Transformation Collaborative: Wallace Pond and Tony Bieda for February 2, 2024

Gary (00:02.506)
Welcome to a special episode of This Week in College Viability. We're going to be talking with a couple of gentlemen who lead the Transformation Collaborative in this special episode. And let me start off by introducing our two guests, Wallace Pond. Wallace, thanks for joining me today.

Wallace (00:18.302)
Thank you, appreciate it.

Gary (00:19.75)
And Tony Bida, thanks again also for joining us. Wallace, if you would, to get things started off, tell us a little bit about what you do for the Transformation Collaborative and what it's all about.

Wallace (00:29.278)
Thanks, Gary. Appreciate the opportunity. So Tony and I were part of a larger group a couple of years ago. A few years ago now, maybe, Tony. Time flies when you're having fun, right? Where we began kind of noodling on, if we were to kind of rethink the whole consultancy model itself, plus rethink kind of how we bring value in the higher education space, what would that look like?

Anthony bieda (00:42.175)
Absolutely.

Wallace (00:58.034)
And that conversation lasted nine months, 12 months. Kind of people came in and out of it. It was a really interesting, fun kind of conversation to have. And what came out of that at the back end was Transformation Collaborative. And I guess what I would say just quickly, two things that are emblematic of that idea of how would we do it differently given the opportunity.

On the consultancy side, we don't even refer to ourselves as consultants at the Transformation Collaborative. The traditional consultancy model is often not particularly valuable to the consumer. There is rarely accountability for outcomes on the part of consultants. There's rarely involvement in execution. The typical model is kind of.

throw the report over the wall or hear the suggestions, then move on to the next client. Whereas our goal was to really actually support the client to expand their bandwidth, to be what we call embedded partners, to help them do things they could not do on their own. And so that was what was quite different on that side. And then the other side was, through those conversations, it became very clear to those of us who were involved that...

You know, we've gotten to a place, and this is not just for higher education, I think this is broadly speaking, but particularly in higher ed, where the dinking and dunking around the edges, the incremental stuff just isn't adequate. There's a very small slice of higher education that can continue to do what they've always done, and they can, but it's a small slice. Almost everybody else, if they wanna thrive, not just survive, but thrive and be relevant,

they're going to have to reinvent elements of what they do. The market has changed, demographics have changed so dramatically that the incremental stuff just isn't typically adequate. And so that's where the transformation collaborative comes in. The way we cheekily refer to it is, we're the able and willing and able. Because even institutions that are willing aren't often able. And so that's kind of where we come in.

Anthony bieda (03:17.191)
And I would add that Gary's a...

Gary (03:17.418)
And Tony, yeah, go ahead. Tony, talk about your role with the collaborative.

Anthony bieda (03:22.131)
Well, I would add to it to Wallace's very adequate and accurate um, remonstrance, how, how we formed, why we formed and what we're up to. A very important thing that he left out and that is the context of pre pandemic, pandemic and post pandemic. And so when we launched this transformation collaborative two, two and a half, three years ago,

One of the first conversations we had outside of our small circle of affiliates and professional friends and colleagues was with someone very well placed high up in higher education media. At that point, we said, you know, we think we have something to add here. We want to talk to you about the assumption that post pandemic that this was tectonic shift in the sector.

and that there will be very direct and noticeable implications for that among higher education institutions, small, medium, and large, in the very near future. And he came back to us and said, I think you're crazy. I think that these will be small little shockwaves that will go away pretty quickly. And just like always, higher education.

We'll find a way to adapt to these changes at the margin. And there is no big change coming. So we were marginalized right then. That hasn't taken the energy out of our initiative.

Wallace (04:55.035)
I'm sorry.

Wallace (05:03.45)
I'm so glad you shared that anecdote, Tony, because I do very well remember that conversation. And I remember just sitting there kind of, wow. It is.

Gary (05:17.61)
Now, marginalized right off the bat, right? That can't be a good thing. Well, Tony, I want to start with the first question for you. And this is kind of the home run question. I'm not saving the big question for the end of our podcast. I'm going to lead with it up front. I'm going to your website. And it states that the transformation collaborative believes that post-secondary education college is a critical element for social mobility and equity. And then you go on with a longer paragraph that starts with, unfortunately,

Wallace (05:19.999)
Yeah.

