Eloy Ortiz Oakley Shows How Valuable College Really Is – Transcript

Kirk: [00:00:00] Welcome to Let’s Hear It.

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Kirk: Well said, Eric. And I’m Kirk.

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Check out their amazingly good podcast, Stop and Talk, hosted by Grant Oliphant and Crystal Page. You can find them at stopandtalkpodcast.com.

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Kirk: Let’s get onto the show. I love that we’re getting return guests. This is a welcome and important returning edition.

Eric: Hi, Kirk.

Kirk: Hello, Mr. Brown. How’s it going?

Eric: It’s going.

Kirk: You still hot in this very hot summer?

Eric: Oh, no, it’s sunny and beautiful today

Kirk: And beautiful and perfect and magnificent

Eric: weather Great day to sell a house in San Francisco.[00:01:00]

Right. And people buy the house like, “Oh, the weather’s always good.” And then the next day comes- Right, right … it’s 41 degrees, and they go- Yeah … “What did I just do?”

Kirk: Right. Come and see the sun for one day, one day only in the summer in San Francisco. Exactly. So take us to this, because this is a return guest.

This is a really important conversation, and it’s timely, timely, timely for all of us.

Eric: I’ll say Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the president and CEO of the College Futures Foundation, who some of you may remember from about two years ago, is back to talk about this very, very interesting new research that College Futures commissioned from Georgetown University.

And I have to say, I don’t wanna give away the news, but it’s really interesting. It is really important for the people of the state of California, because they talk about the value of higher education economically to the state of California, and that’s all I’ll say.

Kirk: Yeah, and the work was done with the Georgetown University Center in Education of the Workforce.

And go find this report online. [00:02:00] It’s called The Golden Ticket: How Raising Postsecondary Attainment Rates to 70% for All Demographic Groups Would Unlock Decades of Prosperity in California.

Eric: They don’t have to go anywhere. They can go to letshearitcast.com- That’s it … and we’ll put it in the show notes.

Kirk: Let’s Hear It will take you straight to it.

But, uh-

Eric: Don’t go anywhere. We’ll do all the work for

Kirk: you. Come to us. But so let’s listen in. How we roll. This… Let’s listen in. This is so important, this finding, and the backdrop here of what’s happening with education is so important. And Eloy Ortiz Oakley, president and CEO of College Futures Foundation, formerly the chancellor of the California Community Colleges.

My goodness, one of the most important- Yes … institutions of its kind in the world.

Eric: As I say ad nauseam in this episode, I am the product of the California Community College system. I had wandered off into the wilderness and wandered back and found my way into community college in Monterey, California, and then got to transfer to Berkeley, and then my life got to begin.

So I, if anybody can speak to the value of higher education in the [00:03:00] way that Eloy talks about it, and we’ll talk about it after we listen, it is I.

Kirk: It’s, it’s- Or

Eric: me.

Kirk: Right. It’s, it’s an incredible system. It is. So let’s listen. This is Eloy. This guy. This Ortiz, Ortiz Oakley on Let’s Hear It. We’ll listen. We’ll come back.

Eric: Over the past 10 years, more and more Americans are deciding that college isn’t worth the cost. Now, this is amazing to me. Generations of parents did whatever they could to send their kids to college. Not anymore. In a recent poll, nearly two-thirds of respondents said it’s not worth it. Too much debt, too little to show for it.

My guest today is pushing back. Eloy Ortiz Oakley walked into a community college classroom one day, more or less by accident, and it changed the trajectory of his life. And as Eloy and I talked two years ago, it changed the trajectory of my life as well, so I totally get it. Eloy then went on to run the largest community college system in the country.

Now he is president and CEO of the College Futures Foundation, where his job is to ensure that more students who have not been well-served by the [00:04:00] education system have a chance to get a degree or credential, because that’s good for all of us. And he’s working to make the case. College Futures commissioned Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce to run the numbers on what it would mean for California’s economy if 70% of all demographic groups got a college degree or certificate.

Eloy will tell us what they learned. Eloy, thank you so very much for coming back to Let’s Hear It.

Eloy: It’s great to be here, and it’s great to be back.

Eric: Okay, so let’s just dive right in. We are at a very, very strange moment- … where a majority of Americans have started to question whether college is worth it.

Now, you spent your whole life, your whole career inside this system. When you hear that kind of skepticism Why do you think people think this?

Eloy: Well, first of all, let me just say that, as you mentioned at the top of the show here, community colleges saved my life. It saved lives of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Americans across the country.

It [00:05:00] is the truly most unique American system of higher education. It is America first-

Eric: Yeah. …

Eloy: for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle. No other country has a system of higher education like community colleges, so I’ll just start there. Community colleges are in every community across the country.

However, we are in this strange moment where more and more Americans are starting to question why they need to go to college, the cost of going to college, not just in terms of the tuition, but the cost of housing, the cost of transportation, the cost of not being able to hold down a full-time job while you go to school.

Having to make those choices, it’s very difficult. Certainly in states like mine here in California, the cost of living is through the roof, and that’s true of just about every community in the country right now. So people are making choices, and they’re asking the question, “If I [00:06:00] invest 40, 50, 60, and in some cases $100,000 to get my education, is it gonna pay off?”

