:30:42
kind of frustrated with working in the u.s. it's extremely

00:30:45
eccentric and so we think this is the direction that higher

00:30:48
education is going. If you look outside of the US,

00:30:51
the it's a different story which is fine, but I think that that's

00:30:56
important. To consider if you're really

00:30:58
thinking like a higher education has no value oh just look

00:31:01
anywhere else and and you'll see that the story is extremely

00:31:05
different. That's what else will makes it a

00:31:06
fascinating space to be in is that it's changing in different

00:31:09
ways all over the place and in some places you know there's

00:31:13
there's different certain trends that are very similar it's

00:31:16
important to kind of look outside and remember oh yeah

00:31:19
okay we're in this very specific context yeah and as if the u.s.

00:31:25
is a country cannot Lose interest in kind of higher

00:31:28
education. I mean, you certainly we don't

00:31:30
want to over, we don't want to have, there is a balance, not

00:31:33
everybody needs to have a college or university degree,

00:31:38
but but we do you know that can't just follow the Wayside.

00:31:41
It's not going to be replaced by just kind of new to me and I'm

00:31:48
like, you know, Coursera whatever.

00:31:50
No, because you still need that research component, right?

00:31:53
So search, that's a big like you're saying that's it.

00:31:56
A very big contribution that the university and colleges bring to

00:32:02
us. I mean, I don't think we realize

00:32:03
how much goes on. Like, I now that I had been on

00:32:07
the inside a little bit and hearing some of the projects

00:32:11
that the faculty were doing things in Ai and machine

00:32:15
learning. And I'm like, wow, I had no idea

00:32:20
and you're in Silicon Valley. I mean, the reason why Silicon

00:32:23
Valley is so successful is from the beginning.

00:32:26
And then a land grant University Berkeley, that is important.

00:32:30
And then, you know, the state colleges are trying to keep that

00:32:34
going and that momentum going and they're certainly adding to

00:32:38
it 100%. Yeah, this was so stimulated

00:32:42
earlier. He liked it, you know, like how

00:32:46
you say, you have a certain episodes that you really like

00:32:49
and I know this will be one of my really liked the episode.

00:32:52
So thank you for being here Kelly and I'm just wondering, is

00:32:56
there a Anything about the thesis project that we didn't

00:32:59
cover that you want to tell all our listeners about.

00:33:02
I will just say we could have touched on it earlier but our

00:33:06
next season is going to be about first generation or first and

00:33:09
family students. So we use first generation in

00:33:13
the u.s. context and first and family is more of a UK

00:33:17
Australian terms and then adopted by some other countries

00:33:21
as well. We're hoping to launch that at

00:33:23
the end of May, I'm really excited.

00:33:25
We've got a number. We are We've actually got two

00:33:28
episodes that will focus on the US.

00:33:29
And this one, I kind of let it slide because one of them is

00:33:32
about a specific term or topic that I think is just very

00:33:35
important and then love it. Yeah.

00:33:37
So it's going to be great. The intro is with my former

00:33:39
colleague, she's absolutely amazing.

00:33:42
That's going to be a really great season with countries

00:33:46
from. I think we'll have every

00:33:48
continent represented in this one.

00:33:50
You guys we have to create these really have such a follow you.

00:33:54
You're on all the podcast platform Eames are on at least

00:33:58
six or seven but main ones, first big ones are there.

00:34:01
You want to do is you want to type out thesis all capitalized,

00:34:04
so th e SI s: Trends in higher education systems.

00:34:09
That will definitely get you there.

00:34:12
Links are definitely the best way you can find us on LinkedIn.

00:34:15
We have a website. Yeah.

00:34:16
So those are good places and I'll put all the links in the

00:34:20
show notes for this nurse so that they can get there easily.

00:34:23
Thank you for this opportunity. This has been just as much of a

00:34:26
joy for me. Me to have this discussion with

00:34:28
you. Oh great.

00:34:30
Alright, everybody. Well, thanks for listening and

00:34:32
talk to you soon. Bye.

00:34:36
Thank you for listening today and we sure hope you enjoyed

00:34:39
this episode. If you did, please leave a

00:34:41
comment wherever you listen to your podcast.

00:34:44
Join our public Facebook group, girl, take the lead or visit our

00:34:48
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00:34:51
We also have a YouTube channel where your subscription would be

00:34:55
appreciated once you're on YouTube search.

00:34:58
Girl, Take the Lead. So here are the three takeaways

00:35:01
from today's episode 1, we can expect a drop in enrollment.

00:35:05
Moment in the years to come due to declining birth rates and

00:35:08
that will affect higher education in a big way.

00:35:12
To the reasons. We could be seen less students,

00:35:17
going to college cannot be easily defined but we can

00:35:20
question the motivation students traditionally had when going to

00:35:24
college like achieving more social Mobility three, our views

00:35:31
on higher education are very u.s.

00:35:33
Centric and The u.s. it's a different story if we think

00:35:38
higher education has no value. We really need to look outside

00:35:43
the US next week. The girls are back on the

00:35:45
podcast and the three of us are planning an episode about the

00:35:49
book, The influencer Industry, it'll be yummy and after that

00:35:53
we've got an episode about Susan, David's book, emotional

00:35:57
agility, you may remember in episode 72, with Andrea main

00:36:00
DeWitt. I said, I really wanted to

00:36:03
tackle the comment that That maybe you've heard to from other

00:36:06
people, don't take it. So personally, and I'm thinking,

00:36:11
Susan, David can help us with. So, thanks for being here.

00:36:14
Talk to you soon. Bye.

00:36:05
That maybe you've heard to from other people, don't take it.

00:36:09
So personally, and I'm thinking, Susan, David can help us with.

00:36:13
So, thanks for being here. Talk to you soon.

00:36:15
Bye.