Education
Why a University Proactively Sought a Merger
In this episode of Future You, Gannon University's President Walter I. Winakko, Jr. discusses the institution's proactive decision to seek a merger with Ursuline College in Ohio amidst decli...
Why a University Proactively Sought a Merger
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Interactive Transcript
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So now I'm coming into this position saying, okay, we got the cliff, right?
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We, everybody's, everybody's, meaning the enrollment cliff, right?
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We're seeing it.
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We're seeing drop in domestic enrollment.
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We're seeing drops in, in the students deciding to go to college or university.
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The data is out there.
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We're seeing, since 2018, although we had increases in international students,
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we were seeing a drop in domestic freshmen every year and said,
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we've got to do something differently.
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Got the team together.
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We said, look, let's look at a merger acquisition partnership strategy.
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I was the president of Ganty University talking about his institution's decision
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to look for a merger.
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We'll cover that decision making process.
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And they're ongoing work to merge with the college in Ohio.
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That's ahead on this episode of Future You.
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I'm Jeff Solingo.
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And I'm Michael Horn.
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Topic Jeff, we keep coming back to on Future You is mergers and acquisitions.
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And we do it not just because it can be a dramatic event for college and its surrounding
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community, its alums and so forth.
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But because college consolidation and financial challenges for schools is obviously a bigger
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and bigger part of the higher-end landscape right now, and they certainly continue to
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be in the news.
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Just as we're recording this within the last week, Elon University, for example, announced
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it would merge or, in my words, essentially acquire Queen's University of Charlotte by
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the summer of 2026, after which Elon will operate Queen's.
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And then I also think we do a couple of these episodes each year because frankly you and
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I keep learning a lot from each one.
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I think of the episode, for example, where we compared M&A in higher ed to M&A in healthcare
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because we thought they would be structurally similar.
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And then we ended up learning that healthcare is actually quite different because of the
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incentives, which helps to explain in part why there's been a lot less M&A in higher
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ed than in healthcare.
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And then last year, of course, we had two schools from Ohio, Boston University and the University
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of Finley on the podcast.
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We picked them because they were planning to merge, but then literally after we recorded
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our episode, they didn't complete the merger.
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And part because of obstacles at the federal level.
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So today we get to have a president on Walter I.
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Winakko, Jr., the Ganon University's eighth president because Ganon, which is based in
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Eerie, Pennsylvania, is merging with Ursuline College in Ohio.
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And something struck you, Jeff, about the story in the way that it was perhaps different,
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I think, from what I think so many have in their heads when they think about a school that
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is proactively seeking a merger or acquisition.
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Yeah, Michael, I'm sure we'll probably hear from some of our listeners that, hey, are
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you guys doing too much on mergers and acquisitions in higher ed?
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But clearly, I think, and I know you think too, that this is going to probably be the
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story in higher ed in the next maybe decade, a little bit even, a little bit less, maybe
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even a little bit more.
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Just because of the financial issues, the demographic issues, the cultural issues, facing
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higher education, and what caught my eye about this one, I met Walter at a dinner this
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past summer was because normally we're talking about much bigger institutions taking over
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smaller struggling institutions, the northeastern of the world.
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We also had Villanova University, obviously, in a real estate play in Philadelphia.
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But these are well-endowed, nationally known universities, kind of taking on the acquisition
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part of the M&A activity.
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What interested me, and even in this Elon example, you just gave, that these are smaller institutions,
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less well-endowed institutions, institutions that don't have a lot of capital.
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And Walter was telling me that he basically went out seeking a merger partner, an acquisition
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partner, because he knew that rather than just sit around and wait for, first of all, the
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northeastern of the world to come into his backyard and take over these institutions,
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or just to wait for other institutions to fail or merge or be acquired, he wanted to
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be more assertive about this, more aggressive about it.
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And that's what really caught my eye, is that we're talking about not the northeastern
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of the world here, but the vast majority of colleges and universities out there, that
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if we want M&A activity to increase, accelerate in higher ed, they're going to have to be,
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they're going to have to start doing this, meaning these types of institutions.