And I think that’s a good question to ask. I think every family, every individual who’s making a choice should be asking these questions. It’s just before we were just told that everybody needed to go to college and there wasn’t enough information to really understand the cost of college. And now with information, my organization has done a lot of work to put out information about the cost, the return on investment in college, and so have a lot of other institutions.

That cost is becoming more transparent and people see it every day. You’re in a car with your Uber driver and you start up a conversation and he or she is telling you about how they got their degree, how they couldn’t find work. So all these things are in the water that you throw into this, a populist president who’s got a message about [00:07:00] anti-establishment and what’s more establishment than American higher education?

So I think all that is in the mix. It’s unfortunate. There is some truth in the middle of all that. But at the end of the day, everybody in every community loves their local community college. They may complain about the rest of higher ed, but they all love their local community college, and it still is the most- Right

affordable way to get your higher education.

Eric: Yeah, it’s sort of like your member of Congress, you hate Congress, but you keep re-electing the same guy.

Eloy: That’s right.

Eric: But for different reasons, ’cause we know that community college works and it’s the value, particularly there, the cost is relatively low, although you still have to live in California in order to be able to go, and that’s not cheap.

Eloy: Right.

Eric: Like you, I worked my way through community college and saw its benefits, but, as you say, it almost feels like there is a perception that the value isn’t there.

Eloy: Mm-hmm.

Eric: And some of it is anecdotal because your Uber driver is telling you about their degree and they’re driving an Uber, but some of it, it seems to me like there is an understanding that today’s jobs are not [00:08:00] designed for today’s learners.

How is this playing out, particularly in California, but how are you seeing both a perception problem and a reality problem that’s mitigating against people investing their own time in higher education?

Eloy: Right. I think part of the situation that we’re in right now, it’s a small context of what’s happening throughout the world.

We have a lot of people getting a lot of information, most of it bad information You have a lot of people on social media talking about what it means to go to college. I mean, I just think about my youngest daughter, she’s 23. She goes to UC Riverside. She gets all of her information about her classes, her professors from Reddit or from Discord or from social media.

She very rarely gets it from me or from- … any professional advisor at the university. So we are flooded today with information, a lot of it bad, a lot of it could be correct, but just not being ingested right. So it’s [00:09:00] hard for people to really understand what’s going on. Then you couple that with the enormous amount of debt that many learners and their families have had to incur.

I mean, during the entire Biden administration, we heard about the student debt crisis. We’re in this again. I just read a recent headline, one in four borrowers are now in default. This weighs on people’s minds, and so it’s hard for them to discern what’s really going on the ground, what’s going on at their community college, what’s going on at their four-year regional.

Most of the rhetoric is being driven by the most rejective, the most expensive colleges and universities in the country. Many of them were for-profits at one time. Many of them are extremely expensive schools that leave students with a lot of debt. So what we’re trying to do at College Futures is break through some of that noise and actually create a marketplace that gives learners and their [00:10:00] families more and better information.

Where is true value being created? ‘Cause value is both the cost of your education, but what you get in return. What is the likelihood that your program of study is gonna lead to a job, to a career that pays that back quickly? And so I think the more information we can put out there that puts into clear context what’s really going on and helps people make choices and the right choices- I think some of this will go away, and we’ll get back to some, a state of people understanding that higher education is a great value.

I mean, we still see time and time again that getting a four-year degree still pays off over the long term. It’s just that there are a lot of examples today where it doesn’t, and there are more and more, and we need to do something different in the higher education industry to push back on that and to show clear and true value for the learner.

Eric: Well, College Futures Foundation [00:11:00] has been working on more than anything, it seems to me, dealing with the disproportionate effects-

Eloy: Mm-hmm …

Eric: of lack of college attainment among people of color, Latino and Hispanic families regionally in the state of California. Mm-hmm. Can you talk about how the perceptions around the value of higher education are forming among those communities that would benefit from it the most?

Eloy: Some of the unfortunate parts about our American higher education system is that it was designed around a sort of ideal learner in the minds of college and university administrators. The 18 to 25-year-old graduates from high school, goes off to a four, sometimes five-year residential university experience, goes to the football games, goes to a few keg parties.

You know, that’s the sort of the nostalgic view of what college and university student looks like today. But the reality is it’s much different. [00:12:00] You know, well over 60% of students enrolled in college today are older than 25. They’re typically working. They have families. They’re caring for loved ones. Many of them are working more than one job.

That’s certainly true of community college students. Certainly in my state, in California, the two million community college students, these are normal everyday people trying to get through life, having to work, make choices, take care of their family, and every morning they wake up and they’re asking questions.

How am I gonna get through the day? What am I going to prioritize? What am I gonna pay for today? Am I gonna pay the rent? Am I gonna pay for the skyrocketing cost of fueling my vehicle? Am I gonna pay for food for my kids? Or am I gonna pay the tuition today? Do I have to show up to class, or do I need to go to work?