Gary (05:42.882)
Higher education is currently facing the greatest challenges in a century's long history. And it's the financial, it's the operational, it's the cultural, it's all those challenges mixed together. So Tony, here's the home run question. In your mind, and then Wallace will follow up with you, what happens, what happens to higher education in the United States if massive consolidations and closures do occur in the next one to five years, something like that?

Anthony bieda (06:11.503)
Well, of course, the obvious answer or the conspicuous answer that is derived from what has happened in other sectors, airlines, financial, real estate, et cetera, even pharmaceutical, is that there will be fewer options, that the large will become larger, that the entrenched will become deeper entrenched if they have the resources.

Anthony bieda (06:40.739)
of a program, choice of institution, choice of pedagogy, choice of instructional modality and choice of time, date, and when you can receive instruction, all of those will suffer. And it will only be the only innovation that will remain will largely be from innovators who among other things have not relied heavily on Title IV to fund.

their operations, but for the embedded Title IV incumbents, those that have will get more, those that have been at the margins will blink out of existence and probably nobody, at least initially, will even notice, and that's too bad.

Gary (07:29.274)
And Wallace, again, same question is, what happens? What happens if I'm right? Because you know my predictions that there will be those closures. What happens if I'm right?

Wallace (07:34.652)
Right.

Wallace (07:38.362)
Well, it's sort of happening already in the sense that if you look over the last 10, 15 years and you say, where has there been growth and where has there been contraction, if you go back to 2010, the lion's share, the substantial majority of all the growth that has happened in higher ed has happened in less than 10 institutions. So you're already seeing that shift. And I think Tony's right.

you know, there will be that consolidation does tend to result in less choice. But it also that growth in that consolidation is happening in institutions that don't look a lot like or behave a lot like what we think of as traditional higher education. So, you know, the idea of the four year, you know, out in the countryside.

private liberal arts education, it's still gonna be there. It's just gonna be a smaller and smaller component of the overall picture. And you're gonna see more and more students in institutions that are market driven, mass market, high efficiency operations. And I'm not even making a judgment, is that good or bad? It's just like Tony was saying.

market forces have finally, finally after three or four centuries come to higher education.

Gary (09:12.522)
And Wallace, I'm going to go back with you with the next question. And one of the most entertaining and creative book titles I've ever seen came out last December from Brian Rosenberg, who was the president of Macalester College. And the title of the book was, Whatever It Is, I'm Against It. I wish I had thought of that because that's a great book title. And the book suggests among many things and documents the fact that faculty are an eternal challenge.

for colleges that want to do any kind of changes to their business model. And I have shared with many, many times, that a change in a college business process, minor or major, will almost always, really always, result in some kind of faculty protest. And I think this year we're already at two no-confidence votes in colleges across the country. So while as a faculty can't adapt, don't adapt, can the higher education industry be reasonably expected?

to adjust to changing market conditions?

Wallace (10:11.91)
So, interesting question. And I will take a slightly different tact in my answer. That's okay with you, Gary. So, at a high level, kind of short answer is, historically, and Brian, I've seen a lot of his work. I think his sort of cheeky title, actually there's some...

history in that. He didn't make pull out of the sky, right? There has historically been this perception, and I think often reality, that faculty can be intransigent, you know, when it comes to advocating or protecting the status quo, turf, etc. However, I think one of the things that's happening, and it started happening, gosh, 15, 20 years ago,

I think faculty are being marginalized as it is when it comes to governance, policy, power, politics. I think most people believe that when we started this major shift to contingent faculty, adjunct faculty, that it was about money, and it was certainly a lot about money. Contingent faculty are a lot cheaper, but they also don't have any political power. They're not on committees. They don't have tenure. They're not full time.

They're easy to manipulate. They tend to have, they tend not to be able to have any negotiating power for employment, let alone for policy or governance. So I think the answer to your question is yes. In some ways, or let me rephrase that, it will be difficult for some institutions to innovate, to evolve in the face of intransigent faculty.

But the number of institutions for which that will remain an issue is shrinking. Because the number of institutions that can afford and have majority tenure track, full-time faculty is shrinking. And if you look at institutions I was talking about where the growth is, those institutions have very different governance and faculty models and are less constrained.