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So I think that's a perfect place as prelude, if you will, Jeff, to the episode we have
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ahead.
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So without further ado, I'll give it to you to welcome our guest.
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Well, Walter, we're thrilled to welcome you to Future You.
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It's great to see you again.
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Great to be here.
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Thank you for having me.
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So Walter, you and I were at a dinner in Pittsburgh this summer, and you were telling
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me this story about how your merger with Ursula and college came together.
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And I'm just hoping you could walk us through that, because it's not exactly the typical
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storyline people think when they think college mergers.
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Sure, sure.
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Thank you.
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Well, just for a little background, I am just beginning my third year as president of
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Gannon University.
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So the story began July 1st when I was blessed to move into this position and start my role
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here.
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So July 1st in 2023.
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So got the team together in some retreat sessions.
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And I was an internal hire.
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So I came up through the provost ranks.
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And we started talking about the future again in university.
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Gannon University has been through a merger in the past in 1989.
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Gannon University merged with Villa Maria College, which was an all women's college.
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That brought healthcare and some very strong education programs to really change the trajectory
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of the university.
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And right now, healthcare is our largest enrolled area.
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So it really helped us establish who we are.
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So as a leadership team, when I came in to the vice president position in 2016, the
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institution had already started another expansion process.
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But this time it wasn't a merger.
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It was starting up a new campus in a different market area.
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And this was in Ruskin, Florida.
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So we have a campus that was part of the team to help grow focused on healthcare professions
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just south of Tampa.
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So now I'm coming into this position and saying, okay, we're, we got the cliff, right?
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We, everybody's, everybody's meeting the enrollment cliff.
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We're seeing it.
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We're seeing drop in domestic enrollment.
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We're seeing drops in, in students deciding to go to college or university.
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The data is out there.
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We're seeing since 2018, although we had increases in international students, we were seeing
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a drop in domestic freshmen every year and said, we've got to do something differently.
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Got the team together.
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We said, look, let's, let's look at a merger acquisition partnership strategy, put a
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proposal together, worked with AGB.
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We had, we used AGB as a consulting body, put together a plan and presented that to
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our board in September of 23.
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And we were able to get full support from, from our board.
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Once we had full support, we fully engaged with AGB, started to look at data in February,
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24.
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So we used that fall for planning in February.
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We, and we identified a list of institutions and we had our top 15 institutions that we
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wanted to talk to.
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So what were we looking for in a partner?
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Well, number one, we are a Catholic institution, we were looking for mission fit.
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The institution didn't have to be Catholic, but it had to have a mission that aligned.
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Second.
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Yeah.
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And I want to, I want to get to what you were looking for.
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We want to definitely dig deeper in that.
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But you mentioned this expansion in, in Florida.
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So did Florida solve some of your enrollment issues or did you now see, well, we had to
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go to Ohio.
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Like, how would other campuses solve the issues that you were seeing, for example, in Pennsylvania?
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Just kind of wanted to clear that up.
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And you have a question, Jeff, I think it comes down to what market you're trying to enter.
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So in Florida, we did a market analysis and we decided we're not going to pursue the
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undergrad market because you have such strong public institutions.
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We can't match the price point in Florida, but where the gap was graduate professional
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education, healthcare.
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So we launched OTPT speech language pathology and PA.
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So that was our market and our plan was not to build a campus more than four, five hundred
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students to generate the revenue.
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What we're trying to address with the current merger is our undergraduate population and
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the pressure that we're seeing on the traditional four year experience.
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Super interesting.
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So then, yes, then you're talking right about how you're seeking a college to merge
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with you of criteria.
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And I understand Ursula and wasn't even initially on the radar.
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So go back into that answer that you were giving around the process that you all took
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to find a suitable partner.
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So again, being Catholic, we're looking at mission fit alignment.