These are the choices that the majority of learners have to make, and the American higher education system [00:13:00] was not designed for them, and continues to fail to be designed for them. So that’s what we try to point out at College Futures, is that while California being the fourth largest economy on the planet, one of the wealthiest places on Earth, also has the highest poverty rate in all of America, of all 50 states.

So both of these things can be true. We have an excellent public higher education system. We have the California Master Plan for Higher Education. It led us to where we are today, but it is failing us for the needs of today and into the future. And we’re trying to highlight that we have a whole segment of learners, millions and millions of learners, that we have to now redesign for and make sure that they have an opportunity to get skills and competencies and the learning they need in order to compete in the economy that’s being created today and will continue to be shaped by AI.

Eric: And that seems to be the countervailing argument and [00:14:00] movement in higher education, that this focus on the four-year degree that you go away to and stay in a dorm and go to a kegger-

Eloy: Mm-hmm …

Eric: is but a small way to meet people’s higher education needs, and that people are starting to understand that certificates matter.

Mm-hmm. Even if they’re working in a job, they will go to a community college and get another certificate so they can get a better job within their company.

Eloy: Right.

Eric: This is all higher education.

Eloy: Exactly.

Eric: And we’re seeing the value of that as well. How are you making that case, and how does College Futures talk about the various ways that an adult learner can improve their lives, get a better job, build their community-

Eloy: Mm-hmm

Eric: and have a better life?

Eloy: I’ll, I’ll point out three ways that we’re working on this. One is to change the narrative in the public about what higher education is. You know, not only has it been sort of this mythology about what a college student looks like, the 18 to 24-year-old But there’s also this false narrative about that it’s a one and done [00:15:00] situation, that you go get your college degree and you’re done.

Both of those myths are completely false today. One, the demand, while there’s a decline in the number of students going to K-12, graduating from high school, and this is true across the country, and you hear a lot about the enrollment cliff, basically that the number of students who are graduating from high schools going off to college is declining.

That demographic fact is true. That is a fact. That’s happening in California. That’s happening in many states. What’s not true is that there is a decline for demand for higher education. Mm-hmm. There is a decline in demand to go to a traditional college and university, but if you look at enrollments at places like Western Governors University, Calbright College, which is fully online, competency-based, University of Maryland Global Campus, National University, these colleges and universities that either are fully online, hybrid, but are [00:16:00] designed for working learners, their enrollment is growing.

Kirk: Ha.

Eloy: So what we’re finding ourselves in is not continuing to be steeped in the nostalgia of yesterday and not being clear about what’s actually going on today. So we work with a lot of nonprofit media companies. We work with policymakers. We run reports to highlight what learners actually look like today and who is serving them and who is not serving them.

Community colleges certainly are serving them. Places like the California State University system and the University of California and the other private nonprofits like Stanford, Santa Clara, USC are not serving them. And so that’s one thing we do, is highlight the need to focus time, attention, and policy change to serve working learners.

The second thing we do is we publish a lot of research. So we worked with a gentleman by the name of Michael [00:17:00] Itzkowitz at HEA Group to show the return on investment on both probably 80% of all the degree programs in California, plus all of the four-year universities and community colleges to show in every community which college and university is doing the best to serve the lowest income learners.

So for example, a place like Santa Clara University, very small Catholic university here in California, probably serves 16% of low-income students. Mm-hmm. Very selective, or what I call rejective-

Kirk: Right …

Eloy: which means they love to reject students.

Kirk: Yes.

Eloy: And so is that value? It’s value for the few who get to go.

But if you go to Cal State Los Angeles, where about 86% of the students that they’re serving are low income, and they keep the tuition down, and they’re making sure that they get jobs, [00:18:00] that actually creates value. So we wanna highlight that. So we’ve run several reports that highlight which colleges and universities in every community up and down the state are actually creating value for everyday Americans on the ground.

Kirk: Mm-hmm.

Eloy: Then the third thing we do, and you mentioned it at the top of the show, we partnered with Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Georgetown CEW is one of the best labor economist shops in the country. They know what they’re doing. We picked them because we feel that they’re the best, and we asked them to take a look at California.

California has a 70% attainment goal. Governor Gavin Newsom set that goal for the state, which means that we want 70% of all working-age adults to have some sort of post-secondary credential. We are hovering at probably 54, 56% right now. So we asked Georgetown what would happen if California could actually achieve that [00:19:00] goal across every demographic group, age, ethnicity, race, get everybody up to that 70% goal?

Eric: I’m gonna ask you to hold that thought. We’re gonna take a very, very quick break, and then we’re gonna reveal the big number-

Eloy: Perfect …

Eric: right, right after this break. All right. So we’ll be right back with Eloy Ortiz Oakley right after this. You’re listening to Let’s Hear It, a podcast about foundation and nonprofit communications hosted by Eric Brown and Kirk Brown.

If you’re enjoying this episode, you may just be a rule breaker. Check out season three of Break Fake Rules with Glen Galaich, CEO of the Stupski Foundation, as he chats with inspiring leaders in philanthropy, government, media, and more about breaking the fake rules that don’t work so that we can build a future that does.