Gary (12:36.958)
And Tony, I know you have the same question. I think you know what you sent me. You had some issues with the governance model as well. What are your thoughts on faculty and the role of change in our market?

Anthony bieda (12:48.503)
Well, I think everything that Wallace said is true. And I think it is a fair assumption that if it's not the faculty or the faculty senate that is slamming on the brakes for any kind of transformation, let alone change at the margins in a given institution, it'll be the staff or it'll be different parts of the workforce that may be unionized. And that's just has to be accepted as a given. The question is, how do you,

manage that? How do you take that into consideration as you engage in a project of transformation? And my thoughts are that in most cases, at least 50% of the time, if not more, with a little bit of outreach, and again, I'm being Pollyanna here, but a little bit of outreach, a little bit of engagement with faculty, you can get the faculty to move along far enough to give you some concessions

as a leader in order to move the institution forward. I believe in most cases what is really putting on the brakes, the operative barrier to transformation is the lack of imagination, the lack of initiative, the lack of quality of leadership, that the leadership doesn't have the capability to reach out to an intransigent faculty and say, here are the facts. Here's what's staring us in the face in terms of existential threats.

We do not at leadership level have it all figured out. We need you to help us figure it out, come up with a solution, a transformation plan, and implement it. That is the kind of conversation that I don't believe happens very often in these institutions.

Gary (14:33.954)
Interesting, interesting response. Tony, I'm gonna go back to you and it's kind of a quick assessment and my perspective and I'm watching out for this kind of trend with everybody that I talked to. In your mind, is there any reason to believe or are you guys seeing at Transformation Collaborative that maybe we've already entered a period when families might be deciding in more significant numbers to go to the safety of a public college?

versus the more riskier financial choice of a private college.

Anthony bieda (15:07.859)
Yes, I believe that's true. I don't know how strong that trend is. I think what you've just described, the potential migration from small private liberal arts colleges and universities to public universities, I think is more reflective of the fact that the public universities have a lot more resources to lower the price of admission.

price of enrollment compared to the private nonprofits. However, I think again, a more sophisticated look at the trend says, if you believe as they often do in Washington DC, and I have nothing against those people, they're doing the best they can. If you often believe that the solution to the problem, if the problem is lack of participation in higher ed, I think is the...

800 pound elephant or gorilla in the room, the demand for participation in higher ed is the solution, lowering cost barriers. Of course, in DC, the answer is yes, because number one, there's great energy, not necessarily bipartisan, but great energy to forgive student indebtedness. And number two, there's also great energy that's actually produced policies in certain states for free community colleges.

So if you have the choice between saddling yourself or your parents with 50 or $100,000 to go to the first two or three years of private college versus going to free, for free to a local community college and getting the first two years of your bachelor's degree, then it must be simple that a lot of these students will simply choose option B. The reality, however, is that that's not the case because...

The problem is not just the price. It is the deeper issue, which is what is the price value proposition. In Tennessee, they've had free community college for five to six years. And some of those community colleges are still dying on the vine, trying to attract enrollment. They can't give it away. That there is a growth in the relationship between the perceived value

Wallace (17:25.773)
Hahaha

Anthony bieda (17:32.331)
and the price is being charged. Universities in general do a lousy job and don't try to do a good job explaining the value of what they offer. Instead, they hang it all on their brand identity, right? And the prestige. Well, guess what? For baby boomers, we were suckers for that stuff. Subsequent generations are like, what the heck you talking about? We don't care. And therefore, the willingness to go through, and it's not, again,

It's the price value proposition and the price is not just financial. It includes the emotional investment, includes the temporal investment, includes the spiritual investment as well as intellectual investment. If those things don't all click, the prospective student says, I think I'm going to pass. Thank you very much.

Gary (18:19.862)
And Wallace, are you seeing or hearing or making any observations of your own of a trend, more of a trend toward Publix?

Wallace (18:25.73)
Yeah, so I really appreciate Tony's answer. He's often more eloquent than I am. But I would say, yeah, so there is a trend to safer, particularly flagship, because regional publics are struggling too. If you have Eastern or Northern in your name or whatever, or Polly something in your name.

those institutions are really struggling and seeing pretty substantial enrollment declines too. So it's not just any public where students are moving. But I think the broader trend that is sort of the high level, where is this whole post-secondary education ecosystem going trend is the trend away from credit bearing degree granting.