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Second is we were not looking for an institution that was in financial stress.
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And I will tell you that was probably one of the biggest barriers once we started talking
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with institutions was the financial status.
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Third, was this a geographic play, meaning we're entering a market that we currently do
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not recruit students from.
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And fourth, a programmatic differences.
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So even if they're in our same geographic area, do they offer such a different array
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of programs that might still be worth pursuing?
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So those were the four major criteria.
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So as we continue to move the initiative forward in March of 24, I started having conversations
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with different college presidents.
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And I will tell you that they were interesting.
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I can group it into two categories, to be honest.
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There were institutions that we could see there publicly available data look at finances
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and said, hey, do you want to talk?
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And the answer was, no, no, we're good.
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We're not interested.
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So OK.
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And then there was another group of schools that they wanted to talk and they wanted to
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merge yesterday because of the financial situation.
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Super interesting because there's a proactive nature there, right?
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Like, are you going to be proactive or oops, now we weren't proactive and now we're reactive.
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So sort of take us along that financial equation journey and then how you found Ursula
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in at the end of that.
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Sure.
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So as we were looking at several institutions and we did, we did sign a couple NDAs and
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started to do some preliminary due diligence.
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And the biggest issues was the financial situation mean high debt ratios and institutions
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that did not have cash availability to continue to move any type of initiatives.
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And when I mean move initiatives forward, it's not new initiative, it's continuing to operate
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the institution.
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So it's like literally brass tax, right?
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Of like, you're not trying to acquire a college that's financially distressed.
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You're trying to acquire a partner that really brings something to the table.
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So maybe fast forward us in this timeline then.
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Sure.
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As we went into, we now go into the spring in April of 24 and Ursula actually did not
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come up on our list because one of our additional criteria was size of school.
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And we were interested in looking at institutions that were over a thousand students.
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And in the database, his Ursula came up at 991.
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So we missed it in the data search.
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Literally a hair under.
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But to their credit and I do want to give credit to the Ursula and sisters, they were
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friends and they were looking for a partner.
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And this is where kind of the magic happened because then I was contacted by, and they
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were using core education.
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And I was contacted by the consulting body they were using and said, hey, are you interested?
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So as we started to look at those four criteria, mission of fit, absolutely, Ursula and
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sisters, Catholic, Catholic institution.
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When we were looking at finances, Ursula and college has no debt.
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Zero debt.
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Zero.
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When we looked at program mix, there was some programs that we don't offer we were
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interested in.
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And then when we look at geographic, Ursula and college is about 90 miles away.
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I get to Ursula and from my office in about an hour 20 minutes and we were worried about,
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you know, cannibalization quite frankly.
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We did a market analysis.
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We don't recruit well in Ohio.
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We in Eerie, Pennsylvania, Ganon University, we hardly get any students from Ohio.
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And as we as we dug into it a little deeper, Ohio is pretty generous with their financial
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aid, state aid.
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If a student crosses the border into Pennsylvania, they can't take it in.
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They can't take it in.
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So, you know, as you well know, how many middle class families can walk away from the
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dollars that they're getting from the state, that was the barrier.
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So, well, this is fascinating because again, when we met this summer and you started telling
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this story, I'm thinking, wow, you were, you know, you were kind of assertive about it.
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You were kind of more creative about going out and finding these partners.
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But this is just not happening in higher ed.
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As you pointed out, the two buckets, right, like, oh, we're all fine.
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Or by the way, we needed you to call yesterday.
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So, I'm thinking that your approach could be one way to bring the kind of M&A activity that,
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you know, I think Michael and I really think we need to have in higher ed and we just haven't had it.
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Right? There's just not been enough M&A activity in higher ed.
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But so, what do you think is stopping other universities from doing what you did and proactively
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going out and seeking partners before, by the way, they start to go down that doom loop and
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that somebody has to call them eventually or that, like, you know, others around them start
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doing what you're doing, right? So, at some point, there seems to be a lot of institutions that
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are just sitting back and waiting. So, what's stopping them from doing what you're doing?
