 Okay, let me kick things off since it's the top of the hour and let me welcome you all to the Future Trends Forum. My name is Brian Alexander. I'm the Forum's creator. I'm your host. I'm your catherter and your guide to the next hour of conversation about the future of higher education. But this is all about a session on academic mergers. What happens when two or more college universities combine, either as an acquisition or as a brand new synthesis? We've been seeing rising numbers of these over the past couple of years, and perhaps we'll see even more. Now to speak with you about all of this, I'd like to invite Kevin Quigley to the stage. Kevin was the president of Marlboro College in Vermont, and he saw Marlboro through a very, very significant merger. I'd like him to be here to answer all your questions about how do mergers actually work? What is their purpose? What is their cost? What is their benefit? And will we see more and more of these? So without any further ado, let me welcome Dr. Kevin Quigley to the stage. Hello. Hey, Brian. Great to be here with everybody. Well, I'm glad to see you. Where are you today? I'm up in Woodstock, Vermont. So it's hot and humid up here, but it's God's country also. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I don't think anyone really appreciates summer like Vermonters. Well, welcome. Kevin, when I ask people to introduce themselves, I do it in a specific way. I ask people to explain what they're going to be working on for the upcoming year, what projects and what ideas are going to be top of mind. So what does the next year look like for you? Great. Well, Brian, first let me say what a pleasure it is to be here with everybody. And also, the format you have to make this a conversation is incredibly appealing. I think a lot of us have listened to or participated in presentations on this topic, but to have a conversation is really a treat. So I look forward to that. So in ordinary times, Brian, I'd say this year I was going to work on three things, but in our extraordinary times, I'm going to say I hope to work on three things. And one with my colleagues at Dutch or a small Vermont based higher ed consulting firm. We'd like to work with a couple of higher ed institutions that want to navigate, want some help navigating a partnership process, or want some help in figuring out a much more sustainable model for their institution. Two, I have a Fulbright to work with eight provincial universities in Northern Thailand. Wow. I have a long history there as a Peace Corps volunteer, a Fulbrighter before. I did my dissertation research on Thailand, but it's to work with eight provincial universities to prepare for the coming consolidation in higher ed there. 40 years ago Thailand had 26 institutions of higher ed. Today it has 320. And their demographic cliff for the college age cohort is just frightening. It makes New England look good in comparison. And the third thing I hope to be doing is some more teaching. I just finished teaching a course on democracy for a startup university in Myanmar. And the leadership of that university, who I've been coaching this last year, had to flee the country because they get support from the west from George Shoros and other progressive philanthropists. So they asked me to pinch it and teach a course on democracy, which seemed very timely, as you can imagine, in a place like Myanmar that just had a military coup back in February. So those are my three hopes to do this year. Wow. That's an awful lot. And I've got to ask, in December or January, do you ever feel like it'd be better to relocate to Southeast Asia? Well, you know, my life's interest is really revolved around Southeast Asia. And I'd love to spend more time there, though, with the COVID situation out of control for a variety of reasons. That's why I said, I don't know if I'll be able to do this Fulbright project this year or next year. Who knows? They're just starting to roll out the vaccines in places like Vietnam and Thailand. And Indonesia is apparently the new India in terms of the COVID pandemic. Well, that looks like an extraordinary year ahead. And I would love to follow your progress and learn about it. It's great to do that. The consolidation in Thailand, that's really amazing to think about. Friends, I have a couple of quick questions to ask our guest. The future transform is about you. And so I would love to hear your questions and your thoughts. So as we proceed, as Kevin submits to my ruthless interrogation, please think of what you'd like to ask about his experience. Marlboro, perhaps about the projects he just described involving Thailand and Myanmar, or perhaps about where you think mergers may be headed in higher education. So just really quickly to begin with, Kevin. Let me ask, what led Marlboro to seek to merge with another institution? So for Marlboro, it was really that kind of the unholy combination of declining enrollment and declining net student revenue. And all the things attendant with that increasing discount rate ever larger draws on our endowment. We're fortunate Marlboro had an endowment, but the ever larger draws on the endowment and operating deficits that were ever larger. It takes a while because when you look at a lot of small liberal arts colleges like Marlboro, they experienced some significant challenges around the Great Recession. Most of them began to recover and if not 2010, 2011, but a group of them continue on this downward trajectory, which I think for many of us, sentiment and aspiration for the future prevented us to really understand the consequences of continuation of these trends around declining enrollment and ever increasing operating