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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The High Cost of Excellence in Education [Watch (HLS stream): The High Cost of Excellence in Education](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/XGTVmUrh.m3u8) (37:55)  _Published 2013-09-20. Thomas Kean, President Emeritus of Drew University, moderates a panel on the costs of quality in research and teaching at the 2013 TIME Summit on Higher Education_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:46 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [The Challenges of Basic Research in Higher Education](/video/jhrUlLZX/) ### The Challenges of Basic Research in Higher Education [Ralph Cicerone: The Value of Research in Higher Education](/video/jqBxey7X/) ### Ralph Cicerone: The Value of Research in Higher Education [All Hands on Deck for Higher Education](/video/EOYG5qkm/) ### All Hands on Deck for Higher Education --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Yeah. Okay. So, so we're talking about the cost of higher education, and we've got next on my left. Somebody who's done everything [ LAUGH ] to talk about course. He's been a senator. He's been a governor. He's President of the University of Oklahoma. I don't know if anybody, I know nobody in New York State, probably nobody in the country has that kind of perspective going from those three jobs, so I'd like to think and lead of with David Boren and talk about really. Is this sustainable? This whole business of the cost of higher education. One time I have been away from Washington for about 20 years, so I thought I would give a direct answer to your question. [ LAUGH ] In one word I would say no. And one of the things coming from public higher education that I think we're not really debating in the country, it's happening without a debate. Higher education in this country is literally being abolished. So whether we talk about providing support for research, or whether we talk about providing support for excellence in, let's say, undergraduate teaching as well as graduate teaching, we simply are not gonna be able to continue to do that without more financial support from the states. For example, when I went home to become president of the University of Oklahoma. We were receiving at the University of Oklahoma about 32 % of our budget from the state. Now it's down to 16 % the medical school is 7 % at what point does something no longer deserve the title public when you get down to 7 % or low single digits as we experience in some states. We've had cuts of 20 % or more. In higher education budgets in 30 states since 2008. We've had cuts that are higher than that, 30 % in 13 of the states. So, there's no way that we can sustain that, and what we're seeing is not only difficulty at the top, where we're dealing with federal spending, I just mentioned state spending. Federal direct support of our research efforts at variation universities around the country, that is main cut, but also access and learning to think about that. We've dropped, and this to me is a, is a breathtaking figure, from first place in the world, in the percentage of our young people who are of college and university age to go on to post- secondary higher education, first in the world to 14th place. In about a decade. So not only are we struggling to finance, and to maintain the excellence that we've had with a declining share of public investment. We've moved in this country from thinking of, higher education as a public good. Something that increased our productivity, something that creased, creased increased our social stability. Something that enriched our lives, and then enabled us to read to lead our lives of examination, self examination. We moved from that concept of the public good, higher education becoming a, private good or a private need. That's something very fundamental in our country. We had always led the world in terms of the, average number of years of education. It's, it's not coincidental, that the greatest period of economic prosperity in this country. We literally doubled the spending power of the average American family. Doubled it in less than 28 years. And that was after World War II, and we, we had the GI Bill of Rights, and we had a four- fold increase in the number of our citizens who were receiving higher education. So it's clear. Investment in higher education is essential, whether we're talking at the research level, or we're, we're talking more broadly at the citizenship level and the undergraduates. It's important to us in so many ways, and yet, we as a society are disinvesting, in what has made us great in the first place. So I just have to answer your question honestly, and my answer has to be no. Okay, if it's no. Then what does that mean? Michael McPherson, you've been president of president of McAllister, you've been a head of. Major foundation now, the Spencer foundation but most of all, you're an economist by background. So what is, what is what David's saying, what does this mean? [ LAUGH ] That was a great setup there, just. [ LAUGH ] No, it's not sustainable. Now let's turn to Mike. [ LAUGH ] I got to figure out how to hand this one off. [ LAUGH ] I would too. It is interesting to approach this from the, the dual perspectives of somebody who has led an institution, a Liberal Arts College, not a research university. And somebody who has been an economist, who actually has studied higher education, you know, financing of higher education. I think a connection between them is that, the big ideas, in economics from what I've learned are trade- offs and opportunity cost, that there is scarcity. More of this mean less of that. I've never found faculty members to be highly receptive to that, to that notion of how one should think about excellence and and usually if you explain this to a faculty member and you say they're gonna be some tough choices ahead. And they'll say boy you're right. You're gonna have to give up a lot of stuff to give me what I want. [ LAUGH ] And I fear in, in in uh, David's framing we're gonna face the same kind of trade offs At a national level. The fundamental thing that's eating the country and eating state budgets, is medical care. And David Leinhart made the great point a while ago, that if we can't figure out a way to moderate the growth in medical costs. There's been a little good news for the last couple years, but this is a big challenge. Its gonna eat the entire nations economy, in 50 years. And, the big reason the states have cut back on, on higher education investment, is partly a reluctance to tax themselves more heavily. But, largely a result of increasing expenditure on medical care. And we're gonna have to convince [ COUGH ] the public that, that we in higher education deserve support. And I think realistically we're gonna have to do it, by showing that we know how to make trade offs within our own show. Uh- huh, and become more cost effective. It's not a happy discussion to have but I don't see any way around it. We can't just do it by saying, give us more. That's not gonna solve the problem. Don Randall, you've, held a number of hats as well. You've President of the University of Chicago. Head of the Mellon Foundation. On of the major foundations that deals with, deals with higher education. Now you're gonna take on the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Big job in and of itself. But your background is music, and we've had a lot of talk today on other panels and last night about science and technology, and stem, and the importance of all that. I wonder if you want just to give a little bit of what we might be losing, in other areas. I'm always asked, how does somebody with a background in music turn out to have these jobs I've had. And I say, one of the first things that anybody who takes up playing an instrument has to do, is learn how to count. [ LAUGH ] The danger is that, we face these decisions about withdrawing resources from one place in order to put them in some other place, and of course people in humanities and the art have some reason to be worried that. Their sector of the university or of the national intellectual life is going to be among the tradeoffs. It's absolutely crucial that we not allow this to happen. CP Snow did us a terrible disfavour, calling his book published 50 years ago or so, The Two Cultures. Nobody much remembers what he actually said in this book but, that phrase has taken root in the language. And so we all say yes they're two cultures. Isn't this unfortunate. And shouldn't the two cultures learn to talk with one another? Well the fact is, in the frame we're discussing now. There aren't two cultures, there's really only one culture. When we lament the American public's lack of understanding of science or whatever. What we lament, is the lack of a certain turn of mind. A certain kind of imagination and curiosity, that drives both the sciences and the humanities and the arts equally. And the pursuit of those activities in the humanities and the art develops precisely the kind of talent that makes great science. Scientists and humanists do what they do because they can't help it, and that's driven by this profound curiosity. Every child comes into the world with that curiosity hard wired. From the youngest babe in arms. And what we've manged to do in this country. Is beat it out of them. [ LAUGH ] So that by the time many of these kids get to school. Elementary school. It's already too late. That non graduation phenomena starts in the cradle. So what we need to be thinking about is how we have a country whose people are the most curious. The most inquisitive of any people in the world. And then science and the humanities, and all the rest will come along in perfectly good order. It does take money. Can the country afford to do this? The country can't afford not to do it. There is plenty of money in the US economy and in the federal budget to do anything we wanna do. We just have to decide which things we're gonna do and which things we're not gonna do. So only one example of that. The NEA, National Dominant for the Arts, and the National Dominant for the humanities. Each has a budget so far, for the moment. They even continue to exist of about $ 150 million a year. That's the cost of one F22 airplane. The Defense Department didn't even want anymore, of those airplanes. But, Congress people thought the Defense Department really ought to have these airplanes. Because of course some piece of it was made in some bodies congressional district. If we don't get to where we can solve a problem like that which is in its way every bit as bad as the healthcare problem. If we can't learn to make trade- offs of that kind, then we really are in trouble. Problem is not a shortage of money it's a shortage of will to spend it on the things that really matter. Don, I think you're right, I think everybody in this room anyway would be doing their very best to see that the federal government changes priorities a bit, to see the state government start producing contributions to higher education. But David Skorton, you're president of Cornell University, you've been president UCI, you're a cardiologist among other things. Everybody outside of this room or an awful lot of people are gonna tell us. But you, you're a very expensive model. You cost much more than we can afford. The students can't afford you anymore, maybe you know, maybe the society can't afford you anymore. Do it less expensively. Can you cut costs and maintain quality? You know, after years of being a university president in two settings, I'm gonna give you a long winding windy answer that's gonna go on and on and on And, later when you look at the transcript, perhaps I will have answered your question. So, I'll just try to stay away from [ INAUDIBLE ] [ LAUGH ] He didn't mention, he's really a flute player. Yeah. [ LAUGH ] You know, I didn't interrupt you. [ LAUGH ] I do wanna, I just do wanna give you a quick caveat. If you're ever asked To perform with Don Randall either