 HBCU Digest Radio presidential series welcome back to our conversations with distinguished chancellors and presidents of historically black colleges and universities tonight for the first time far overdue and certainly on a fault of mine and not of our guest is the distinguished president of Wiley College the co-founder of the higher education leadership foundation Dr. Herman Felton also host of the health podcast so I know a lot of you guys that listen to the digest broadcast also check out health definitely it's a dynamic peace and leadership element to our conversation so brother president certainly an honor to have you on this evening man man it is an honor to be on brother I appreciate I appreciate you extended the invitation great for to be here and want to thank you for being in the trenches for the cost of a decade now it's 10 years man about eight years too long I know I know that those years are like a doggy probably a little longer than the body feels like that but yeah but but but thank you for having me and thank you for the work that you do man I appreciate it brother so the first thing that I want to get to with you because just so outspoken on a number of issues and we I think as a sector we appreciate it to not only have a president who's unafraid to speak to a lot of things that matter most to our sectors into our campuses let's have a young president do it I think that that's we we've been waiting for that for a long time and you're certainly part of a cohort of young presidents that are growing in that in that field but you kind of outpace a lot of folks and being willing to talk against and for a lot of topics that people are you know strategically may feel like they can't do it so in a lot of ways you're a spokesman for the HBC presidency and in that vein you know I kind of want to ask you about what what went down you know about a week ago in South Carolina with Benedict and certainly Dr. Rosalind Clark artists they're great president who I know with whom you're close and I hope that people listening to us now don't feel like this is two men trying to stick up for a sister but but or try to validate a sister but in a way I do want that because indeed it is our sister and we know that sisters unfairly catch a lot of hell for the decisions that they make particularly in leadership position so just from a presidential perspective because with all the talk that's still going on about this event what were your observations before during and after now that we've had some days to step away from it what do you think about that and from a presidential standpoint is it something that we just we're just missing the mark on understanding what this was supposed to be and what it could have been you know it's a great question and it is a dangerous space and topic to even to talk on and and the that in and of itself Jared I think is in the theater of absurdity right so I was actually the convocation speaker that Thursday before the president and other presidential candidates were to be on the campus of Benedict and I have to tell you it's alarming it sort of took me back to our time when 80 or so of us went to the White House and the vitriol that was spewed it's sort of fascinating how we talk about how how we feel about tribalism and the politics and the hate that is projected and then we turn around and practice that same hate and you know meanness to to people who are certainly in the trenches working for us so you have this bipartisan or what was alleged to be a bipartisan group that has done this work for years you know last four years they were on some other campus in South Carolina in South Carolina arguably is the epicenter for the 2020 election and if you know politics you understand outside of Iowa you know South Carolina is probably the place that folk are be lining making a beeline to well this group comes on campus and obviously when any president is traveling there are certain protocols that need to be in place I remember going online and seeing some of the stuff and it impacted Rosalind in a way and I just personally am so proud of her watching her go through what she went through with the grace and the poise that she has if you know her she's always like that but it just exuded out of her pores even more I think the more hate came her way the more grace she exuded it was fascinating there to watch people eviscerate her because they thought she recommended or she invited the president there and anything but the group invited him there he spoke and there's this information out about eight students or ten students being able to attend whenever the president comes into any space the White House takes over and they lay the rules it doesn't matter what you think they are they take over and they deploy the rules and in that instance there were a ton of legislators who Republican who were traveling and who were in that area Tim Scott who's the other guy Lindsey Graham Graham all of those individuals and some of their top donors wanted to be in the space that happened it was a 270 room audience or auditorium somewhere around in there and they took a took up a great deal of the seats in the space and so that happened and outside of that there were unbeknownst to Roslyn and the mayor Steve Benjamin I think his name is the mayor of Columbia they both were on this board they both resigned from the board because neither of them knew that this organization wanted to award Trump with this honor no idea and so as you can imagine it looked as if they were complicit which they were I thought what was fascinating was the article that was done by the Paul model Times I think it is a Columbia paper where Roslyn sat down and really talked about everything that happened so I'll stop with that and say this the transition for us what is not I think anticipated from us inside the space who are earnestly doing this work with no motive is when the family turns on you you know that is more painful Jared than anything else now what what is my boggling to me is that the bastion of democracy is a college campus or should be symbolism of pure democracy should be on a camp