deficits. A quick question about that. You mentioned not just declining revenue, but specifically declining per student revenue. Did that mean that you were increasing the discount rate? Yeah, we were increasing the discount rates and I think like lots of institutions, you can't just look at tuition, particularly since there's so much attention to tuition increases that I think a lot of universities and institutions have tried to keep tuition constant. But to meet their revenue needs, they often make adjustment and room and board, for example. And I think many of us saw one of the deleterious consequences of the pandemic was the drop off and student revenue associated with students not being on campus and not at the dining hall or other kinds of things. So I think the right thing you have to look at is the net student revenue. Very, very important. Tuition and room and board and other things, yeah. Do you find that when you brought this subject up to your students, alumni, your board, how did you make the case for a merger? I mean that's a drastic step. How did you how did you convince them that this is the way forward? Well, I think we're all educational institutions and understanding where you are is a learning process for everybody. And including me, it took me a while to figure out what the trends were and what the implications are for Marlboro. And then we focused a lot of time and intention to get our board to understand the trends across higher ed and particularly how they were affecting Marlboro. And frankly, that's a couple of year process, Brian, because and I mentioned this, that a lot in our community, we've had challenges in the past and that gives us a false sense that we can claw back from the cliffs and this time is different. It is a harder argument to make that this is different. And frankly, boards of higher ed, the people we attract on those boards are often brought on the boards because of their connections to the institutions, their alums, their parents of students, their neighbors. They're not necessarily brought on boards to deal with existential challenges or to make really difficult decisions. And that's one and the other is the practical. Most college boards meet three or four times a year. You can get them up to speed on understanding where things are, but you have to reeducate them when they come back. And that's just a really time consuming process, particularly when you don't want to see what the reality is. So from our first year at Marlboro and beginning in 2015, I had each semester a session on our enrollment and our budgets and kind of these open forums. I think those were helpful. And then I think the key thing is nobody wants to believe that you're college and fundamentally, colleges and challenges have three options. They can reinvent themselves through restructuring, reprogramming, different modalities of program delivering. They can find a partner and they're a whole, they're a rich menu of partnership options out there, or they can think the unthinkable. And nobody wants to think that they might close. They will close. So I think for Marlboro, like lots of other institutions, all three options were in play up until the bitter end. And there were some trustees and some community members, alums, emeriti faculty in particular, who believed that Marlboro could make it on its own. And that was really a tough belief and it was based on belief. There was no data or evidence to support it. And in fact, when we look in our neighborhood, four small colleges in Vermont closed over the last four years. And I say for Marlboro, we didn't close. We left the campus. We took our program and our people, our faculty and staff went to Emerson and they're creating something new. It's not quite Marlboro, because Emerson is an important part of the process, but they're rejuvenating an institute that's been renamed the Marlboro Institute for liberal arts and interdisciplinary studies. But you know this, how do you get people to understand what the reality is really a tough issue? And it's a lot about educating. And like that old adage about voting, it has to be early and often. And you know, we say about communicating. If you, one thing that is critical, you know, as leaders of institutions, we learn you're supposed to under promise and over deliver. I think if your institution is challenged, you have to communicate, communicate, communicate, like they say about real estate, location, location. You can never communicate enough and there are so many constituents. And frankly, many institutions don't have that culture or that capacity to communicate compellingly, clearly consistently. And that's one thing I would say, you know, if your institution has some challenges, this is one area where you need to devote a lot of resources to. And if you're stretched, trying to bring in your class and raise the funds to narrow your operating deficit, this is one investment that I would encourage institutions to make because there are so many stakeholders who have concerns that need to be addressed. Well, thank you. Thank you. Friends, this is some of your questions have come in and I'm gonna flash them up. So again, if you're new to the forum, just remember the two buttons on the bottom of that white strip, either the raised hand to join us on stage or the question mark to fire for question. And here's one from David Stone at my alma mater, the University of Michigan. Outside of improving the revenue and enrollment challenges, what key indicators do you see as ways to measure the success of a merger? Also, what surprised you and what didn't you see that you did expect? All right. So, Brian, will you remind me of the two parts or do I need to note? Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll flash them. That will be great. So you'll leave it up. That's great. What would the key indicators to measure the success? So, David, thank you for the question. I'd say the issue and this is often lost in the discussion about mergers. It's got to be a focus on the mission. So, what was your institution's mission? For Marlboro, it was this self-directed, interdisciplinary, student-centric pedagogy. And we believe, and there's evidence to support it, that that is being embraced at this new institution. So, for me, the quintessential measure of success is, does the mission continue, albeit in a new venue, with other participants beyond your faculty and students? But also, the second measure is, does it make it much more sustainable? And for me, the answer is pretty simple. Emerson has 10 times the financial assets. It's a more selective academic institution. And it's in a prime geographic location. So, the prospects of sustainability, I think, are, you know, you pick a factor 10 times, 100 times more likely than a rural campus sitting on a hilltop in southern Vermont. But I'd say, you know, I think also another thing that is key in this whole process is what you do valued by your partner. And this is often hard to understand, that nobody wants somebody unless you bring something valuable to the partnership, to the merger. Some cases it's financial, and maybe that's primarily what it is. But it has to go beyond that. Does your potential merger partner, the institution acquiring you, do they really value something beyond your endowment? You know, is there a particular program that you have? Is there a technology? Is there a location? Are there a group of faculty that can enhance their offerings to their students, improve their reputation? So, those are other really important factors. Since the second part of the question, David, Brian, if you could put it back up, the cost and benefits. Yeah, it was a subtle question. What benefits surprised you and what didn't you see that you expected? Yeah. So, David, thank you. And I'd say, you know, this process is never linear, and you'll often make some false steps along the way. And we had a letter of intent with another university that didn't work out. Frankly, I'll be quite candid. It didn't work out because this, and we sent out a prospectus to 77 institutions that we thought could help us with our two fundamental issues, enrollment and revenue. And we thought that they'd have some appreciation for what we did at Marlboro, and as kind of a founding member and one of the few institutions that have been and has been in the colleges that changed lives community since Lauren Pope wrote that classic. And so, you know, that it doesn't always work out. I was anticipating it. It's a lengthy process. I anticipated there'd be a lot of players, regulators, legislators, creditors, alumni, neighbors, you know, all of those I anticipated. I didn't anticipate how public the process would be. And despite assurances from our Attorney General that are most confidential and, frankly, expensive with documentation around this process, reports from consulting firms, the work by our lawyers, all are now out in the public domain. Despite assurances from the Attorney General's office that they would that would not be the case. So how much of what you do becomes public. And I was expecting some but the degree that it became public surprised me. I wasn't surprised how everybody talked about it and nobody had and most of us never do complete information. But how much of it got out in the public in ways that may not be all that helpful. How did it get out? Was it was just a question of leaks or was the in Vermont? Probably we have one of the most progressive sunshine acts in the country and and any documents submitted to the office of the Attorney General can be requested by members of the public. And in a number of cases, they're not only members of the public from Vermont but other parts of the country who are requesting this documentation. Well, thank you. So first of all, David, thank you for the double header question. Both heads of which were very, very deep. Thank you. And Kevin, thank you for that very thoughtful voice of experience. Again, if you're new friends to the forum, this is the way we work. People get to share questions and our guests get to wrangle them. And the wrangling, I'm sure gives rise to questions for you. You may be curious, for example, about the role of different state sunshine laws, or you may be interested in which stakeholders are most influential. Everything Kevin said is a goldmine for your next questions. But we have a few other questions that are in the pipeline. I want to make sure we can share them. And one comes from Michael Meeks at Louisiana State, who's actually not at Louisiana State. Apparently that wasn't hot and humid enough for him. He is now in Panama for sabbatical. So let's give his question a shot. Can you please comment on how student revenue and enrollment impact rigor in the classroom or quality of education as related mergers? That's great. So thank you for that question, Michael. And I just, Brian, with your permission, I'd like to say another word about David's question. And we at Marlboro have a commitment to shared governance that I think is unusual. It's not only faculty and administration and trustees, but it's also students and staff through our town meeting. So we had regular briefings throughout the whole process. We had student and staff and faculty participation on a trustee-led group that was a task force on the future of Marlboro. And I think that was unusual how