Gary (19:05.87)
That's a good point. That's a really good point.

Wallace (19:24.45)
If you look at where the growth is in post-secondary, outside of those handful of institutions I talked about, because overall enrollment's down substantially across all of higher education. But if you look at post-secondary, which is non-credit vocational training, and there's a huge number of providers and different kinds of providers for that, that's actually growing substantially.

And to Tony's point, you have now a couple of generations, millennials and zeers, who've said, wow, that makes a lot more sense. The ROI for me doing six months in an AWS bootcamp is substantially greater than me doing three or four years, five years and incurring huge debt in another option. So I think that's the bigger trend.

is towards post-secondary that isn't necessarily tied to credit or degree and certainly isn't funded by Title IV.

Gary (20:30.734)
So one of the comments that I share regularly is that higher education is in the midst of a classic supply and demand problem. And I make the case, and I'm going to ask you if I'm right or wrong here, and feel free to go either way. I don't think in my mind, because of that basic supply and demand, too many college seats, not enough students willing to pay for them in whatever form or fashion. I don't think there's any amount of programmatic changes that colleges can make

Gary (21:00.718)
alter that basic economic fact. Am I right or am I wrong?

Wallace (21:04.798)
No, I think you're absolutely right. There's no question. I mean, it's just simple math. There is absolutely more supply than demand. And that's why you see downsizing mergers, closures. There just aren't enough students who will pay what institutions have to charge to keep all of the institutions. It's very similar to what we saw 10, 15 years ago with face-to-face retail.

there just weren't enough customers that would go to stores to support that traditional retail model. Retail has exploded, retail continue to grow. It's just no longer people traipsing to stores. So, you know, what's happening with higher education is twofold. Clearly there's a demographic at play and it's not gonna get better for at least

Anthony bieda (21:48.163)
work.

Wallace (22:03.514)
a couple of decades because, you know, what Andrew Carnivale once said is, you can never enroll a student who wasn't born. And that's true. And that's not going to be any different for at least 20 years. And there's no reason to believe it's going to be better than. But the second issue, Gary, with supply and demand is that the demand is shifting out of traditional post-secondary.

Gary (22:13.259)
Ha ha ha.

Wallace (22:32.438)
and into other type or higher education and into other types of post-secondary training. So it's not just demographic, it's also market forces.

Gary (22:42.602)
And Tony, I so rarely hear people say I'm right. So Wallace, thank you. Am I right or am I wrong? It's just a market factor that tweaking on the edges isn't gonna change it.

Anthony bieda (22:53.935)
Well, your analysis is absolutely accurate as it relates to a specific demographic profile. And that specific demographic profile is one upon which traditional higher education, including the publics in the United States, have built their reputation and built their enrollment demand in the past. That demographic, which is primarily based on

affluent kids from the suburbs is demographically shrinking and that demographic trend is not going to change, as Wallace says, for probably another decade or two. However, if the profile of who these colleges and universities can serve becomes much more diverse, and I'm not talking just about DEI here, I'm talking about lower economic, I'm

certificate and diploma programs at the front rather than an associate degree or we don't want you or a bachelor's degree or we don't want you. I'm talking about those kinds of demographic factors and of course that doesn't even begin to mention the international demand, the international demand for any kind of post-secondary secondary education in the United States is still through the roof. And how

universities and colleges and career schools are willing to pivot and take advantage of that face on. And the profound implications it has for their current structure, their cost structure, their management structure, the type of faculty. Again, we go back to the faculty issue for all we know, for all I know, there are excellent scholars.

20-somethings, 30-somethings, even 40-somethings out there today who would make excellent faculty at universities and colleges and want nothing to do with the tenure track position. They're sitting out because it's not their cup of tea. And the universities don't know how to attract that talent because that's the only model they've ever done. That's how profound the change has to be.