our college campus the introduction of democracy in the political system and how it works I think is ripe the ripe environment for that that is on a college campus and yet even though there is a particular person in the White House who those many of us do not agree with at the end of the day it is the president of the United States HBCUs PWIs public private receive federal funding the department of education holds loans for us they issue loans for us and I think protocol just simply allows for the president of the United States of America to pretty much go wherever he well pleases whatever he wants to and because he comes on your campus does not mean that you acquiesce to his his his ethos the way he moves it that it does not mean that and at the end of the day I know here while I've got a handful of republicans on my campus who would be happy to see him should he be should they be denied to see the person that they believe to be their president at the end of the day their freedom of expression is only as good as it is comfortable right so if you like what I like then we're good and you have a right to express that but if you hate what I like then I'm eviscerated because I don't hold your same views and values the very thing that we teach people to be which is independent free thinkers is the thing that will will get you slaughtered in a lot of spaces there it do you think and we kind of talked off air a little bit about this and I asked dr is the same question is it is a situation where we're just the leaders are going to have to almost drag stakeholders kicking and screaming into a political process because this is not going to change even when trump s exits there's still going to be certain engagement we have to make with whatever party is in the way out whether people like it or don't like it so do we have to do we have to do a better job of educating the stakeholders do you think that they can be convinced that this has to happen well here's what I believe there I think that we are a nation that is just absolutely experts we are experts in lazy research we pick up tired lazy tropes and we run with them they're not ours we go with the popular the masses you know and I think most people are reasonable and because I believe that I believe to your point an educational process would help most people say you know what I don't agree with that guy I don't agree with it but I understand why you're doing it if people can push to that space if we can educate people to be in that space then we win you know we win because we don't have to worry about issuing press releases and worrying about deflections and people starting protests and people who don't want to give to our institutions using that as a reason to not give right you you've not been giving forever and now you are you you now have built in excuses to never give ever ever ever right we have to I think your point is spot on we have to educate folks the best we can but here's the thing there we cannot um spend a whole lot of time doing that the bible says you know the vision make it play write it and make it plain all we can do is just put the information out there and we're hoping that our alums who have been educated at our institutions which we believe to have done a good job will have the mental requisite to understand simple information well I don't I guess the emotion takes over because I don't get I can understand you don't mess with Trump so hard that you can't you can't see him on your campus I get it but what I don't get is particularly for hbcu communities especially in the deep south you think this is the first racist person we've talked to that's been on campus or you think this is the first interface we've had with with a with a political enemy you you must not have met a mayor a while ago you must not have met a governor a while ago you must not have met a congressman a while ago because we've been doing this for years and I can't emphasize the point enough you were cool with those or you didn't know and it didn't matter to you to find out as you talked about lazy research so why are we we're so hyped up now we're hyped up about Trump we're hyped up about a George Bush statue at Hampton we're hyped up about you know all kinds of stuff we've been doing this dance for years and everybody's been cool with it no matter what kind of tension it created on our presidents what kind of tension it created on our boards listen I I think for me to put things in perspective like life is so much easier now there in the 60s and the 50s people were dying when they came uh into uh you know into contact with individuals who didn't understand who we were and why we were on this earth and and celebrate our excellence the way everybody should have right like and we have brothers and sisters like John Lewis um you know get beat across the head and many many others who were willing to die for principle it is so much easier now like you you you can argue this council culture like like you won't a quote unquote I don't even know what the hell that means but um like these keyboard activists like it's so easy to say you know some words and and spew you know mean stuff I think it's much harder for people to sit across the table um from people who they disagree with fundamentally and have conversations dialogue and we can all get up and walk away like you know it is very clear that our nation has a ton of work to do with respects to race relations that's very clear I don't think anybody needs to argue that point at what point are we going to say it's time for us to have some tough conversations some tough questions and be resolved with knowing that some people will never see things the way we do and that's okay because they have a fundamental constitutional right to do it I'm not saying that their right is right I'm just saying that their right to do what they want to do is not wrong and because of that we've got to figure out how we get to a space where we can levitate in all climes and spaces with all kind of people and still do what we need to do which is stay focused stay focused on raising resources that allow the next