participatory we were. And we regularly shared all kinds of documentation with our community. And most in turn, that information quickly found its way to social media or to the Vermont media that was very interested in that. So on the issue of revenue and kind of academic quality, I think that's where it has to start and end. And in the Marlboro case, we have what we described as a radically traditional pedagogy, traditional in that it was based on the so-called Oxbridge model, seminars and tutorial with outside examination of a capstone body of work before graduation. But we described it in a way that just wasn't credible. And I think it affected our quality. We said, come to Marlboro and you can study anything and everything. And frankly, when you're interested in the world of public policy and you don't have an economist to work with, and not to cast asparagus that anybody on this in this audience or in this discussion. But I think discerning parents and students would say, I'm interested in health policy or environmental policy. I need to understand something about economics and have a set of quantitative skills. So figuring out how you link what you are doing in the classroom to the world of meaningful work or shaping lives of purpose. And frankly, at Marlboro, I think we fell short on that. So one of the challenges when you're going through a merger is you can't put all your eggs in one basket. So we had a seven part plan called reimagining Marlboro. And that started with the curriculum. And we came up with something we called the Marlboro promise to say every student in Marlboro would learn three things, how to communicate clearly, live and work in a community of difference and lead a big idea from conception to execution. And all of those are fungible or they're great life skills. And they're authentic to Marlboro. We did that. But Michael, I think that helped with our quality. But when I look at the enrollment trends at Marlboro and they began to decline in 2005, those trends accelerated because as parents and students became much more concerned about the cost of higher ed, where it led to these questions became much more relevant of what will I learn? How do I know I've learned it? And what do I do with it? And Marlboro was kind of slow in answering that. Now, I think ultimately and sadly, too late in the process, we were beginning to see an uptick in our revenue. And I think we're having much more credible conversations with prospective students and their families about what you did at Marlboro and kind of the value added of a Marlboro education than we were having even three or four years earlier. I'm sometimes asked about my regret was we didn't have enough time to do that focus on our academic program early enough. And that does take time. Thank you. Thank you. Michael, that's a great question. Kevin, what a what a revelatory answer. I just want to mention in the chat there have been a couple of threads. One is the question of overbuilding academic capacity or sprawl. For example, Roxanne Riskin notes that Connecticut has multiple branches is now engaged in major overhaul with a lot of fusion involved. Folks have mentioned too many campuses in New Mexico and California as well. So that seems to be a theme that's up there. And I want to Michael ask and well actually there's another question here questions are coming in. So again, if you'd like to just please fire up the question answer box or I'll click the raised hand. You can tell that both Kevin and I are pretty kind and nice people. Charles Finley from Northeastern always has great questions. He has a very practical and direct one. What happens to student records and transcripts when Institute closes? Is there a financial repository? Great. And do you want me to start first, Brian, with a question about consolidation overbuilt and then go on to Charles's? No, just tackle Charles's first. Okay, great. So this what happens with the transcript is a major issue for institutions that have the possibility of closing and this issue was brought home dramatically in Vermont in the spring of 2016 when Burlington College closed precipitously. The board met on Saturday and a week later, I think all but five or 10 faculty and staff were gone. There were no provisions for teach out no provisions in place that were implemented for transfer agreements, no arrangements on transcripts. And this has happened in other states. So the legislators stepped up and initially they wanted every college to post a bond. So if they closed, there would be financial resources to ensure that the firm could be hired to provide the transcripts. But I'd say, Charles, you know, that for me it was taking care of your students and faculty were my central concerns. And part of that is the transcripts. But more importantly is that students academic credit be recognized by your partner or the acquiring institution and that their fees that they've been paying have been kept are kept constant to the extent that's possible at Marble. We were fortunate, everyone we talked to agree to accept all of our students academic credit and to if they weren't good standing and to to keep the fees constant. And there's about a $30,000 a year difference between Emerson and Marble. But I think it goes beyond not just the transcripts, but also thinking about the archives of the institution, you know, your history. And so Emerson has a lot of it, but we made an arrangement with the University of Vermont to take over our colleges archives. But our students' capstone projects, both in hard copy and digital version, are at Emerson. So I say, yes, you have to and that's the first question the state regulators asked is what