Check them out wherever you

Kirk: get your podcasts. And now, back to the show.

Eric: And we are back with Eloy Ortiz Oakley of the College Futures Foundation, and he was just about to reveal the big number- … [00:20:00] the value to California for helping 70% of all demographic groups attain a college certificate or degree. Eloy, tell us what you found.

Eloy: What we found, in partnership with Georgetown, is it would mean $4.4 trillion of economic output for the state of California.

It would move the state from being the fourth-largest economy in the world to the third-largest. It would mean an additional $214,000 for each working-age Californian So it had a tremendous impact if we can get there. Now, it would require a sizable investment of about $198 million annually, but for California, that’s not a huge number.

And the return on the investment would show in about five to six years. So given that we are in a gubernatorial election cycle this year, we’re hoping that the next governor of California pays attention because [00:21:00] they would see a return on their investment within their second term. So it would be a perfect win for the next governor if we can get there.

Eric: 4.4, that’s 4.4 Elon Musks.

Eloy: That’s right.

Eric: That’s

Eloy: Only Elon can count that high. So

Eric: that, I mean, that’s an incredible number. Can you just give us a little sense of- Mm-hmm … what that represents?

Eloy: What that represents is, first of all, the additional tax base that it would create. So even short-term credentials boost the earnings of your average working age Californian, and this is true not just in California, but across the country.

And then moving beyond a short-term credential to a two-year associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree, those additional earnings compound. It creates additional tax base, so it’s additional revenue for the state of California. It’s additional spending power for each working age adult in California. [00:22:00] It also lessens the need for social safety nets, less- lessens- Right

the amount of people going into being incarcerated or having, becoming justice-involved. It has also multiple generational effects. If you think about someone like myself or yourself, you know, if you were the first to go to college, get a credential in your family, that compounds over time ’cause your family members are more likely to go, your children, your grandchildren, and that compounds the effect.

So reaching a 70% attainment goal across all the demographic groups, especially those demographic groups that have lagged far behind, and, you know, and that there is a demographic group, if not more than one, in each state across the country. If you can lift all those boats, it would have a tremendous impact, and what Georgetown sees is that it would at least have, could be more, $4.4 trillion in additional economic benefit to [00:23:00] the state of California over about a 30-year period of time.

And it would boost the livelihoods and, you know, the earnings and the generational wealth creation of all Californians.

Eric: And in this report, you really, you talk about the demographic and the geographic disparities-

Eloy: Mm-hmm …

Eric: in college attainment in California. Mm-hmm. Can you talk more about that? Where and who are, you know, suffering from these disparities?

Eloy: Right. So California is a microcosm of the rest of the country. I know many of the states in the country hate to hear that, but- … you know, we are a big state. We have enormous diversity in regions. We have very rural communities, very urban communities, suburban communities, coastal communities, inland communities, and so there’s a lot of variation.

And as you can imagine, like most places, the coastal parts of California are where most of the wealth is created. Think about the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, [00:24:00] Hollywood, Orange County, San Diego. Those areas of the state is where most of the wealth lies, and you also see higher attainment in those areas. But if you go inland or in the far north or in the rural parts of California, it’s a very different story.

There are two Californias, it is clear to me. There is the coastal California, and then there’s inland California. Inland California has high poverty- Has disparities amongst demographic groups, certainly in places like the Central Valley and the Inland Empire. Latino and Latina workers have some of the lowest attainment rates in some parts of the state.

African Americans have low attainment rates. Rural whites have low attainment rates in some parts of the state. So we have a very different California. If we can lift those boats, plus ensure that some of the demographic gaps in the more urban areas also continue to close, it would make [00:25:00] such a huge difference.

And I know, I hear it all the time, “Well, just because they get a credential doesn’t mean that there’s gonna be jobs.”

Eric: Right.

Eloy: Yes, but over time, improving the talent pool in any community drives more employers to that area, drives more innovation. There’s also a lot of movement in the state, like anywhere else in the country.

People in the Inland Empire who get a credential may move to LA County or San Diego County. So just creating additional support to get everybody a credential… And I’m not saying that this is not the college-for-all movement, okay? Not everyone has to have a four-year degree, but everyone has to have the opportunity to begin down that path and improve their economic mobility.

Hopefully, at some point they go get a four-year degree or a master’s or whatever that might be. But there needs to be many more on-ramps to economic mobility, and a post-secondary credential is the first step toward [00:26:00] that journey.

Eric: As you say, the coastal community tends to be more liberal, vote for Democrats.

The inland communities tend to be more conservative, vote for Republicans. This seems to be… One of two things could happen here. One is that- Mm-hmm … it is an opportunity to bridge, in which you say, “We wanna bring economic opportunity to all of California. We wanna bring education and the benefits that that produces to all of California, no matter where you voted in the last election- Mm-hmm

and who you, what color hat you wear.” That seems like a bridging opportunity, and on the other side of it, it seems like you have to kind of make a case that we should be spending money on education that some conservative voters might not wanna do. Mm-hmm. W- w- how do you see the political calculus playing out around this conversation?