on flugelhorn or piano. Don't do it because he'll show you up, and slightly change the tuning of the instrument in the middle of [ INAUDIBLE ] [ LAUGH ], I feel much better getting that off my chest. [ LAUGH ] So first I wanna answer the small question you asked, and then I wanna tackle some areas I'm not qualified to do, which is part of my mandate as university president. The issue of expensive schools and the Ivy League and the rich privates, I wanna just dispense with that for a moment. There's 4, 000 plus institutions of higher education in the country, fewer than 100 have endowments of $ 1 billion or more. And the question for these schools is, will people have the courage and will to utilize the power of those funds to make it actually more affordable? And doctor Tilghman when she was President of Princeton, very long time ago. [ LAUGH ] Must have a couple months now. [ LAUGH ] She actually single- handedly changed the conversation by deciding. I think it was an 01 or 02 year if I remember correctly. That Princeton was gonna use the power of its funds, to greatly reduce the net cost and increase the access to Princeton, and I wanna give you full credit for that. And the rest of us have been trying to keep up, those of us who do have resources. So, if there's will, to make schools more affordable, they'll be more affordable and Cornell as as an anaemic example pf what Princeton did. We have fewer students graduating with debt. It's more affordable now and we've gone to the more affordable side of the national report cards. But that's really not relevant for the great majority of American higher education. So I feel sort of sheepish talking to a group this distinguished, but all of us whether we're talking about our family incomes. Or the schools and other organizations we run, or the national economy know you don't solve an imbalance, either just on the revenue side or just on the expense side, you just don't do it. And so we're all gonna have to take ownership of this problem. Congress is gonna have to stop whining about the fact that there's no more money. We are gonna have to stop pretending that there's no way to cut cost. Of course there are ways to cut cost. And so we're each gonna have to do our part. I'll give you an example of what we've done at one, at one school and I think this is more generally translatable. And the bottom line answer is yes, I think we can make it a little bit less expensive. Part of the part of the art of running an organization is admitting when there's areas you don't really know what you're talking about. And when the recession hit at Cornell, because we have some dependence on the endowment, we all of a sudden had a big gap in our operating funds budget. Big gap, I mean 12 % red ink on the operating budget on our main campus. And we turned to a consulting firm. And they came in and taught us things we should have known. And we're, we reduced the operating budget by $ 65 million a year recurring. and, some of that's through revenue increases, through tuition. Most of it is through expenditure reductions. And I've never been an organization, public or private, most of my career was in public higher red, or non- profit boards I've been on or for- profit boards I've been on, I've never interacted in an organization that could not take some more costs out. So we just have to have the guts to do it, to make it happen. Faculty members of which I've been a proud faculty member since 1979. Are always gonna say I can't work through a Procurement system, I have to have my widget exactly through this one vendor on the south side of the street in Morristown, New Jersey. And sometimes that's true. Most of the time, that's baloney, and we're gonna have to work together and, and sort of make that happen. And our, our faculty actually have been terrific about this by and large. And the second thing we're gonna have to do, is show the Congress, that we're tightening our belt in a serious way, and I believe that they will be responsive. And my last comment is, in making this pitch, for more resources, I think we need to spend our time, giving examples, of what we or others have done. But I think we need to do one more thing that we don't do or at least I don't do, and perhaps this is true for the rest of you. I tend to talk about my sub- sector of higher education, with all due respect to the fabulous people who put together this conference, we ought to have more people here from the community college sector on this stage, we ought to have more people from the K through 12 industry here. The sooner we show our fellow citizens that we're thinking broadly about the whole spectrum [ NOISE ] of education, from early childhood education to continuing professional education. And actually talk with each other and figure it out, I haven't figured out how to do it but I know we need to do it, then I think the more credibility we'll have. Somewhere in there I answered your question. [ LAUGH ] Okay. Shirley Tilghman professor of molecular biology now brilliant career as president, president of Princeton, just, just finished. A, a number of people would say Princeton Probably as much endowment for the student as any other place in the country maybe. Mm- hm. Just picked number one by US News and early reports. They don't share the problems, they're not really part of this terrible problem we have with research universities because they're different. But maybe if your different you have a responsibility to help in some way a little bit. First of all, are you that different at Princeton? Do you have some of these problems? And if, whether you do or you don't, do you, as one of the leading research universities private in the country, have an obligation to help in some of these areas? So to answer the first part of your question, of course Princeton is affected by all of the things that we've been talking about. You know, we were particularly vulnerable during the recession because we're the most dependent on endowment returns to, to fuel the