provisions do you have for your students transcripts so that they're always accessible. Emerson is handling the Marble students transcripts, but we made arrangements to make sure that that the legacy of Marble lived on our archives at the UVM, our students' capstone projects at Emerson. Wow. Well, Charles, a typically concise and powerful question and Kevin, I love how that lets you show us the difference between the types of records. The themes that are going in the chat, I think Michael asked a question which sets them up pretty nicely. I want to bring that up on stage. Where is the future of mergers in the IRA? I mean states are cutting budgets, will that continue? Are taxpayers supportive or even pushing mergers? Yeah, I think, thank you again, Michael. And I think Brian alluded to this in his opening remarks that in my view, mergers are going to continue and in fact the trend will likely accelerate. I think it's very unlikely that state legislatures given the pressures on their budget are going to provide additional support to state institutions and the trend line is going the other way. I think here in Vermont, the University of Vermont, our flagship institution receives less than 3% of its budget from the state legislature where 20 years ago it would have been 40 or 50%. So, you know, it's that Clayton Christensen, the architect of that theory around disruptive innovation, a forecast of 50% closure by 2025. I don't think it's going to be quite at that rate, but I see little reason to believe that this trend will subside. And I think the pandemic in some ways has exposed even more the fragility and once the payroll protection plan and other forms of support to higher ed are withdrawn, I think we're going to see many more institutions exploring these pathways of finding a merger partner or be acquired or hopefully if they're going to close, do it in a way that treats its people with dignity, its faculty and students in particular and ensures that the transcripts are accessible to students and the archive, the history of the institutions are preserved in an incredible facility. I mean, we had proposals that came from small museums in Vermont that wanted our archives and our alumni pushed very hard for it, but it's like, are those institutions going to be there in 20 or 50 years? Do they have the personnel and the climate-controlled conditions that are required to maintain an archive? And frankly, the question about the taxpayers, are they pushing for mergers? You know, I think taxpayers are basically, they want to pay less in taxes and they're not going to be supportive of providing additional state resources to state institutions, particularly if it involves them paying more taxes. So I think that's very unlikely and we need to see how the whole movement towards free community colleges, how that plays out, but that's going to put enormous pressure on other institutions. And that last point, that's still in the congressional sausage-making press right now. It may or may not survive reconciliation bills, we don't know. Good question and again, another terrific answer, Kevin. Vanessa points out, I'll make a copy of this here, a Forbes article on academic mergers and I'll just put it there. Vanessa notes that Inside Higher Ed has a mergers tag for the reporting that there is also a Wikipedia page on academic mergers. We have another question and different people would ask this, including people who couldn't make it today. So I want to make sure that we get this here and Michael Meeks asks it very, very cleanly. What's the difference between a merger and an acquisition? Or how do you keep a merger feeling like an acquisition? So again, another great question. In higher ed circles, most of us use what is the euphemism about partnership as kind of an umbrella term to talk about mortars and acquisitions and acquisition in not-for-profit world and in the business world is when one entity gets controlling interest in the other institution and effectively that's the end of that second institution. A merger is theoretically between equals. And if I'm candid here, a marble was acquired by Emerson. Now there was a significant quid pro quo. We had three strategic objectives. As I've mentioned, taking care of our people. So all of our tenure track faculty were offered positions at Emerson and of them more than 80% accepted those positions. Two, our students had to have all their academic credit accepted and their tuition and fees kept constant. And the third, that there would be an effort to maintain Margo's identity, which they did by renaming an institute, the Margo Institute. So we had some clear objectives there as part of that process. Though frankly an outsider would say marble was acquired by Emerson. And in our community we talk about partnerships as an umbrella for all of these different kinds of arrangements. But if you look at what happened at Wheelock and BU or you look at Pine Manor and PC or the School of Fine Arts and Tufts, you know, these are mainly New England examples. I think folks in other parts of the world, other countries who have examples, Mills and Northeastern, you know, that's still work in progress. What is that going to be? You know, it may, it looks like an acquisition. Will that happen? There are some forces aligned against that, but will they prevail? That's too early to tell. Do you find, well, it's a great point. I have so many things I'd like to ask, but I want to make sure that everybody else gets a chance. The questions have come up together. I'm not trying to wrap these together into one ball. What's the, what's the role of the state governments when it comes to mergers? And we've seen already