generation to be equally if not better than we are with all the ranks and privileges and rights and tools that they need to to levitate in greatness this these conversations take us away from that year they take us away from that particularly when they are conversations that devolve quickly we were arguing two minutes after we started having a conversation about Trump being on our campus and and it's it is non-productive so how do we move from that how do we get to this space and say okay yeah we nobody likes Trump gotcha how do we move the cheese right how do we move in in a succinct fashion that allows us to have our dignity intact and our positions to be there did to be heard but also not to be you know blatant people who disregard the fundamental things that we're fighting for as well right let's not be the pot or the kettle let's let's be who we we need to be with with with integrity and erect spines but let's not focus on the nonsense and and again I don't want to diminish how people feel I just think that if we had conversations if if people waited to hear what really happened I think the support would have been a lot different but we're so quick to pick up on false narratives and run with them that lazy research that it really diminishes our capacity to really be in a this great space man let's focus on that that point about lazy research because you were outspoken about one of the the the lazy researchers you know kind of hovering around our sector that's mary beth gasman yes sir that so you know that I think that we have tried to alert people um about you know problematic research and information that comes out about our sector and stuff that doesn't provide great narrative or great insight on who we are and what we're trying to do and now this has been mingled with you know kind of a power leveraging over some of our graduates in her office so she she moves on she goes from pen to Rutgers you know she's being hypersexual with black men and women she gets away with it seemingly um is it over uh should we let it be over what more can we do you know this is where um this is where power uh influence uh and all those things matter and it also illuminates what it means to be marginalized um these major institutions um really I don't know if they have a modicum of respect for our voices and I'll tell you why I say that um if the shoe were fit um on on me um and I were the black man um a grieving uh others um I think that narrative would have been different because the voice of others is much louder uh than the voice of black and brown even in higher education right so that's been played out over and over and over again for me I don't particularly have a feeling about this lady one way or the other um she has done a lot of research um on hbcu's there are some who say it's great and then there are some who feel like it's regurgitated it's the same thing over and over um and uh it doesn't necessarily lead from uh h hbcu alumni giving to uh somebody being an expert on board and presidential selection don't know how we make that gap and I don't know how how we give someone the agency to be uh the spokesperson for us having said that the work was done right and I would always tell people stop talking about it you know do something about it if you want to change the narrative change the narrative right get in there do the work do what you need to do my problem um in particular there was an article that was wrote uh and I'm going to get to your question really quickly um but I think it's important to tell the fans there was an article when uh the researcher announced a uh center for um minority leaders or something and she quoted um she was quoted as saying that there was there's never been a leadership institution for pipelines for hbcu's and that was particularly troubling yeah you actually wrote a piece for the digest about that to say well let me give you about four of them and I'm not going to even mention health right and when I wrote an article I didn't even mention health because there was no reason to even um think it as if it were about me and the work that we were doing because we are peons with respects to what Edison or Jackson has done 15 presidents he's made harvey out as 10 plus um northy yancy jimmy jink is hayward strickland like you power martin like you can go on and on about individuals who have done work themselves now let's talk about what hampton did with a presidential leadership institute let's talk about what nastio did so those things for me being a researcher at a conigy one designated research institution or however they say that a simple google query not google scholar a simple google query uh hbcu leadership would have popped up a litany of stuff so for people to feel that comfortable to say that there has never been one of these suggest two things either you have no regard for the work that we've done but you don't even give a damn that we might call you out on it and it is not factual information now fast forward what is troubling for me is not what she did that there's issue there but the response of the institutions that that to me has been the most unsettling and again i'm not trying to take any food from anybody uh any money out of anybody's pocket i just want people to really understand these instances should be about teaching us and reminding us about how marginalized we are and how seemingly powerless we are and how voiceless we are because i can assure you the little bit of money that i'm paid at widely i'd be willing to bet if the shoe were on the other foot not only would this be a dead issue it would be a dead issue because said individual would be a non-employee i mean it's just plain and simple and so from there what you gather from there and the stories like i i didn't read the stuff but i heard you've been in enough spaces and places um that people had a ton of respect for her and some still do um and they felt like that was their entree what she had was their entree and higher education and to publishing and and all these things and so you know i think we have to be um you know vocal in ways that don't really put us in