budget of the university. So we went through our you know extremely dramatic cost- cutting in 08, 09 and 10 in order to essentially, balance the budget. So, of course we're affected. We're affected, I think, by two other things that are part of this conversation, one more than the other. First is the critical importance of our research mission. We, like all research universities, we see research and teaching as intertwined in a way that we can't even begin to tell when one stops and the next one starts. And when we see the kind of demoralization that is happening, certainly among the faculty, who see sort of ideas and experiments and things that they want to do that they simply are not able to find the resources to be able to do or concern. I'm much more frankly concerned About the kind of demoralization that I see among our graduate students and even down to our undergraduates. These are students who we're doing everything we possibly can to inspire them to go out and be creative scientists. And what we see instead is they look at what is happening in the laboratories in which they're working and doing their senior thesis. And as Bob Bergenot said, a few minutes ago when he was describing his co- star, they're saying, this does not look like an attractive career option and given that I'm really smart and successful, there are a lot of other things that I could choose to do. So I'm part of, you know, what many of us have called the Sputnik generation. I am part of the generation who came into science who have been inspired, by the idea that the, you know, the pursuit of new knowledge was one of the most exciting things that you could do with your life. And, and I've never thought differently. And all times, all the years I've been assigned this I've never thought differently. But, I'm finding it increasingly hard to have that conversation with a brilliant young Princeton undergraduate or graduate student. So, I think that is something, that is deeply worrisome. Because if we are not creating the next generation of those noble laureates that we've been, bragging about, and, and, the prizes we've been bragging about. Then, then, we've ceeded the playing field, to, to, some other country I think. In this, period, of, I think, real financial challenge. I think we have to get smarter about how we spend our research dollars. I've always believed that our highest priority has to be getting sufficient resources To the very best. there, there have been many studies that show that if. If you look at where the greatest scientist advances have come from. They come from a relatively small number of scientists. And it's critically important that we be sure that those scientists are being extremely appropriately funded. we, by mid- career you can usually who those are. But early on it's much harder to tell who those individuals are going to be. So that's why I really support what Bob Teegent was saying about. But really finding a way to broadly support young scientists. So, that you're, you're essentially doing the experiment of finding out who are going to be those Mid- career scientists. Who are going to just, knock it outta the park. So I think one of the things we have to do is think about, are we really ensuring we're funding those who are gonna really ultimately make a difference. The other thing. And, and this comes back to some of the things that I think all of the panelists have been saying, is we have to be prepared, and scientists are generally not good at this, at setting some national priorities about what we are going to really invest in. I'm, I'm an enormous fan of the field of astrophysics, because they actually do this. Now they're forced to do it Because every experiment is really expensive. And so every 10 years, there's a group of astrophysicists who get together at the national academy and they really define the priorities for the future. And they do it by building consensus. And you can imagine that's not an easy thing to do. But they sort of, let NASA, and the NSF know. Here are the things that we think are going to be the most promising, for the next ten years. I think we have just, done that in neuroscience. I think the brain initiative, announcement, that came out last week, is an effort by By a group of very smart neuroscientists to say, neuroscience is a huge field, but here's what we think is going to advance the whole field. This is the next ten year investment, and I think we have to be ready to do this more often, particularly during this period where we know that we just are not gonna be able to do everything. You know, you talked surely about, I think, one thing we all agree you have to do in higher education now. And that's set priorities. And the solution, I suspect, from listening to people so far, has gotta be twofold. One is reengaging state legislators and congressmen in national priorities. And getting more funds from that direction. And also putting our own house in order, and. Higher education, lets start with that second one for a minute. We have this model most of us have shared governance. We call it, it makes governing sometimes very difficult, and in my own experience at a University while a great liberals politically. The faculty for instance, were the most conservative people I have ever run into. In change in their own lives, in any way or change in their university. I guess my question for any of you is, if we're going to make changes, whether it's bringing in the new technology, changing the way we do business. can we do it in a timely fashion, given the way we run ourselves? Take a whack at it? I do want to say one thing Shirley, I do think it's insensitive of you to use a baseball metaphor with the Yankees and the Mets are doing this year, very, very insensitive. Spoken like a true New Yorker. Well, honestly, at least New Jersey doesn't have any teams, so that's okay. [ LAUGH ] What was the question? [ LAUGH ] You've been holding that in. Yes. Well, I think that the business to ensure governance is unbelivable