governments, you know, pay less and less, which make mergers more and more likely. But we've seen in the chat, people have mentioned that state governments might actually resist mergers, that they would want to keep things going, or that's one political approach. And then we saw Massachusetts actually pass this interesting law, which kind of helped mergers or closures happen by letting the colleges and universities approach the state government quietly, not publicly, so they wouldn't spook people. What do you think the role of government should be? Yeah. So it's a really interesting question of what is the state government's role in this process around mergers? And formally, legally, the Department of Ed in each state has to sign off on the mergers or the acquisitions. And their principal interests are around transcripts, or at least in the Vermont case in Massachusetts case, their concern is around transcripts and treatment of students, their academic credit, et cetera. The Attorney General's office in each state has a role in approving the transfer of assets. So for us, that was, I think, probably a 70-plus-page document, not only of our endowment, all the endowed funds, what were their purposes, all the, our library collections were included that, hard work, et cetera. The Attorney General's has to sign off on the transfer of those assets to another institution. Now this varies by state in Vermont, there's a presumption that the assets will be, the transfer will be approved based on the institution demonstrating that they've done appropriate fiduciary stewardship and due diligence in the process. Now, state legislators are strong advocates for the maintenance of state institutions in their home districts. You know, that those institutions are often the heart and soul of a legislative district. They're, in many cases, the largest or among the top three or four employers. They're a cultural resource for communities. So no legislator wants to have a state institution in its district close. So they will resist that. Yet simultaneously, that same legislator probably won't vote for an increase in the appropriations to the state institutions. So the political process, you know, it cuts multiple ways. But a lot of it is focused on opposition to mergers and consolidation and the state higher ed institutions. The opponents of those consolidation are most often the legislators from districts that will be adversely affected if their institution closes. And we see that played out in Pennsylvania with the higher ed consolidation plan. We see it in Vermont where the chancellor was forced out in 2019 over his abortive plans to consolidate the state institutions here. Oh, there's a lot there. Elena, thank you for coming. Please take care. There's a lot of moving parts involved in this. I do want to ask if, first of all, for everybody else, we only have a few minutes left. So I want to ensure that you all get a chance to put in your questions, your comments, your thoughts and reflections. The forum stands ready for you. So please, this is a place for you to ask your questions. And as you can tell, Kevin takes each question very, very seriously and addresses with a lot of wisdom. That's been a hard one. Looking ahead a bit, thinking about private institutions, they are, to an extent, much more independent of state politics. And some of the examples that you've given that we've discussed have been non-public institutions. In the chat box, for example, Rob Gibson mentioned the University of Arkansas system just decided to buy a for-profit online institution. Perhaps the, yeah, for a dollar, for a dollar. Great price. Amy, should we expect more merger activity in the private sector than the public? Well, I think we're going to see the merger activities in both spaces, public and private institutions. And I think it's pretty easy to say that whatever the proposals are, there's going to be some significant opposition to it. And this, I think, goes back to the first question that David asked about what surprised me. And I think when I talk to others who've been through these processes, how widespread and deep in some cases, the opposition is to partnerships, mergers, acquisitions, often from alumni, but they can be from others, from legislators and neighbors who resist the change, whatever it might be. So I think any leader of an institution that is considering a merger, an acquisition, a partnership, you have to anticipate that there be some opposition. And this goes to my earlier point about communicating, kind of knowing who's out there, what their concerns are, finding ways to try and address them candidly, but understanding ultimately some people you just won't persuade. So that's why I say the focus has to be on what is your mission. And if it's no longer viable for your institution to deliver on its mission, then you need to find some alternatives. And in the consideration of those other alternatives, there will be various stakeholder groups who are passionate about your institution, have deep ties to them, highly emotional ties. And in leadership roles, you become the target for that opposition. And in many cases, it veers over to ad hominem attacks and animosity and question about credibility and competence. So not for the worry of mine, you know, if you're thinking about these past, they are tortuous. But if you keep a focus on the mission, I can say with great confidence that the outcome from Marlboro was far better than any other alternative. And we looked at, as I said, over 30 other alternatives. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you. We have a question from a colleague of mine, John Henry Steitz II, at Georgetown, who asks a kind of meta question or a big macro question. Is there an optimal number of higher educational institutions in the United States? And to get there, how many have to close their moors before we can reach a sustainable level? Yeah. So, you know, it s a great question. I don t have an optimal number in mind. I think the optimal number is having institutions, sufficient number of institutions that provide opportunities to help citizens develop the skills and have the experiences that will lead them to meaningful work and lives of purpose. You know, I think traditional higher ed has to change. And one of the silver linings of the pandemic, I often said that the world is changing at kind of warp speed, but higher ed seems to change at glacial speed. But if you look how quickly higher ed moved online in March of 2020, it is truly remarkable. And my hope is that higher ed institutions can repeat that kind of nimbleness. We often talk about being nimble and adaptable. Frankly, we re not a sector. We re pretty resistant to change. And so for me, it s really having higher ed delivered in all kinds of different ways from all kinds of institutions to a very different than the traditional college age profile of students. And what that is, you know, it s not an infinite number, but it may be larger than our current number of roughly 4,000 higher ed institutions in this country. I think it has to be configured differently. And it has to be much more flexible. You know, I think many institutions learned dual degree programs, dual enrollment were very helpful. But you re trying to do that in an institution where they re wedded to five day a week, nine to five or nine to seven calendar, it s pretty difficult. You ve got to meet your students where they are. And for me, that s going to be what the real determinant is. And if we all want to be lifelong learners just in our country along, you know, so what do we have? 200 plus million people who are potential students and 4,000 may not serve it. It may need to be much larger than that, but configured very differently. There s a lot of options there under that configuration. We have time for one last question to squeak in under the belt. This is again from Charles and another very, very precise question. He s worried about the decline of international students from China who have and will continue to move on to other welcoming countries. So I think this is referring to the rising geopolitical tensions between the I States and China. Well, Charles, that s a great word to have. And I would say I worry both ways. I think not enough American students go overseas. We know that s a life-changing experience. It s a horizon expanding experience. Yes, this whole field of international students has been politicized both in our country as well as in China. I do think there s an enormous appetite for an American-style education, and I ve been fortunate over the last three decades to be involved with a number of universities overseas that have an American-style curriculum. How do we get this field out of politics? Unfortunately, I think it s very difficult speaking of the bilateral relationship with China. I don t see any prospects that international student exchange there will be depoliticized. Are there other markets out there that might satisfy some of that need? People look at some of the newly industrialized countries like Brazil and Mexico, Indonesia, to replace some of those students. That comes with some challenges, too, but I think we re falling short in preparing our young people and our citizens for the future because they re not enough of them are getting overseas and not long enough duration to really develop the language skills, the cross-cultural competence that we think is going to be essential to their world. Charles, that s a really solid question. Thank you, Kevin, for the way your answer starts off with geopolitics and moves right back to the poor curriculum. Unfortunately, we are the top of the hour once more, which means we need to wrap things up. Kevin, thank you for sharing. Well, my pleasure. Well, thanks all for this conversation and the opportunity you be with you this afternoon. Oh, it s my pleasure. How can people keep up with you? We want to find out what s next with Kevin Quigley. Well, I think for me the easiest is just linked in. I m glad to be linked through linked in. Great. Yeah, that s probably the easiest way to do that. Excellent. Hopefully, I ll be back here again, Brian. We re had that cup of coffee in our neighborhood when we talked about it. I would like both of those things very much. I mean, take care and good luck. All right. Thanks all. Everybody take care. Stay safe. Stay safe indeed. But don t go yet. Just to let you know a couple of things about the next few weeks. So, again, remember we ve got a whole bunch of sessions coming up on topics for information literacy, to scholarship, to rethinking teaching, to equity. If you d like to keep talking about these issues of academic mergers, please, Twitter is a great place for that. Use the hashtag FTTE. You can follow my blog as well. And if you d like to go back into the past and look at some of our previous sessions that covered some of these subjects, including mergers as well as public universities, just go to tinyurl.com slash FTF archive. And in the meantime, thank you all for your very thoughtful questions. This is, I think, a very sober, very thoughtful, very experience-based conversation. I m really delighted that you could all do this together. In the meantime, to echo our guest, please, everybody, looking forward to seeing you next time. Take care, stay safe, and we ll see you online. Bye-bye.