this position where we're going after a person i think the collateral damage from me is enough for us to talk about and and what also troubles me is that um the name proctor is is something that he's in the stratosphere of his own he's on the samuel proctor jail ruckus yeah Samuel the wet proctor isn't a completely different stratosphere there this brother was magnanimous in politics in higher education in activism and in religion like he was par excellent in all those spaces and most us mere mortals are happy to to have impact in just one area this brother was bad in four different areas and the Jeremiah Wrights the Calvin butts the Matthew Wadley the administrators in higher education the students who benefited from work study which he advocated for and testified for um trio programs like all the stuff that he did is still impacting us to this day so to have a person who is blemished or who has been accused of doing things that are counter to who he was me i took you know a little bit issue there as well so you know for me it just says in a lot of different ways the value of black and brown um it says uh it it amplifies uh the fact that we have no voice or our voice doesn't necessarily matter and folks are happy that it was a two or three day um type story and and keep the party moving i mean that's what those institutions were banking on i'm certain um she's happy that you know the wind has blown over but i think we have to be vigilant about this space man we have to be vigilant about this space it might be being quiet it might be yelling about rosalind at this point but they i don't think a lot of people haven't forgotten that and then and then we'll come a time when a report comes out or something happens and this will cycle back so certainly you know our our sector maybe quiet sometimes we don't forget easily um let's cycle that to health um now you guys have had several cohorts um of the of the training uh initiative um that has given extraordinary uh space and platform for presidents to get together and talk for vps to get together and talk um and for other high-level administrators to learn from each other and um really draw on wisdom from this sector and it's very different from places like case and ask you um even ml i which is a good one um you know under charlie nylms and mary syas um but but what's very different is you don't you you this is almost hbcu exclusive and all of the pitfalls and all of the all the triumphs that you know presidents could share and people and administrators could share happen here at health and health has produced some presidents over recent years so it's well on its way to if not already being our premier um training training ground for hbcu presidents now when you look around higher education which is getting a lot of attention um ncda is changing and athletes resources are changing we're also seeing hallelujah issues issues about uh recruitment um and how students get into college how parents can buy their the students weigh into college what what do you do with health when you see with health when you see higher education as an industry changing so quickly and you know that for hbcu this is going to have dramatic repercussions what does that do for the founders for you and george french um and other folks and melvin everybody who helps to shape this program how do you digest all these changes and say now this is what the next cohort is going to need to know man um thank you for the plug brother we uh it's exhaustive right because every day uh several times a day there there are things policies um scandals that are impacting uh the way in which we should be leading um you mentioned ml i ask you case all those places c i c all those places are great um harvard even harvard but i found myself wanting and needing something or right i need i need the best practices but i also need um the duct tape approach um and and i don't mean that we're different and deficient i things just hit a little different at these hbcu they you know we we're servicing a populace that is different in our boards um they govern differently and so people who are coming up and you know this is probably tough to hear but we're we're patriarchal with with respects to the presidency right it's almost i mean you're kind of treated like the pastor um and so if you don't understand the rules you can hurt yourself before you get an opportunity to change and so we're we're really about freshening up things and giving people a look behind the curtain but we also really want to talk about um what it means to be in this space right this is a privilege to be serving at an hbcu because of the mission the way in which these places were founded here like i you can't take lightly hovering around these campuses are nothing but ancestors and the clouds that are whispering and carrying these institutions because there's a whole bunch of dumb stuff that goes on not only at these institutions but others and you think to yourself like how do these places continue to make it it's the ancestors right um but but health is really about strengthening the pipeline and when we started it it was about okay where do we find a place to coalesce around this idea that we're brilliant our institutions are brilliant we want to reverse the brain drain and we want to we want to help people who are committed to being in this space understand that they'll this place will will challenge you and those challenges won't be any different if you fight and go to a pwi right because people are running the institutions so it's not the institutions that are problems it's the people who are doing that and i submit to folk that people are the same everywhere they they might do it a little sneakier they might do it a little more grommier they might be a little more outspoken but at the end of the day lazy people are everywhere and conniving people are everywhere and and by the same token excellent people are everywhere as well we believe that the solution to the challenges in the network the network being hbcu's are right here in the hbcu space we have took a lot of flak about being hbcu century and we