Eloy: So first of all, ensuring that Americans of all backgrounds get access to some sort of post-secondary education and into a good-paying job is bipartisan, it is nonpartisan. This is an issue that every mayor, every governor wants to see happen in their community, [00:27:00] Republican, Democrat, Social Democrat, Communist-

MAGA, whatever you wanna be. It is, at the end of the day, about jobs, economic opportunity, the opportunity to actually, you know, be self-sustaining, self-supportive. So this is true in California, and while California certainly has its liberal bent, it is still a fairly conservative state. And so- Mm-hmm … the, the bridging is there is a huge amount of frustration in California and across the country about the state of the economy and the control people feel that they have in the economy, whether it’s the fear of AI disrupting jobs, which is certainly true in some cases, the fear that they don’t have enough skills to get into the new jobs that are being created.

I mean, you can’t go to a job interview today and not be asked a question about, you know, how [00:28:00] comfortable are you using AI tools? Are you comfortable using this particular tool that we have in our industry? Every job requires this, so there’s that fear. There is a lot of frustration, and so bridging the gap, ensuring that the post-secondary system is actually addressing those needs.

And then certainly conservatives and certainly today, you know, with this administration, there has been a lot of questions raised about the efficiency of spending at colleges and universities. And so I do think that there is a move, and a bipartisan move, to have more accountability. You think about the recent changes to graduate student loans or some of the changes around gainful employment.

Those were not driven by the right. Those were bipartisan solutions. Most of them, particularly the graduate student loan caps, came out of the Senate. This was an idea that was baking before the Trump administration. So [00:29:00] there is a need to have more accountability, and I think that’s a welcome opportunity for college and universities to really focus on what their mission is and ensure that while higher education provides a lot of benefits, the number one reason that 98% of the people go to college is to improve their economic livelihood.

Eric: Yeah. Well, in, just in the minute or two that we have left, let’s just say that, okay, the report is right, that there’s huge economic opportunity to be presented by, you know, more people achieving higher education. What does the state look like- Mm-hmm … in 10 years? Well, actually, we’ll give you seven years- Right

’cause it’ll be the last year of the second term of the next governor of California. What does the state look like? What does the economy look like, and what do these regions look like differently than they do now?

Eloy: I think, one, that health outcomes begin to improve. You have a decline in poverty. You have an increase in the number of young Californians that are getting access to childcare and a good [00:30:00] education, and you see a much more vibrant economy in the various parts of the state.

I’m not saying that seven, 10, 20 years from now we will solve poverty or that y- you know, there’ll be wealth distribution across every part of the state, but it will take us a long way. We are in a huge hole right now. We have distrust in government and institutions. We have people struggling to survive in this economy.

I think in seven years we will see that begin to turn around if we make the right investments, if we support accountability around outcomes, and we begin to focus on the needs of working learners. I think you will see an improvement in health outcomes, an improvement in people’s trust in government, and an improvement in the economies of every community across the state.

Eric: Well, sign me up for that. I also, if I could add one, an educated population makes better decisions.

Eloy: Yes.

Eric: [00:31:00]

Eloy: And we need better decisions.

Eric: I look forward to that. Well, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, president and CEO of College Futures Foundation, this has been a great conversation. It actually encourages me. I think that we are on the right track, and I think that this is very possible.

I also would encourage other folks to listen to your podcast, The Rant.

Eloy: All right, see. Well, I guess you can’t see it, but yes, The Rant.

Eric: I can’t see. I can see, but nobody else can see. But I can tell you that he’s got a very good setup, which is why he sounds so great. Eloy, thank you very, very much for talking to us today.

Eloy: It was great to talk to you.

Kirk: And we’re back. Okay, so before we get into the substance of the report, which is really important, and before we get into the importance of community colleges and what’s going on with education, can we just talk for a moment about what an effective communicator Eloy Ortiz Oakley is?

I wanna take a class with this person. You know what I mean? I just- He does

Eric: a good job.

Kirk: I wanna sit down at the feet and just listen to what’s happening because he does such a [00:32:00] beautiful job. I was actually thinking about that Even as a former Let’s Hear It guest myself, and I’m like, you know- … I wish I could be that succinct and clear.

And this is a technical, difficult topic, and Eloy Ortiz Oakley just lays it out and brings us all in.

Eric: Seems like he’s been doing this.

Kirk: I, right. This is who we need leading us on these topics. So just, can we just pause for a moment and just appreciate the communicator here and the excellent work that’s- Yes

being done? And this is difficult stuff, to pull all this together and talk about this.

Eric: And Eloy is a seasoned podcaster as well. He has a podcast called The Rant. Which is fun. I mean, if you’re gonna talk about education, you want someone who’s gonna rant about it. You know, it’s not the tea and crumpets hour.

It’s The Rant. Let’s get into this stuff. And Eloy is nothing if not emphatic about the value of higher education and, in particular, community colleges. So he’s great at this.

Kirk: And what are we doing? As always, we’re trying to make the case. We have to make the economic case for why these things matter.