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Honestly, I think it's a commitment to being bold and there's an aspect of bravery
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knowing that what's bravery, it's being a little afraid and still doing it anyways, right? So,
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that's people have to make bold decisions and it has to be the leadership of the institution
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in the board. And I really want to give that type of credit to the Ursula and Sisters.
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Now, you could imagine they have oversight over Ursula and college.
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Leadership is looking at the order saying, we even had a new sister join the organization
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in quite some time. Our average age is increasing. There's not a sustainability plan here.
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Let's look at merging with another institution, even though we're not in financial distress.
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That's where it starts. And then from our end, it's being able to take a risk on an initiative.
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And this is a lot of work. And when we identified the partner, one of the first things that
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that I did was get to Cleveland to meet with the Ursula and Sisters so that they could get to know me
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personally. So there's a lot of personal relationship building that has to happen to make this,
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to make this go. And I'll give you a great story. I'm in Cleveland now. Now we're in the spring.
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So we're in April, May. And I'm meeting with sister Chris, who's the president of the Ursula
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and Sisters. And she says, by the way, I'm talking with you now, but I'm retiring. So in July,
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July 1st, there's going to be a new president here. And I was like, huh, that's two months away.
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Where are we going with this? So now we're working with the Ursula and board. And the Ursula and board
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decided they were going to pursue hiring a president to basically on a short term contract
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to lead the merger for Ursula and college. And they ended up hiring Dr. David King, a past
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president who was retired, who came out of retirement to lead this merger. And I will tell you
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that's one of the best decisions made because Dr. King has been a fantastic partner in helping with
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the transition. So Jeff and Michael, a lot of a lot of things had to fall in place just right
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to get us to the next level. Where you just went is actually what's been a point of curiosity for
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me is I've heard you talk, which is I'm just thinking, you know, not only do the stars have to
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align in terms of finding an institution that in this case didn't have any debt, right? And
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so forth. But also where they saw this as an opportunity on their campus, it was felt at the board
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level. It was not going to be offensive to alumni on both sides of the equation. Just speak maybe
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to that change management process when you're, you know, you all are a midsize college, right? They're a
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smaller college. How do you get that orientation to say like, we're going to be proactive about this.
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We're not going to be souped up by sort of a big institution, but we're, you know, we're culturally
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work cited about this because it's furthering the mission by being with a different institution
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that's not part of our past. Well, we set up a strategy. So as we move through the process, Dr.
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King comes on board July 1st and we start laying out a communication plan. How do we communicate
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this progress out? We set a goal of August 24 for an official MOU that we could agree on some
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points on how we're going to continue the discussions further. We release that out to both of our
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communities. And then I spent some time on the Ursula campus, Dr. King came to the Gannon campus
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and we were having open communications with the constituencies because you could imagine that
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people are automatically starting to think, well, what about my job? Am I going to have a position
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here? Gannon is a diocesan institution. Is that going to change the culture of the Ursula campus?
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We moved right in to developing an integration strategy that involved forming 15 separate integration
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teams made up of members of both Ursula and Gannon. And Gannon, we hired a integration
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coordinator from the outside. We hired a consultant to come in and drive that forward so that he was
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tracking progress of each and every one of those teams sitting in on the meetings. If there were
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any fires happening, he would point that out, bring it to the leadership attention, and then we could
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address it. So that was our strategy to address that change management piece.
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Super interesting. So last year on Future U, we had this episode where we talked to two colleges
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actually in Ohio who were on the verge of merging, University of Finley and Bluffton University.
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As you know, right before the episode was set to run, the deal fell apart. They walked their
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separate ways. I'm sure you followed it, given the regional proximity to Ursula. What did you
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learn from that situation that you kept in mind as you've gone through this partnership set of
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conversations and all the planning you just described that you put in? Well, we learned to be
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direct with our communication. Let's, for all intents and purposes, let's not sugarcoat any of the facts.