important. Here's why-- The nation scene in this country is characterized by the largest sets of economic inequalities Ever. Right now. And we have some of these inequalities on campus too, don't we? Most of us, all of us, came from faculty ranks one way or another. You know, even, even if you come from public service, it's still a path going in one direction. And administrators and Heaven knows, we're fabulous administrators. [ LAUGH ] We're paid multiples of what most of our faculty, our surgical specialists not withstanding. And so there's inequalities of both power and compensation on our campuses. And I think it's not only important to engage the faculty, whose decisions are gonna really drive the university We all tend to be short timers in our jobs. Even if a pre, university president is 20 years, it's short timer compared to the life of the school and to the length of the most successful faculty members. And so we need to engage the faculty. But at most of our schools, the non- faculty employees greatly outnumber the faculty employees, and they are greatly affected. We need to engage them obviously as well as the students. So I think shared governance is, is unbelievably important. And I think what we need to do is work with faculty leadership and employee leadership and student leadership. In a way that we define the boundaries of that shared governance relationship right up front. And say Here are the 90 % of the issues on which we can actually talk about things and try to come together in some democratic fashion. And be very clear about the x percent, 10 % in which there's not gonna be any conversation or shared governance. And define it more clearly so that there's no doubts about areas in which we can have conversation. And then have the conversation. The times when I've gotten into trouble, and I have. Have been times where that boundary wasn't defined upfront and where there were expectations on my side that people would understand. I'm just gonna have to go make a decision or the impression on the other side. Well, we're gonna really talk about this when in fact there was no way to talk about. You think you can move forward with the shared government and make even radical change that may be necessary, in some cases? So, and, do you agree with that? I, I think it's gonna be a very tough decade for those conversations. And one of the things I think we've too often done In higher education is use the phrase shared governance to beg a lot of questions. That is, who actually, somebody's gonna make a decision. We need to be clear about who gets to make the decision. At the same time we're clear about creating plenty of opportunities for people to offer their advice without confusing them with the idea that they're voting. Right. What they're, what they're doing is helping the decision- makers understand the questions better. That's not, nothing's gonna make that easy but it's inconceivable that institutions that depend on imagination, creativity, and independence among the workers. Are going to run by command and control. I mean, we're gonna have to hear peoples voices. I think that's true. I think that there's a lot of room, though, for making progress even while we have shared governments, because I think faculty members are ready to take on, for example. We've just put it before our faculty. The fact that they could save students. Maybe $ 1, 500 a year, by putting things online. That we didn't. In the past use as textbooks and so on. We're doing that. We can spend our in class time. And last night there was a statement in Washington. Students still come. Why shouldn't they just do everything online? Because, we're, we're creating communities rather, that are a very special part of this country. One of the greatest problems we have in this country right now is polarization and dysfunctionality. Where is the point of intervention? Where is the place where students learn to be part of the community? Where is the place where they become citizens in the society? Very often, it's in our universities. I don't think we should apologize. Are there ways we can save money? Absolutely yes. When we think about research. We've, we played the ratings game. We've had the ratings wars going on too long. We could do. We could cooperate much more in our research if we weren't so interested in the way. We get credit for it in terms of, of rating. So there, there are things we could do, we can, use digital technology to make the classroom experience, much more meaningful, much more hands on. We can do it in many ways, and i think our faculty members if they approached in the right way, it's gonna take presidential leadership, it's gonna take [ UNKNOWN ] leadership as well. And it's gonna take a lot of conversation. But I think if you bring people together and you create an excitement around it, you can. And, let's not forget one word, which I, I, I, it hung in the air last night and some of the discussions this morning. And that word is community. As was said, we can't say where research begins. And teaching ends or vice versa. We have chosen in this country, and the reason we lead the world is we, we conduct our reasearch within a community, within an exciting community that has the arts. That gives us the perspectives that the humanities and the social sciences give us as members of that community. And the stimulation and the creativity that is. That is there, and so we had to be very careful about what we do. We must maintain the total community in which the research community operates and still leads the world. The other thing is, I think we have to be, we have to be very careful about getting too defensive. Last night, and I'd forgotten who it was that said it It's about priorities, as was said today. And.. uh... I don't think we should run away from making the case, particularly to our elected officials, that you can't do this without investing resources, as I've said. Uh.. we've led the world, now, as certainly for over a century... Because we have