And so College Futures [00:33:00] goes to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce and says, “Let’s look at this together. Let’s figure out if we could hit this post-secondary attainment goal of 70% across all demographic groups.” You’re, and you’re gonna do this in a pretty aggressive timeframe, ’cause they actually time-bound this.

They wanna get this done by 2035. What they’re saying is that would set the state up, set California’s residents up to realize $4.4 trillion. Can you even imagine the scale of these numbers? Yes. $4.4 trillion in net gains. So this is what’s left after you do all this stuff to make this possible, right? This is extra stuff.

Over the next- More … over the next 50 years. So that’s $200,000, $214,000 per working age adult. It’s not immediate. It’s not like it just balloons down on the state, but it’s this cumulative net benefit that happens through 2075. And so it just puts a absolute exclamation point on this notion that creating pathways for people to achieve these credentials is incredibly valuable.

Eric: This also pushes back on this [00:34:00] concept that higher education isn’t worth the money.

Kirk: Mm.

Eric: And people have been saying, “Oh, you know, it’s too expensive. I’m not gonna get a good job. It’s not gonna be worth it.” And particularly for people who have not traditionally had access to higher education, it is a game changer.

And they’re attempting to put some meat on the bones of this argument by saying, “Here’s what the economic value will be to the state if we get 70% attainment,” attainment just meaning people get a certificate or a degree from every demographic group. ‘Cause a lot of folks are doing just fine. I mean, let’s just say, you don’t see white people of a certain income class- Mm

saying, “Oh, you know what? College isn’t worth the money.”

Kirk: Mm.

Eric: Because it is, and it’s worth it for a million reasons. It’s the networks that you create and the skills that you gain. It’s all of that stuff. For me anyway, I learned how to write, I learned how to make an argument, and this is what I do for a living.

Yeah. If I didn’t learn it there, I wouldn’t have it. Yeah. [00:35:00] So it’s what built this house I’m sitting in. Yeah. There is value to it. We have to help people understand how they can get that education. We have to make it available and affordable, of course. And the point I think that Eloy made that was really interesting, which is that in the old days, you went to college, you graduated, you went to job, and that was that.

Instead, people are going back again and again and again to get a new credential, to get more skills. This is a long-term relationship instead of this one-and-done thing, and we have to rethink how we use higher education in order to make our lives better over time, and that’s a new thing.

Kirk: And think about a population that’s aging.

We’re all confronting this changing economic scenario of what’s happening as we need to get skilled and re-skilled to address how things are evolving. But then this is really important for people to understand. The 70% threshold, it’s actually not so crazy. We’re already at 56% attainment in California.

Right. So we’re actually– We’re trying to get that next 14 points. What happens when you get there, when you get to that 70% across [00:36:00] every demographic group, is you bring people into the party. So actually, one of the biggest places where you would see change across demographic thresholds is that our Hispanic Latino population, you would see attainment levels jump considerably for that cohort.

Right. So for those of us that care about equity, create outcomes that benefit all of us, and then we think about, well, what’s the echo chamber effect of doing that? What happens for all of us? How about let’s all grab $4.4 trillion over the next 50 years by creating these attainment pathways and actually making them happen for more and more people across all demographics?

Eric: And they estimate that it would cost about $200 million a year to do this. Not billion, $200 million a year. Since we started this show, I assume Mark Zuckerberg made $200 million. Yeah. Right.

Since we just started- Exactly … our conversation. Exactly.

Kirk: Since I

Eric: was trying to get

Kirk: my audio set, he made

Eric: $200 million. It’s, like, this isn’t even coins in the couch. And now I’m not saying that we should just have the billionaires pay for it. I think the [00:37:00] billionaires should pay their taxes, and so then the state can pay for it.

Anyway, I don’t wanna go too far down that rat hole, and it’s a hole full of rats. Mm. But the idea is that it is not actually that much money in the grand scheme of things, and the benefits to society, to people’s lives, to healthcare, folks who wouldn’t end up in prison- Right … all sorts of things. The knock-on benefits- Yeah

of a highly educated, highly engaged society are incredible. $4.4 trillion, but probably more and better than that in so many ways.

Kirk: So, you know, this is coming from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, and when you start pulling on this thread of how do you get to the 70% attainment level, what I love about all these conversations about education is that in our mind, we go to the student either late, you know, mid-career or early, whatever, early or late.

We go to the student and the education institution and the certification, whatever it’s gonna be, right? We j- [00:38:00] That’s, that’s where our mind goes. But to actually support those outcomes You’re actually starting to talk about, well, what does housing stability look like? What does- Mm-hmm … transportation look like?

What does childcare, what does healthcare? Do you have enough time? Do you have slack- Yeah … financially in your overall life? And so actually, this analysis addresses those parts of the conversation too. It’s not just about how do we bite on the price of education, of entry around this stuff, but it’s actually recognizing there’s a larger consideration here.

What I love about these conversations is it causes us to have a step back and say, “What does it look like to organize our state, our society, around the idea that we wanna support ever greater educational attainment outcomes for all of our populations?” And guess what? When you do that, society gets materially and meaningfully and objectively better.

So I love that part of this conversation too.