don't care like we're not about making money for health we're not trying to monetize health we are seriously about making sure that there's a pipeline that continues to recycle itself and i don't mean bad actors or whatever but just a you know a recycling of fresh um highly skilled transformational leaders from one place to another you leave wily and you go be great at morgan you leave morgan and you go be great at howard uh etc um so the idea is to strengthen the pipeline one number two um we have we've had to recalibrate health um and it is amazing i remember the first time we did health there we had like nine people who um who signed up and paid to come and then we gave out like 16 scholarships because people were like oh that's a black little thing is it health is it health is it is it home like what what is it you know what what what do we what do we come into and um and so i'll never forget by the time the first day alpha cohort left we had almost 30 applications waiting for the beta cohort and we are so um so grateful now that the word of mouth precedes us our reputation precedes us and that we we really don't even like like right now for the capital or we open up the application portal for a month and we've got almost 100 applications of 107 i think it was um for 35 slides and it's just growing but what we've learned there is that we had to split up and take it from just a leadership institute with um without bifurcating to bifurcating so we now have the senior folks the vice presidents and above um chief of staffs and provosts while they're at the same institute we expose them to folks who will help them with that next step and the avp's etc they just go through the regular track which is good with the eye on that next step as well but more so on being great what you're at because i believe the the quickest way to get to where you want to go is to be excellent where you are and you'll get where you want to go really quickly if you keep head down and be great but so we did that the other thing that we had um to recognize so we were getting a lot of applications from people who would just start in their careers and so in january um we're going to be announcing something big that um we think will help us um really shore up the pipeline from the beginning of the pipeline to the end of the pipeline um and that's it i might as well tell you now it's it's going to be an institute for um individuals who are directors and below and and yeah and and and we're that will be called emerge and i think charlotte is where it's going to be um but what we're going to do is simply take the simple notion that when freshman come into um to to to morgan state your alma mater um they're advised they get freshmen their first year experience they are guided through that first year right think about the amount of people who come to hbcu's and the low level management mid-level management space who get no guidance they show up and they tell you here's your job and you're going to do the job you're not indoctrinated into the culture you don't know what to expect you're not told that you know things um they the quorum um how to really grasp the culture how to motivate people to get them to understand if they are in the right place you came in and financial aid but you really should be in student affairs or you know you came in as a recruiter but you should be an advancement help them raise money like we are going to put together an institute that really speaks to professional development for people who are really not even thought about and when we did a study at our own institutions and looked at the turnover most of our turnovers from individuals who've been at our institutions from zero to five years oh yeah constant oh yeah and from people who love the sector who wanted to be there and got absolutely dissuaded by oh my god is this what i read into yeah that's right that's right and so we thought like okay we're talking about the pipeline but we're just talking about the front end of the pipeline we need to address the entire pipeline and i had this sister erica mccray who is um a brilliant sister down at the university of florida she's a um a specialist in higher education i mean um special education and she was helping us with the mission statement for health and she said your mission statement has to be so bold that people think you're crazy and our mission statement is to be the preeminent leadership institute in america that focuses on hbcu's i don't have not one problem with a pwi i went to university for the law school i'm actually at southern methodus university now getting the masses and theology i have a problem with those institutions but they have everything that they need and more my lot on this earth is about hbcu's so i think i have to do my part to make sure that the best and the brightest stay home that they are attracted to where we are and that we help people find agency um while they're while they're practicing their vocation that's our that's our responsibility jared yours too and everybody else who's around here talking about they love hbcu's you love them your job is to make sure that they're around this peace forever right because one of them dies um it hurts all of us it does so so in a nutshell health is a leadership institute five of us have been through health have went on to become presidents we have health by the numbers on our website over 30 folks have risen to the vice presidency um and up to the provost like the beautiful thing about it bro is like it's tribalism now at a cool in a cool way we started out folks the alpha the baby cohort we get somewhere around i think the iota know the eta the eta cohort called themselves the greater eta so they now have a lot and we were going through the pinning ceremony there this is crazy we're going through the pinning ceremony they're like oh no we got to get a lot done like you got a who's number one who's number two these folks were shocking it is hilarious y'all went for y'all went full greek y'all went pledging on them we went pledging on their own self right so it's greater eta then more better theta