always had a higher level of education per capita in this country than any other nation in the world. As well as our leadership and research. Through these communities, these very special, communities that we've created. It is yes. Partly our responsibility to find ways to save money. To do it more efficiently. To do what we do in a, in a better way, in a more cost- effective way. But is, is the obligation of society, someone said last night, we're spending four times as much on the senior generation as we're investing in the next generation that is following us. Now, that's wrong. That has to change. We had some discussions about healthcare. We had some discussions last night about entitlements. There're all sorts of other areas in which we as a people have to set our priorities. We should while we work to be more cost- effective. While we work to earn the confidence of the general public and to show we're doing that. We should not be ashamed, of entering in, vigorously, to this national debate about setting our priorities. And our education has to be one of those priorities, and it's a disgrace, for this country, for all of it's resources to be in the process, of as i said distmantling. Public higher education certainly, and private higher education is impacted and especially at the research level so we may find ways to do that but we still must enter into that dialogue, Tom, and we must enter into the political process to say there's not a free lunch here And we have to decide about the priorities in the future of this country, not just looking back at the past. I think, you know, this is so linked together. I did a report about a year ago for the governor on higher education in the state, and it got me travelling around to the various colleges and universities and also thought it was the state legislatures. There was such excitement On the campuses. There were so many wonderful things going on, totally unknown, by the legislators I talked to. And there was a disconnect there now, now, now, in a [ UNKNOWN ] of world in which students are graduating with debt that they can't afford to pay off. In which minorities, particularly have been screened out for our education in many cases, with the rising cost. states, have been, at the best, holding this even, the worst continuing to cut, the federal government is a bystander. And it strikes me that somehow, we have got to communicate a lot better to our federal officials what we all know to be true, both on the importance of higher education to our society and what is really going on in our campuses is exciting and they ought to be funding. You know, Charlie talked about the excitement. Worrying about where is the excitement. Or is this generation losing its excitement about going on. Becoming educators themselves, going on, becoming researchers themselves at, at the, at the far end of the spectrum starting with K through 12. And I had a, I had a meeting, I have one every year, sort of a bull session, with about 3, 000 of our freshmen. They are near the end of the freshman year, and I talk to them about what they want to do with their lives. What would they really Like to do with their lives. And I asked them, I said, " How many of you would really like to be in teaching in one form or another? Perhaps all the way at the researching and maybe it's graduate students, maybe it's undergraduates, maybe it's eight to 12. Well over half the hands in the audience, were raised. Then I said, how many of you are planning to become educators in one form or another? And with maybe 1 %, 2 %. Yeah. And then you ask the question, why? Because, well two basic reasons. If you believe in the market, you, you go, you go to someplace like Finland where nearly the majority of the teachers in the top 20 % of the graduating class, compared to ours, which are in usually the bottom half of the graduating class, why. They're paid in real terms twice as much as teachers in the United States. The other thing that they talked, so many students said we can't provide for our families, the families we hope we're going to have. We can't really see ourselves in a future where we can have a standard of living and a quality of life that we want to enjoy. The other was we don't receive, we don't think we would receive the respect. In the society that we deserve, so if there were ever a time and I think we should be and I think we have responsibility to use digital technologies to make the classroom or the laboratory experience more meaningful, more hands on to reduce the cost of books, to reach out to [ UNKNOWN ] people or people who are in mid- career, and provide the services they need and now we have new Ability to do that through technology. But I don't think we should be apologists. And I think we should, we should meet the American people and we should meet our elected officials and talk to them very, very directly about the future priorities of the society. Because that's what hangs in the balance. Okay. Well, believe it or not, running out of time. Don you want to make a comment, very Fast? Just, just one thing with all respect, I think communicating the excitement on campus is necessary but not sufficient. In my tiny experience, much less than you all in the public sector is that When I go to Congress, people turn a deaf ear, if all I tell em about is, we're not edu, educating you enough about all the great things happening on our campuses. I think they have to see that we're willing to be sensitive to the problems in the country. And, I don't think we express that in our actions. So, I'm not disagreeing with you. But I'm saying you gotta get further. Yeah. You got to get closer to the goal line. It's a football kind of a metaphor, it's not a baseball metaphor. I don't think that How are the Giants doing? [ LAUGH ] You know, everybody was so nice to you, like, credit you [ CROSSTALK ] Believe it or not, those have got to be the last words. [ LAUGH ]. Thank you all very very much. 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