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As we move forward, let's be very transparent with the communities. I've often had to say,
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this is the information that I have right now. This information may change tomorrow,
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and we may adjust our message. It doesn't mean that we weren't giving you the information. It just
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means this is the information I had. And as we move through the accreditation bodies and the
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requirements, information would change. And what I was tracking with that particular situation was
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making sure that we were on top of the communications with HLC and middle states,
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Department of Education, Ohio, Pennsylvania. And that's the part to navigate that you really
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have to pay attention to. Yeah. And so I think that Michael and I, you know, I think, well,
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to this might be our fourth or fifth episode, right, Michael on M&A, because we keep wanting to see
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this happen. And every single time we have somebody on, we learn something new about why this is so
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difficult, but in some ways, it shouldn't be so difficult because there's clearly a need for this
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to happen in the market, not because anybody wants to see fewer universities. I think people see
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this as such a negative M&A. We just want to have stronger colleges and universities in the end.
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And that's what M&A will do to a lot of of institutions. So I'm kind of curious about what would
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you change in either, you know, policy at the accreditation level, at the state level, at the federal level,
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other pieces of the landscape to just make what seems to be a very stuck and long process,
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just happen to, I think, achieve everybody's goal here, which is again, I understand. People
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think it's terrible. Oh my god, we're going to have fewer colleges and universities. Yes,
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we're going to have fewer colleges and universities, but don't you want what's left to be stronger?
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And if you just let colleges just go out of business, I'm not convinced at least that what is left
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will necessarily be stronger. I have to tell you that we're starting to see what I would change
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the current processes for mergers, acquisitions from the accrediting bodies, the current policies
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and procedures don't fit because what we're seeing is something very different. Like there is a
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merger that's taking place in Iowa, which I'm sure you're aware of St. Ambrose University and
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Mount Mercy, Dr. Amy Novak from St. Ambrose. There are diocesan institutions like we are
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Mount Mercy founded by a religious order, just like Ursulin, very similar. So we've David, Dr.
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David King, and I have been talking with those two presidents and kind of learning from each other.
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I will tell you that with this particular merger with Ganon, we're crossing accreditation bodies,
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so Ursulin College, HLC accreditation, Ganon University, middle states,
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middle states has been extremely accommodating. They've recognized that their current policies and
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procedures don't fit. And the president of middle states has said, okay, let's rethink what we're
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doing. Here's our published timelines. Here, they worked with us. And so the good news is we're seeing
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changes. I also want to give credit to HLC for for rethinking policies and procedures.
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Not they want to stick to them and they want quality hands down. But when you have set time
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meeting dates at certain times of the year, those meeting dates are based on an academic
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calendar. They don't meet business, business calendars, which means I want to I need to
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do this tomorrow. And you're telling me you don't have a meeting until nine months from now.
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They're recognizing that I have to give them credit. They've been extremely accommodating.
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Well, and what you said is right. Like no one's looking for lower quality. We want stronger
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institutions right at the table for students. Walter, huge thanks for coming on future you and
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sharing the story. We really appreciate it. Absolutely. Looking forward to it. And I do want to
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tell you that we are actually had a schedule on complete merger. So we're scheduled to complete
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the merger June of 26. Originally, we were thinking it was going to be December. So
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Department of Education has said we think this can happen. O'Hio says we think we can happen.
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We already received approval from middle states and HLC. So it's moving in the right direction.
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Terrific to hear and thank you again. You bet.
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This episode of Future You is sponsored by Ascendium, a mission driven non-profit committed to
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improving learning and training systems to better serve learners from low income backgrounds.
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Ascendium envisions a world where low income learners succeed in post-secondary education
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Welcome back to Future You and Jeff, you already spoke up front about why this particular story
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was of course interesting to you. But I also want to highlight. I didn't see it coming
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during the conversation. But you said it in the middle of one of your questions to Walter because
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I think it speaks to another one of the big, maybe implicit reasons that we keep coming back to
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M&A on the show, which is that the purpose of M&A is so that we have colleges that are stronger.