Eric: The other thing, there’s a community college in every community. There’s, [00:39:00] I don’t know, 108 of them or something like that in the state. They’re everywhere. They’re in every congressional district, give or take. They’re in most state assembly or senate districts.

There are a lot of folks who have a real interest in ensuring that these institutions are strong. And then folks, they go to these places, they stay there often. You get businesses in those communities who are finding a pipeline. Okay, if you go here, you get this training, and then you can get a job. And then folks buy homes, and they live in a community, and they build it.

And as somebody, Kirk, who’s working on- … community electrification- Yeah … like you understand- Oh my goodness … the value to a community of being engaged and connected, and what that does. And the benefits, like I say, they’re not just economic, they’re emotional, they’re societal. It’s so obviously a great investment.

Now, that’s just community colleges. Now, there’s also the California State University system, there’s the University of California, and then there are a variety of other [00:40:00] institutions. Now, I will say that E- Eli was pretty hard on the private institutions- … for being rejective. Yeah. And I totally agree with him on that.

Kirk: That’s one of my favorite phrases of his. He’s like, “They’re not selective-”

Eric: No. “…

Kirk: they’re rejective.” They’re rejective. That’s great. It’s like- That’s great …

Eric: we reject almost everybody. Yeah. Nobody is good enough for us, and- Right … like that’s… You’re proud of that? Yeah. You know? That’s crazy. Yeah. So anyway, a mild digression, but this investment in public higher education in California, and it doesn’t have to be a four-year degree that you go right out of high school, and you go to a frat party and a kegger and a whatever, and then you graduate.

It could be a certificate. It could be an associate’s degree. It could be a nursing degree. It’s all of those things that these institutions are very, very good at delivering for a really good price, and that kind of investment feels to me to be so wise, so important, and cheap when you compare- Yeah … the value that you get out of it, and they’re trying to put a number on that value, and honestly, I think that they’re probably underrepresenting what the value is.[00:41:00]

Kirk: Well, and let’s also make the case, I mean, we’ve got an audience that goes well beyond California, so all this, this assessment is focused on California. Yeah. You could run this for any state- Yeah, yeah, yeah … because you’re gonna get the same demo. And, and let’s also- It’s interesting.

Eric: It’s that …

Kirk: let’s, let’s also say that the community college system in California is exceptional.

Yeah.

Eric: Taught me how to read, man.

Kirk: What a surprise, by the way, that w- one of our favorite… I’m not gonna name him, but one of our favorite spokespeople- Uh-huh … on the benefits of community electrification has taught at a community college for 30 years because he gets it. He’s not an- Okay … he’s not an energy person, but he understands what happens when you invest in your community and you do that foundational work of making these places better for all of us.

So can I run some numbers by you? Guess what a unit, and this is pretending you’re paying full freight. Uh-huh. Guess what a unit costs in California Community College tuition. What does one unit cost?

Eric: Well, I’m, I’m like, you know, George Bush and the milk. [00:42:00] I’ll tell you- Like they-

Kirk: It’s 40- …

Eric: they asked him what a, what a quart of milk was and he, “I don’t know.

A penny”

Kirk: It’s $46 per unit.

Eric: When I went, it was like, okay, it was a while ago, five bucks a unit, and I got a Board of Governors grant to pay for that, and I was a busboy-

Kirk: Yeah …

Eric: working in a Mexican restaurant- Yeah … in Pacific Grove, California. And so that, whatever it was, the five bucks a unit grant that I got was valuable.

But 46 bucks a unit is affordable.

Kirk: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And so this is how dramatic this gets. In California, and again, we’re talking about folks that are coming into the system for the first time. But so if you do two years of community college and then go to a Cal State school, right? And, by the way, none of the life outcomes here are really gonna be different.

That’s the other part of this. But if you do two years of community college, two years at a state school in California, you’re living at home, so let’s understand there’s a life cost here. We’re just talking tuition- Yep … fees. Over four years, you’re gonna spend maybe $25,000. [00:43:00] Now, for many students, they actually don’t even pay that potentially because if they can get aid and different things like that.

Right. But we’re just looking at the full freight cost. So the full freight, four years, $25,000, which suggests, by the way, that some of the barriers to entry we’re talking about here are not purely financial, right? Right, like- Sure … there, there could, there are other challenges. Now, let’s extrapolate all the way out to the comparable pathway for a four-year private university experience where you’re paying full sticker price, there’s no aid, which is happening in this K economy we’ve got that’s happening for an incredible number of students.

You’re talking about schools that cost over $100,000 per year. So you’re talking about students that can roll through that four-year education spending 400, 430, $450,000 when it’s all said and done. Again, life outcomes, compare them. The $25,000 cost of doing two years of community college, two years at the CSU versus four years at the [00:44:00] private university, there’s not a meaningful difference in life outcomes between those two scenarios.

Now, there’s a lot of choices households will make, and there’s reasons why they might select one path versus the other. Right. But this is the incredible disconnect between what the cost of these experiences can be for people that are confronting these choices as households and trying to think about what’s gonna come next.