came out um with and then you got the iconic iota i mean these people like it is so beautiful to watch strangers come into a cohort model and the reason why we only do so many is because we think it is so important for people to have that organic process we have people who are being mentored by presidents now and they do it on their own i'm not assigning a mentor to you that's that's hogwash so fine because you might get you might get with me and i am i'm straight no chaser i'm going to tell you not it is not time for you to be a president right now you think it is but it's not that time if you can't handle that i'm not the right mentor for you i'm not the right sponsor for you right so those things we believe have to happen organically but man let me tell you some these cohort members are employing each other they're bringing each other in um to conduct training for them because there's so many brilliant brothers and sisters in this space man that again the challenges can be met with the solutions right here in the network and we're we're creating you know practitioners and and folks who are um really serious about doing the work and these uh communities of practice are just the folks who are excellent um and so health has really did things that we never thought it would do and we've got to now take it out of the garage and put it in brick and mortars you know we've been running this bug like sunday at nine o'clock we get together me melvin turner who's the chancellor that i'm the vice chancellor at southern university tree port greg d the young brother who has been with me personally from living stone to will before us now at wiley president france down at clark atlanta and president pinkard who is at will before us we get together on a sunday night at nine o'clock we don't interfere with our day jobs we do this work at night job bro and uh we're very passionate about it and committed about it and um we're getting ready to announce a partnership that uh we're finalizing um in any day now um we should be able to go public with it but it's it's going to give us um agency again to really put a stake in the ground and make claim to um to folk that uh training for hbcu's is in good hands uh with us and our new partner let's round out the the conversation with how that kind of training and that kind of camaraderie and coalition manifests on campus right so in the i don't think it's off putting to say the brief tenure at at wiley um you've already done something dramatic this is something that a lot of schools are are examining how to do some of them and launched it uh uh doctor artist at benedict and uh chris brown at kentucky state which is lowering tuition um and for the lay person it would seem counterproductive like right okay we you're going to reduce the cost and that makes sense but how does the school stay open and this is something that you've launched through the wiley cares initiative which doesn't just stop at college affordability and access but it really speaks to retention and continuation or matriculation and how do you really make the most of the collegiate experience at wiley college talk a little bit about wiley cares and how that was developed and what it takes for a leadership infrastructure to do something like that bored and all you know um if you are to pay attention if you say you are paying attention to um the students that you serve then it would be injurious to the institution and the student for us to have um things like hunger after seven o'clock you know our calf clothes is uh we're in a small town and these kids don't have transportation um and you know life is starting at seven o'clock right um so these kids are you know having a completely different day after the seven o'clock hour and now they're trying to figure out what do they eat at so we recognize that not just at wiley but all across america hunger is a problem on college campuses at harvard at at duke at u n c chapel hill and at our hbc use it's you know it's you can pick it up in the chronicle and see it every day so we wanted to address that micro grants we thought about micro loans and we thought well they can't be loans because they don't have money to pay back so are we going to be to a predatory lender and it's hard kids you know it's just right i want a little fifty dollar hundred dollar loans right but kids need um toiletries and they need to be able to wash their clothes um the wash aspect of it is free but detergent is not right so our wash and dryers are free but we have kids who don't have resources uh and and i don't want a broad brush broad brush um our campus these aren't all of them but all of our kids matter so we have to address all of them so we're we're going to be giving out starting in january micro grants that allow kids to you know get a hundred dollars where they demonstrate need um that will help them uh get through i was talking to a kid at dillard who had seventy five dollars they get seventy five dollars on their meal card to buy food extra food in the evening and she was like i still have fifty five dollars i i can make that last the whole semester like i i have my meals and then i have seventy five dollars to go in the bookstore or do this or do that and that put me in a great space of knowing that it doesn't take a lot hundred dollars yeah yeah that that that can stretch um the wise one second stretching for a while so we we have to do that so you have food pantry micro grants to help people uh have some dignity about themselves and and then we we lower tuition so we looked at the data and for us a student from the state of texas who is pale dependent not pale eligible because they're going to take it they they are pale dependent and they get texas money the maximum amount for a freshman is sixteen thousand six hundred dollars with the efc of zero expected family contribution of zero so that means we cannot expect a penny not one great iota to come from their family to help them finance their their education our tuition was twenty one thousand so what we were seeing was this crippling effect of contributing to the crushing debt that students have