00:00I would love to just first off baseline. What exactly is the aim? What kinds of rules are you changing
00:05to make it easier for this kind of thing to happen for colleges and universities in the U.S.?
00:11Well, Danny, first, thanks for having me. You know, listen, I'm going to say the quiet part out loud.
00:16We have about 6,000 institutions of higher education in the United States, and not all of them are going
00:21to make it out of the next decade.
00:22You know, because of enrollment demographic changes and enrollment pressures, financial challenges, the cost of higher education being too high
00:30at the moment.
00:31You know, we're seeing a contraction in higher education, both from the enrollment level as well as the physical space
00:37of institutions.
00:38And so the Department of Education under the Trump administration is really focused on making sure that institutions that want
00:45to enter into partnerships through mergers and acquisitions have an easier time in doing that.
00:50I was under the impression that the Trump administration wanted to shut down the Department of Education or at least
00:56shrink it to almost nothing.
00:59How are you doing on the path to that? And what would remain?
01:03What would you like to have left at the federal level for the Department of Education?
01:09Well, Matt, thanks for that question. And it's true.
01:11The president and the secretary of education have been very clear that we are all about returning education to the
01:16states.
01:17But we can chew gum and walk at the same time.
01:19You know, we still have an agenda. We still have six thousands of six thousand institutions of higher education in
01:25this country that need to be looked after that that still receive federal funding.
01:29And we want to make sure that that federal funding is going to good purposes.
01:33And so, you know, one of the things that we are really focused on is making sure that we are
01:36not necessarily, you know, making sure that every institution survives over the next decade.
01:42That is not our job.
01:43We will see a natural contraction.
01:45But where institutions of higher education want to engage in partnerships through mergers and acquisitions, we want to make it
01:51easier for them.
01:51You know, the previous administration made it increasingly difficult to enter into these partnerships.
01:56You know, a merger or an acquisition for institutions that want to engage in these thoughtful partnerships could take upwards
02:02of two, three, four and five years.
02:03We want to speed up that process so that for institutions that want to engage in that, that they can.
02:10Secretary Ken, is there not some concern?
02:12Look, private capital has a lot of money to put to work at this moment.
02:16And by loosing some of the rules here, you're going to have these types of entities come in and buy
02:21colleges and maybe do things that aren't in the best interest of students, but are in the best interest of
02:26profitability, like stripping them for real estate value, cutting costs massively in a way that's harmful to staffs and ultimately
02:33students.
02:34How do you put guardrails in against that?
02:36Yeah, this is something that we're absolutely looking at as we embark upon our rulemaking to make mergers and acquisitions
02:42move faster and easier.
02:43You know, we don't want to put our foots on the necks of private capital.
02:48We think that private capital does a lot of good in education.
02:51However, you know, as you had mentioned, there are some safeguards we need to make sure that are in place
02:54to ensure that at the heart of all of this work are students and consumers and taxpayers.
03:00So we do want to make sure we have adequate guardrails and protections in place.
03:03And this is something that the secretary of education and myself are really looking forward to having a meaningful conversation
03:08as we embark upon this rulemaking later this year.
03:11I want to ask about yesterday we were talking with Morgan Stanley economist Ellen Zetner who said, you know, the
03:17U.S. and China are in a race to win at AI essentially and that the U.S. will not
03:23lose under this administration.
03:25How do you encourage better adoption, more efficient adoption of AI in universities?
03:32Because I'm sure there are still things that you want to encourage at the Department of Education.
03:36Absolutely.
03:37Listen, out of most industries, higher education has been involved with AI for decades.
03:43And so it's really important to sort of understand that first and foremost.
03:46However, you know, what we're really starting to see is educators spend more time with AI, right?
03:53Whereas before, higher education really focused on AI in the context of research and innovation.
03:58But now we're really starting to pay attention to it in teaching and learning in addition to shared services.
04:04You know, Matt, one of the things that I'm most excited about as I meet with college and university leaders
04:08are conversations about how they're leveraging AI for back office supports, right?
04:13And those back office supports that use artificial intelligence are making efficiencies in higher education better and go further.
04:21And what does that do? It's helping it to reduce the cost, right?
04:23And we're hopeful that by leveraging AI in this very innovative way, the institutions will be able to continue to
04:29lower costs for students and families.
04:31Secretary Kent, you certainly have a lot of initiatives that you're hoping to push through for universities and colleges.
04:37But at the same time, it's also a hands-off approach.
04:40And at the same time, nearly half of the education department staff have been laid off under this current administration.
04:47How are you going to get all this done without just the manpower backing you?
04:52Well, it's not about the FTE.
04:54I talk about this a lot, and I get that question a lot, Danny, where it's not necessarily about the
04:59FTE.
04:59It's about the right FTE.
05:01You're right.
05:01We have reduced the footprint of the Federal Department of Education by almost half in the last 15 or 16
05:07months, which is remarkable.
05:08Yet what have we been able to do?
05:10We launched the FAFSA, the form that students and families use to apply for federal student aid.
05:15We launched that faster than any other administration in history.
05:18We have higher FAFSA rates than any other administration.
05:23We have stopped over $1 billion in fraud from walking out the door thanks to the vice president and the
05:29task force for eliminating fraud.
05:30We are working very hard for the American people, and we are doing that, as you said, with less than
05:3650% of the headcount that we had a year ago.
05:39So as we continue to right-size the federal bureaucracy in higher education, it's all about keeping the right talent
05:46and hiring the right talent to be able to do the work of the American people.
05:50So as we continue to do, we continue to do the work of the American people.
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