Gary (25:13.454)
So we've got about five minutes left in our time together. I'm going to go with just one more question, and it's going to give you the chance to paint the picture. So Tony, I'm going to start with you. And take two minutes, something like that. You probably need 20, but take two. Share your perspective, your unique perspective based on your experiences and background on where higher education is in the next two years, five years, something like that. And then, Wallace, I'll let you wrap it up with that same question.

Anthony bieda (25:40.183)
Well, my background is mostly in public policy, so I'll just stick to that right now. And I do believe the Higher Education Act is due for reauthorization. Well, it's way overdue. It hasn't been substantially altered in 15, 16 years. And it is the primary basis for the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars a year in title for money. Plus, it is also the basis for the accreditation, the quality assurance of all traditional higher ed.

I believe with the brutal scandals that have beset not only career education, but more recently and much more high profile, traditional higher education, think about the enrollment scandal, the recruitment scandal, all the things with college presidents in front of Capitol Hill on the DEI question and the controversy in the Middle East, all of that stuff. When the Higher Education Act goes through reauthorization in the next two to four years,

All of that is going to be on the table and I think it will produce a great deal of chaos, but it will also produce a great deal of demand for fundamental transformational change.

Gary (26:49.742)
So let's look ahead first to 2026, two years out, and then maybe to 2030. Paint the picture of where Higher Ed is from your personal perspective.

Wallace (26:52.735)
Hmm.

Wallace (26:58.95)
Yeah, so first of all, I appreciate Tony's answer. And I think it's probably fairly accurate on the political front. I think it's gonna be, use the word chaos. I can think of some vernacular that would be inappropriate for the podcast. So a couple of thoughts.

Gary (27:18.428)
Ha ha.

Wallace (27:28.398)
I think we're going to see a deepening bifurcation between winners and losers. There are institutions that are figuring out, figuring it out and those that are not. And so I think you're going to see a continuing bifurcation between institutions. And I'm not talking about exclusivity. That's kind of baked in for the for the near future. If you are a what we call an Ivy Plus, you aren't going anywhere. You don't have to do a hell of a lot different. That's a really rarefied error. And

that can, you can do whatever you want. Outside of that, kind of in the three quarters of higher ed that's competitive, that's not really exclusive at any meaningful level, I think you're gonna see one, a bifurcation between winners and losers. I think what you're also gonna see is a shift to more non-credit, non-degree offerings in higher education, as some institutions sort of figure that out and say,

That's how we can address, that's how we can deal with the market shift. And I think a third thing we're going to see, and this is really, really interesting to me, this third thing that I think we're going to see is, I think the regional publics are actually in much worse shape than the public recognizes.

Tony and I have been peeling back some data on some key institutions. And some of the numbers are, they're not fake, but they're inflated, they're misrepresented in the sense that you have institutions whose enrollment decline is actually worse than it looks in terms of revenue per student, or the...

or if they have enrollment growth, it's a bit misleading. There's one institution we've been working with lately and they're rolling in things like dual enrollment, high school students, non-credit partnerships. Those are all great things for the schools to do. It's just their business model, their overhead is built on an 18 to 24 year old paying full freight.

Wallace (29:53.598)
They aren't adjusting the business model or the overhead, and they're reporting students who are delivering a fraction of the revenue that a traditional student would. So I think you're gonna see greater pressure on the kind of second tier, third tier, mid tier, whatever you wanna call them, regionals. And I think that's gonna be, speaking of political chaos, there's no mechanism, Gary, for what you do with a failed public. Like...

statutorily, you know, politically, how do you deal with institutions? There's no mechanism for sunsetting those schools. And then so what do you do?

Gary (30:38.658)
Well, gentlemen, just briefly, the media focus on enrollment, I think, has been a disservice for the reasons you just talked about, Wallace, because there's so much more to the private and public colleges' financial health besides how they count students. And I try and make that point all the time. But we're coming in. So Wallace, I appreciate your time, guidance, and expertise. Tony, the same thing. Thanks for taking some time to join us today. This has been a special episode of This Week in College Viability. My guests have been Wallace Bond.

Wallace (30:44.947)
Yeah.

Anthony bieda (30:52.655)
When you do this one.

Gary (31:05.834)
and Tony Bida from the Transformation Collaborative. Gentlemen, I wish you the best, and we'll be back with our regular This Week in College Viability podcast each and every Monday. My name is Gary Stocker.