This year, thousands of students will be accepted to colleges without ever submitting a formal application. That’s because more and more schools are automatically accepting students who meet preset performance thresholds through direct admissions programs. To learn more about this growing trend, Michael and Jeff welcome Luke Skurman who is CEO of Niche.com, one of the nation’s largest direct admissions platforms. They discuss the benefits and risks of this innovation and dig into how it changes the dynamics between schools and students. Michael and Jeff then envision the variety of changes required in the college admissions process. This episode is made with support from Ascendium Education Group, the Gates Foundation, and the American College of Education.

0:00 Intro
02:26 - The Backstory on Direct Admissions
06:35 - How Niche Direct Admissions Works
09:09 - The Benefit to Students and Institutions
11:29 - Another Application Count Booster?
14:25 - Obstacle or Litmus Test?
15:56 - Changing Dynamics
19:40 - The Competitive Landscape
20:41 - What’s Next?
25:38 - The Three Parts of Admissions
30:23 - Weighing the Pros and Cons of Direct Admissions
36:26 - Reimagining the College Admissions Process

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Women have outnumbered men on college campuses for decades, but the divergence in postsecondary success has widened in recent years, and it is both a cause and symptom of the struggles of the modern man. Richard Reeves, author of Of Boys and Men joins the podcast to discuss the drivers of these challenges, promising interventions, and whether we should care about the plight of men in a world where they continue to wield power. This episode is made with support from the Gates Foundation, Ascendium Education Group, and The American College of Education.

Of Boys and Men:Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It
by Richard Reeves

https://www.menincollege.com

American Institute for Boys and Men

00:00 - Intro
04:15 - Where We Are (and Aren't) Seeing the Gender Divide
05:56 - Designing College with The Modern Young Man in Mind
12:28 - Drivers of the Higher Ed Gender Divide
16:30 - The Effects of the Pandemic
19:41 - The Larger Significance of the Problem
26:50 - Opting Out of Adulting
31:52 - Masculinity and Majors
34:22 - K12 Solutions: Nobody's Fault, Everyone's Responsibility
37:32 - What Higher Ed Can Do
41:47 - International Parallels
44:38 - Rebalancing Education Systems
49:06 - Zero-Sum Game or Growing the Pie?

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At the turn of the new year, Jeff and Michael dive into the predictions and trends set to shape the landscape of higher education in 2025. They discuss how this may be a year of reckoning for colleges and where changes will be required to make long-needed improvements. They dig in on infrastructure adjustments, reimagined degree programs, and what appears to be a new ultimatum for many struggling colleges: partner or perish. This episode made with support from The American College of Education, The Gates Foundation, and Ascendium Education Group.

“Which Colleges Always Lose Money?” by Robert Kelchen

“Where the Grass Is Greener” by Robert Shaw, Harvard Magazine

0:00 - Intro
01:49 - A Year of Reckoning for Higher Ed
09:57 - The Changes Needed
16:51 - Quick Hits: Athletes as Employees, Hostile Competition, and More
26:37 - Expanding Research Outside of Academia
30:58 - Shortening Degree Programs

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On this episode, Jeff sits down with one of the authors of Job Moves: 9 Steps To Making Progress in Your Career, Future U.’s very own Michael B. Horn. The two discuss the lessons that the book, which offers research-based guidance to individuals searching for new work, holds for students and the colleges that serve them. They then dive into discussing a topic they each get a lot of questions about: what it’s like to write a book. This episode made with support from The American College of Education, The Gates Foundation, and Ascendium Education Group.

Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career

Career and Technical Education for All by Michael B. Horn and Daniel Curtis, Education Next

0:00 - Intro
02:40 - Job Moves in a Nutshell
04:02 - How Job Moves Applies to Colleges
07:17 - Balancing Skills Development Against Credentials
09:26 - Helping Students Make More Informed Choices
16:16 - Next Steps for Higher Ed
22:43 - Michael's Process for Writing a Book
26:55 - Making the Time to Write
29:53 - Planner or Plunger?
32:36 - Working with a Publisher
35:49 - The Hard Part that No One Talks About
38:32 - Where to Find More on Job Moves

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More than a decade ago, a wave of research pointing to the inefficacy of remedial education was followed by a massive investment in rethinking how we prepare students who need extra support to access college. So why, after all that, does remedial ed still play such a big role on college campuses today? To help us tackle that question, we’re joined by Anne Kim, FutureEd Senior Fellow and author of a recent report on the remedial education reform movement. She discusses the history of remedial education in America and what it will take to move reform forward. Then, Jeff fields some provocative questions from Michael about who should go to college and how we can align incentives so no one profits off of unprepared students. This episode is made with support from the Gates Foundation.

Incomplete: The Unfinished Revolution in College Remedial Education by Anne Kim, FutureEd

Student Success 2.0, Future U.

The New Student Ready College, Future U

0:00 - Intro
02:49 - Remedial Education in Context
07:26 - Calls for Change
11:29 - A Wave of Reform
14:53 - Progress Stalls
16:59 - Recommendations for a Reform Rebound
19:33 - Responding to Criticisms of Remedial Ed
24:58 - A New System with More Options
31:00 - Correcting a Broken Business Model

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What does a community college in Idaho have to do with mounting economic tensions between the U.S. and China? A lot, actually.

On this episode of Future U., Michael and Jeff dive into what the CHIPS and Science Act—the federal spending package designed to reduce the United States’ reliance on foreign manufacturers for microchips and other advanced technologies—means for a segment of American postsecondary institutions that’s often forgotten in these conversations: community colleges. They talk with nonprofit and government leaders about how the CHIPS supports the education and training of a high tech workforce. They then go deep with the team at the College of Western Idaho to get a view of how they are developing these programs in collaboration with their corporate partner, Micron. This episode is sponsored by Ascendium Education Group.

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Technology is an increasingly important element of everything that colleges do, yet it remains a distinct and separate function at too many schools. Jeff visited the Educause Conference, focused on tech in higher ed, to chat with college leaders about how they are leveraging IT on their campuses. They discuss best practices in bridging the tech-academic divide, the role of data in decision making, how IT departments can support efforts to improve the value proposition of higher ed, and more. This episode is made with support from Ascendium Education Group and the Gates Foundation.

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

5:49 - IT Then and Now

9:02 - The Disconnect Between Tech and Academic Teams

11:56 - Using Data Strategically

16:01 - Data-Driven v. Data-Informed Decision Making

24:02 - Public-Private Partnerships

31:50 - Communicating Across the Tech and Academic Sides

34:57 - Getting Started in Online Education

37:16 - Improving Perceptions of Higher Ed

42:31 - The Future of Tech in Higher Ed

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Regional public universities have been hit harder than most colleges by recent enrollment decreases. On this episode, Michael and Jeff sit down with President Jonathan Koppell of Montclair State University, a regional that has bucked this trend, to learn more about their success. They dig in on lessons Koppell learned as a dean at ASU, the college’s programs for underserved students, and how the college is competing for students. This episode is made with support from Ascendium Education Group and the Gates Foundation.

Beating the Odds, Bain & Co.

00:00 - Intro
03:52 - Lessons Learned at ASU
06:52 - Attracting Students to Montclair
12:36 -Supporting Post-Secondary Attainment for Men
18:25 -How Colleges Can Win Back Engagement
24:33 -The Steps to Culture Change
27:40 - How to Fix the College President Job
32:06 - Addressing the Talk by Walking the Walk
33:58 - Aiming Above the Line
37:50 - Shifting Towards User-Centered Language
39:34 - Building Infrastructure around Differentiation
41:02 - Data and Innovation to Support Men in Higher Ed
45:49 - Providing Students with What They Need
48:53 - Coalescing Around the “Why”

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