but more importantly you get through your first semester you got to come back and clear business of finance and we expect you to have four thousand dollars well kind of don't have that so now you have this balance that keeps building up and you pay a little bit off here you pay a little bit off there but you get down to graduation and you've you got twelve to fifteen thousand dollars that you owe the college as well as whatever debt you may have fifteen twenty thousand that you owe the department of education and that's not to mention the penalties that the department of education levies against the school for quote unquote not collecting balances that's the part nobody is very much thank you very much right because your audit the age and accounts receivables will kill you right it will crush you and you carry bad debt just as if you were in your personal space carry bad debt you won't be able to get you know any any decent financing right so it really is about doing our part to crush to eliminate the crushing debt and then the other thing that we're doing is we have this these two other things rather reclamation we are looking at students we had 368 people who left us between 18 and 19 17 18 18 19 who stopped out because of finances and so what we're saying to them since for one year we had to write off all the debt is you can come back to college if you are still an aid available financial aid we will hold that debt and we will liquidate that debt at the end of your career provided you come back to Wiley and graduate so in other words if you dropped out and you got $13,000 we'll let you back in you shouldn't amass that kind of debt anymore because the tuition is lower you should be able to you know meet the need still have some skin in the game the delta between tuition and what they can get is about $900 so we still want you to have some some skin in the game and figure out how you can do how you can close that gap but that gap won't be as it won't be $4,500 every semester so so so you come back you graduate we take that $13,000 and forgive it that's our way of giving people an opportunity to get out of the vicious cycle that we find ourselves in when we don't have the agency of education behind us when we walk into doors and how we can help create stoppage of the vicious cycle as well because most of our students are first generation and then the last thing we're doing is allowing some of our kids they want to work off that debt and so places like physical plan and public safety not work study but giving them an opportunity to make you know eight to ten bucks an hour to come and help do some of the things that would free up our security officers to go do things like go check the dorms or the buildings and classrooms spaces to make sure that a lot or drive a golf cart and give a young lady a ride from one end of the campus to the other you know what I mean things like that giving them an opportunity to work off that debt as well so we're thinking of creative ways to help solve the problem but our kids are screaming in the nation our kids are no different from the nation but this debt makes kids wonder whether or not it's worth it and I submit to anybody across the nation a liberal arts education is well worth the investment you have to reframe the narrative it's not debt it's an investment itself but it's well worth it and it puts you in places simply because you have that ticket that checkboxed allows you to be in the conversation for so many things than if you did not have it and so for that alone I find it to be well worth it and not to mention that you know on average a high school graduate makes a million dollars less over their life than a person who has a policy fantastic stuff bro as as as usual man we appreciate the time before we get out of here please please please plug the the website for health let folks know about the next cycle of applications and where folks can can download and subscribe to the four thoughts of our founders podcast my man thank you Jared first let me let me just say that I appreciate the passion and the advocacy that you deploy and and a lot of times folk may not feel it may not be comfortable to hear what you have to say but you know our our space is not free from criticism but we just have to make sure that we are all it's clear that everybody wants everybody to win so I appreciate your advocacy and both your your keen eye on on what you feel things that should happen and shouldn't happen so I I appreciate that health our website is he leaders he led er s.org our next institute close your ears when you hear this brother but the capitol horse I knew you took too much pride in that one but you know where you started we appreciate the blueprint brother we appreciate that oh rather as one of my helpies would say we appreciate the rough draft don't forget I put y'all pitch up man it was not too long ago I said our camp was our camp was taking all the presidencies and the alpha's got mad at me but you got it you got to tell the truth this dude is so many of y'all man I Roger's mother is you know always let folks know but it is man it might be 15 or 20 alpha presidents man you got this you got to give the credit where it's due to campus I mean I do you know the cues the cues are still short but the cap I mean the cap is a doing a thing I mean you can't you can't you can't really deny it I mean these little brothers yo yeah you know yeah we are we are but the capitol horse will be in December December 12th through the 15th at Wiley College at my college and so I'm really happy about that and the next institute will be in June and we're talking up between Virginia Union and Charlotte so we're not quite sure but we will know in December where the location is but the website and the application will be open the first day of the capitol horde which will be December 12th so again www.atleaders.org and yeah that's that's where it is there man I appreciate the platform and I appreciate you giving me a an opportunity to come and just kick it with you man this is fun and you can find us our podcast on Apple add for thoughts of our founders