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Presumably that means yes financial strength but also programmatically value proposition wise,
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mission results and so forth. But just tell me like why you made that point about the purpose
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of M&A being stronger colleges and universities. Because Michael I think in higher ed we see M&A
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as a negative thing, right? We see the disappearance of any institution, whether there be emerged or
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acquired as a bad thing, where I think again in the business world M&A is seen as you know
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potentially, you know on some sides obviously consolidating power but on other sides making sure
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that two entities can go further faster and even survive in some cases because they have been
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merged. And I really do feel that for M&A activity to increase in higher ed we're going to have to
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move beyond kind of the usual suspects we've seen to this day, just a handful of colleges and
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universities that have the resources and we're going to have to go a little bit deeper in the bench.
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What are they looking for and who are they? So I would look at institutions that are like
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again and they're big enough but they're not large enough to really be going concerns on their
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own. And so they're going to look for those institutions as Walter said that maybe are around
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a thousand, 1500 that can maybe add you know 50% to their student body, 25 to 15, 50% to their student
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body, could which I think is really key here, add a new geographic region to the college or university.
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I think we have to remember that most college students especially at the type of institution that
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again and is are coming from 75 miles away from home so moving into a slightly different region
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is really not going to cannibalize your students. And then third is really that programmatic piece.
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What do other colleges, none of these colleges are really fully comprehensive in a way that a
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northeastern might or a Villanova might or a big public flagship might or a Boston university might.
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So again, and what are they gaining from potentially adding another college on in terms of
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programmatic and you know whether it's you know the arts or whether it's computer science or whether
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it's nursing or other health care programs. There's all these programmatic areas that I think
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these smaller colleges and universities want to go after and they don't have the the money
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or the resources to build it on their own. So why not just essentially merge or acquire another
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institution to do that? Yeah and Jeff it speaks to something else actually. We think a fair
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minute bit about also when like a college closes what it does to the surrounding community right,
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economically vacating jobs and so forth. And I do think that there's some sort of inevitability
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right about this consolidation. If I'm the community I want the college to have a chance right,
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like the infrastructure some of it to have a chance at surviving. And so I you know who knows
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what these mergers ultimately look like if they keep the branch campuses open and so forth
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down the line. But I will say I think that's probably the only shot right at these communities
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sort of holding on to that higher ed institution is if they're done with that context in mind and
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there is some merger activity. I know some places probably take a cynical view of that you merge
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and your sunset certain campuses. I don't think that's the way it'll be done in higher ed
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personally. And so I think also from the community perspective M&A is an incredibly important topic
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towards strengthening the presence right of higher ed in these regions. Yeah and Michael let me
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jump in on that because we talked when we were talking about my book a couple of episodes ago
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about the idea of the zombie mall right coming to colleges and universities. I noticed on social
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media a couple people picked up on that right. So is it better to have an institution that is kind of
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just limping along rather and or you know no institution at all. You know so I feel like you know
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in terms of M&A we're going to have institutions that are at least going to be able to maybe keep
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these institutions to be going concerns above what they would have been otherwise. And so
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you know I get it these are job centers. These are cultural centers. These are economic centers
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for many of these towns but the chances of them surviving are getting slimmer by the day in some cases.
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The other thing that will happen is they become like just shadows of themselves. They are they are
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like these zombie malls or maybe they are at least be able to preserve their biggest strengths
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if they were able to merge or be acquired by a bigger player. Well and that's where I want to go next
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because strength of institution which is that you know when Ganon was going through its criteria
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for which institutions would be interesting you know as merger partners super clear on its objectives.