Eric: There’s another way of thinking about it, which is that the folks who can afford to send their kid to Stanford, that kid’s gonna do fine wherever they go.

Kirk: Hmm. Hmm.

Eric: That’s the short version. Hmm. They’re gonna do fine wherever they go. Hmm. They are– They come from a family of means, they have life connections, and they’re gonna succeed wherever they go.

And for the folks who cannot afford to go to Stanford, who don’t have that access, their parents didn’t pay for the test prep and all the other stuff, the benefit to them of this very democratic, cratic institution, the public higher education system in California, including California, meaning the community colleges and the state university, the value is [00:45:00] extraordinary, and they do need that access to new social groups, to new- That’s right

cohorts of- That’s right … of learners, to all of that stuff, because they may not necessarily have that in their lives, and so that becomes this magic carpet ride to prosperity, and that’s incredibly important. And so you’re talking about cost. As a Pell Grant student- Hmm … I applied to every grant I could think of, and I came out of UC Berkeley after two years of community college, two years of Berkeley, with, I don’t know, $10,000 worth of debt that I used to pay for my $600 a month apartment.

Like, I don’t know how people can afford to live… Go to school in the Bay Area.

Kirk: Hmm.

Eric: That’s a huge issue that we have to deal with, the cost of living for a student outside of the university itself. Anyway, that’s something for another day.

Kirk: No, but I’m glad you brought it up ’cause it was exactly where I was gonna go with it, And it’s actually why I love that Eloy is such an effective spokesperson on all this, because this- Yeah

is multidimensional, right? It’s not just the price of education [00:46:00] at every phase of the game. There’s a cost of participation. It’s not just the tuition fees and books, but it’s all the other stuff you’re paying for. And then depending on where you’re at in your career arc, there’s an opportunity cost to doing this, too.

You know, for households and individuals that are having to balance all this education, participation, opportunity cost, the key item that’s being put on the table here is that this is not just something that the individual alone should bear. If we want the best outcomes for us as a collective society, if we want the best outcomes for us as a state, if we want the best outcomes for us as a nation, collectively, we should have a collective conversation about how do we make these transitions more possible for people that are interested in taking it.

So again, this is why we need spokespeople- Yes … like Eloy Ortiz Oakley leading this charge because this is the conversation we all need to be having.

Eric: I can feel you landing the plane of this conversation. Go. I have one more thing to say- Go, go, go, go … which is, which is this. Which to, to pull it back to communications.

Kirk: Hmm.

Eric: The– Which is that it is important to do this kind of research so that you can put a [00:47:00] number on the zeitgeist, and to be able to have this kind of conversation. You inspire folks, you get that conversation going, and you help them better understand the value. Yeah. And there’s a way to turn the huge ocean liner of perception about the decreasing value of college to the average person, and help them focus again on something that they can understand, which is economic value.

And I will also say that at the same time, College Futures Foundation talks about the stories of the people, too. You- Yeah. This is not just about numbers, it’s also about people and stories. But the ability to communicate about this in an understandable way that elected officials and other policymakers might just be able to figure out, is one of the powers of communications, and it’s one of the strengths of College Futures and Eloy are trying to help people understand about the value of this work.

Kirk: I’m [00:48:00] so glad you brought us back there because it’s like, look how far we got just on 4.4 trillion. Right? You’ve got the data that says, “Hey, let’s examine what this 4.4 trillion really is about. What is it saying that’s possible? What is it saying that we need?” But that’s my starting point, is the 4.4 trillion.

Would you like to be part of this?

Eric: Do you want 4.4 trillion or not?

Kirk: Exactly. No. I don’t want it. Who wants to, who wants to be a 4.4 trillionaire? No one. Of course, that’s the game you’re playing, right? Uh. Exactly. No,

Eric: There will be a 4.4 trillionaire if we live long enough.

Kirk: Oh. God forbid. No, that’s right, and oh, I know exactly it would not be a good day for all of us.

Well, no, thank you so much for bringing us back there because you’re exactly right. You’re exactly right. This is a demonstration of how this is working on so many levels. And again, I just keep going back to the spokesperson part because you also have to have the compelling spokesperson that can actually bring you through this and talk you through this, and I feel like that’s exactly what Eloy Ortiz Oakley’s done for us here, which is really great.

Well, Eric, thank you. Yes, I mean, what else? Do we have other stuff we wanna go to on this? No, I’m exhausted. Because I think that this is… This is so- I

Eloy: don’t wanna talk

Kirk: anymore … this is so important. So go find it. We’ll put it in our show notes. This is [00:49:00] from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, and go find it.

The Golden Ticket: How Raising Postsecondary Attainment Rates To 70% For All Demographic Groups Would Unlock Decades of Prosperity, and it would be more than that even. So please go find it. Eric, this was great, and Eloy Ortiz Oakley, thank you so much for coming on Let’s Hear It. That was a great conversation.

And I hope he’ll be back. I hope we’ll get to hear from him again.

Eric: Yeah, we’ll go for a three-fer.

Kirk: There you go. That’s great. Okay, everybody, we’ll see you next time on Let’s Hear [00:50:00] It.