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Now we could perhaps Monday morning quarterback and ask if getting an institution in Ohio that's
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going to have its own demographic declines if that makes sense. But I do think that the other
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point was critical which is that the institution that they were looking at Walter said could not
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already be in financial problems from a cash flow perspective. And as you know I'm working with
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someone on a piece that will hopefully publish later this year. So I don't want to talk about too
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much about it yet and jinx that. But it really centers on the importance of cash to an institution
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and net cash flow specifically. And I guess it occurs to me that for a smaller school like Ganon
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as opposed to presumably something like a northwestern or Villanova or even an ASU right if they
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went on a spree. I would think financial health of the target school would be really really important.
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And to that end I thought it was interesting that if it had been less than a thousand students
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sort of a cutoff right it speaks to what we always talk about you have it in your book as well
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as something to keep an eye on right if parents were thinking about this stuff. But it also speaks
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a little bit to the arbitrariness I guess of like a thousand students like Ursuline just under 900
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whatever it just misses the cutoff. So it didn't hit into their filters but then they were lucky that
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Ursuline was also being proactive at the same time. And it gets to something that I at least think
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a lot about which is that data obviously important have a big role to play. But sometimes we forget
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that the categories right of data are created by people. We got to crawl underneath the hood if you
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want will just to make that decision. And I guess I get a little nervous with these like big cutoffs
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because maybe you miss that gem that is the perfect institutional partner. I don't know if you
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have any thoughts on that. Yeah Michael I think it's interesting that Ursuline you also have to be
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among those gems of institutions willing to want to talk openly about their situations and want
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to be acquired. So I think some of this is around the data but I think that these institutions and
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this goes back to something that we've talked about before is the boards of these institutions the
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leaderships of these institutions need to be proactive much further in advance than they already are
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to say you know what we're not going to be able to keep this institution as a going concern. We're
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going to have to go out and find partners and be proactive because if it's all left to the
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Ganons of the world to filter out you know who's in and who's out of potential partnerships.
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It's just going to be a chance about who they're going to find rather than those institutions
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that really need the help now. Yeah and well and leadership is exactly where I want to go. So that's
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on the board side. The other really interesting thing that I thought Walter told us was that the
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board right picked an interim president at Ursuline someone who was the former president and
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and president king who's explicit you know going back his explicit mission is effectively to
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shepherd this merger and I think it's so interesting because then you have a president who's not
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sitting there thinking about my legacy of you know continuing this institution on independently but
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is instead really a steward of its past resources and synonymous with success is do I get this
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merger done it seems like a very clever orientation for a president coming in so that it's like
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super clear on what success is and it's not independent survival in this case it's more steward of
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the mission and resources I thought that was clever I'm curious how you think about leadership in
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this space because I get it it can be an ego thing I suspect if you're the president thinking
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I'm sudden setting my tenure by bringing the institution to merger but I think it's also a very
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good use of somebody who knows the institution I think the other thing that really struck me about
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that part of the conversation Michael was that these are mission driven institutions often with
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large religious affiliations right many of these colleges that have been running into issues lately
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have been religiously affiliated church affiliated institutions as we know there are you know
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dozens hundreds of them particularly in the northeast and the midwest and that's another kind of
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filter to put through this that's another issue often perhaps even a hurdle to get these through
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because it's going to be much more difficult to do that given their affiliations with churches or
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different orders and something and that's something that to be honest with you I kind of got when
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we were talking about the Ohio merger but this is something that really came home to me when Walter
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was talking about it because this may be a bigger issue going forward with trying to bring
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institutions together especially in similar geographies whether they have similar affiliations or
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not could be a problem or even often and I know this from being in northeastern Pennsylvania where
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there's a lot of Catholic colleges sometimes that's a reason not to do it right because they really
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want to kind of protect their identity so it's another element to M&A it seems every single time
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we do one of these M&A episodes it's like peeling away an onion we kind of find another issue right
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oh my god this is another reason why this is not going to happen in in higher ed the way we think it should
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all right well speaking of things that make it sort of not happen last thing and I don't know if
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you'll have a hot take on this at all I haven't previewed this with you but I think we were both
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struck right in the episode we did last year about how difficult the federal government makes
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merging and merger and acquisition activity for higher ed Walter talked about how accommodating and
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smart the accreditors have been right that their natural process to be clear is not that but that
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they made a lot of adjustments to really help them pull it off and not be behind the eight ball that
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that was fascinating I think I'm just curious you know you're in the beltway I'm not up here in
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Boston do you hear any discussion about the Trump administration that theoretically likes less
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regulation I say theoretically because higher ed it's not clear that they like less regulation
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but do you think we might see any dereg around the college merger processor is this a who knows
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what's going on category I think this is a little bit about who knows I don't think this is I don't
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get the sense this is on on their radar I was part of a M&A convening back in April and my big takeaway
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from that is just how many entities are involved in this and we got a a specter of that we got a
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sense of that from some of our previous episodes we have the accreditors in some cases multiple
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accreditors we have the state and we obviously have the federal government as part of this so Michael
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even if the federal government were able to deregulate this to be honest with you you know politically
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we're not necessarily in a lot you know these are probably I would imagine more blue states than
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red states when it comes to the type of institutions that would end up merging they don't tend to be
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the places that are in a deal of regulatory state in fact especially when it comes to higher ed I
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think they're more focused on consumer protection you know that from you know being in Massachusetts so
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even if we were able to have this happen at the federal government level we still have these two
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other entities which are pretty important in this whole in this whole process that is the accreditors
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which seem to be getting on board I get the sense but then we also have the states all right Jeff
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let's leave it there I think that's a pretty robust conversation as you said peeling the onion back
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we keep getting more and more nuance we're going to do more on this topic for warning our listeners
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but it just keeps getting more and more interesting because there's a lot of dimensions to this and a
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lot of need frankly as well before we leave though we're going to bring Walter back one more time for
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his take to our lightning round segment to get to know him better and some of his hot takes on his time
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in higher ed so Walter we have this segment on future you where we get to ask our guests a few
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lighthearted lightning round type questions a little bit of a deviation from the main body of the show
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and it's both to get to know you better but also to get to know you better in the context of higher ed
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specifically so if you're game let's dive in and the first question we have for you is what was your
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favorite college class when you were a student and why history I had a I just I just had a fantastic
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professor that got me hooked and you know history repeats itself pay attention to history
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there you go which which what kind of history was it American history American history perfect
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all right what's one higher ed buzzword that you never want to hear again it's it's marketing
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but I'm going to tell you why okay I will continue to hear it but everybody blames marketing for
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everything so yeah if if your numbers go down it's marketing you know let's talk about the other
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things like do you have a good product and so so marketing well said well said all right last
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question before we take you off the hot seat what is the biggest difference in your observation
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between students now and when you were in school engagement engagement engagement engagement and
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and more engagement now or less engagement less less face to face engagement a lot of engagement
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on social media and and we all know you know phones and and Instagram but the the the ability to
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have conversations very adverse to to group work and we all know that's that's how we function
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in the workforce so I'm start I have to tell you I'm starting to see a shift in in the newer
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students coming in where they're craving more socializations I think I'm it's very positive I
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think we're coming out of that covid period but it's it's noticeable that's interesting maybe
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covid actually did something good in a way right because maybe we're headed towards less engagement
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covid really made people aware of it and now they're kind of coming back but I I hope so maybe a new
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book idea fingers crossed absolutely anyway Walter thank you for being with us thank you for
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having me I appreciate the time I don't know how you Michael but I think that segment is going to
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just be a fun way to end a future you during most of our episodes this season and thank you again
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for to Walter for talking with us and also just participating in that last segment as well and thank
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you all for listening and we'll talk to you next time on future you
Topics Covered
enrollment cliff
domestic enrollment decline
merger acquisition strategy
Gannon University
Ursuline College merger
higher education challenges
financial issues in higher ed
college consolidation
international students increase
mission fit in mergers
proactive college partnerships
graduate professional education
market analysis for education
financial stability in mergers
higher education landscape