- Hi everyone.

Steve Adubato here.

I'm about to have one of the most important conversations about the current state of higher education, the future of higher education, with a gentleman who knows an awful lot about it.

He is Dr. Brian Bridges, New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education.

Dr. Bridges, thank you so much for joining us once again.

- Thank you, Steve, for having me.

I appreciate the opportunity.

- You got it.

When the United States Supreme Court made the historic decision to change affirmative action forever in this, well, not forever, at least for now, to no longer allow race to be a factor in considering admission to universities and colleges, your first reaction was, is?

- Well, Steve, thank you for the opportunity to answer that question.

We're collectively disappointed in the Supreme Court's decision.

However, while we were disappointed, we were not shocked.

This was not unexpected.

And many of us who've been in the higher-ed space for many years have anticipated this date coming at some point.

We thought it might be another five or 10 years away.

But we were disappointed, but not totally shocked.

- What does it mean from a practical point of view for universities and colleges in the state of New Jersey and across the nation?

Do you believe it'll actually mean when the courts say you can't use race explicitly, specifically, as a factor in admissions?

What do you believe it'll actually mean in our colleges and universities?

- The court has actually taken the country backwards and has jeopardized representation of historically underserved students on campuses across the country.

We know that this also will have an impact on the workforce pipeline for years to come.

And so, it's an unfortunate decision that will have ripple effects for many, many generations and will have an impact, not just on minority students and their families and communities, but on the nation and the economy here at large.

- Secretary, let me ask you this, this case or these cases brought before the United States Supreme Court on affirmative action brought by someone who happened to be white, believes that he represents a fair number of Caucasian parents concerned about this issue, and the Asian-American community involved as well.

What would you say to white and Asian parents of college-aged or soon-to-be, college-aged children who believe that the use of race as part of the criteria for admission to colleges and universities, disproportionately, they perceive benefiting students who are African-American or Hispanic, that it's unfair and discriminatory toward white and Asian students and their families?

You say?

- Well, I would say to that, Steve, is that unfortunately, the history of this country is, and higher education admissions in this country has been unfair for much of its history.

And the efforts of these affirmative action laws are designed to try to balance the playing field a little bit, so that those students can also benefit from participating in a more diverse environment with students from different backgrounds from themselves and allows them to be better prepared for the workforce and the society that they will work and lead in in the future.

So this is an opportunity to help, not only the students who will directly benefit, but the students who will also indirectly benefit by the presence of those other students as well.

- One more quick follow up to that, to those who argue that creating a discriminatory practice toward whites and Asians by disproportionately benefiting students who are African-American and Hispanic, that one effort at discriminate government or government-sponsored discrimination doesn't fix another one, you say?

- Well, I would say, Steve, that when you look at the numbers also that, you know, even with affirmative action in place, most of our most elite institutions still do not have representation of African-American and Latino students to their proportion of the population.

- Devil's advocate, if merit is the only, the primary criteria, grades, working hard, standardized tests, your grade-point average, all that, why would the enrollment figures, particularly at an elite institution, why should they mirror societies if in fact, societies, population, or demographics, if in fact those-- that's the criteria.

- Well, true as you know, that our society has not been based, not been fully meritorious in the way that things have been awarded to, whether it's contracts, whether it's funding in some shape or fashion.

So I'm not saying that.

- Institutional racism is alive and well.

- Yes, yes it is.

So I'm not saying that we need to actually have admissions criteria be at the level of representation in the population, but that those students get a little bit more of a chance to participate.

Otherwise, we will have an economy, as our society continues to become much more diverse, we will have an economy that is not able to fully function at a hundred percent capacity.

- Secretary, we'll continue that conversation on affirmative action with you and other colleagues in the higher-ed community.

Can we shift gears to student mental health?

A huge priority for you and your team in the state of New Jersey.

Talk about student mental health, and why we need to take it more seriously than we are and what we need to do?

Please, secretary.

- Well, thank you for that opportunity because the American Psychological Association has asked to convey that by every measure, student mental health has declined, not just since COVID, but even prior to COVID.

And in May, in New Jersey, thanks to a $10-million investment from Governor Murphy using Federal American Rescue Plan Dollars in last year's FY23 budget, in May, we announced the nation's first, statewide campus mental health initiative spanning both public and private institutions in order to help our institutions bridge the gap and serve their students around this much needed area.

- Up here in northern New Jersey, there's recently a merger that took place between, I don't know if you call it merger or not, Montclair State University, Bloomfield College of Private Entity, Montclair State, my alma mater, my undergraduate work.

They're a publicly funded institution.

The reason I'm asking this question is the economics of higher education.

Do you believe that there'll be more and more consolidation, mergers and ultimately fewer institutions of higher learning in the state of New Jersey and the nation because the economics are just hard to pull off these days?

- You're absolutely right, and congrats on being a Montclair grad.

You know, our country is going through a bit of contraction because the workforce is changing and evolving, and we're seeing some contraction in higher education.

Massachusetts alone, I've talked with the folks up there, they've closed 10 colleges, 10 private colleges in the last five years, and so in Massachusetts alone.

So I think more contraction will happen.

Actually, New Jersey's actually been kind of lucky given the number of institutions that we have, that we've not had more of that happening.

But I think the Bloomfield-Montclair merger is a novel concept.

You don't see that happen as often where- - No.

- a public institution acquires a private institution.

And so, I think that it is a model that other states might look forward to, look at moving forward, because I do think that we will see more of this.

The last five to seven years, there's definitely been an increase in the number of institutions that have closed or merged, or been acquired.

And I think that the Bloomfield-Montclair situation is a bellwether for what might come in New Jersey over the next decade.

- Mr. Secretary, every time you join us, you educate us about a whole range of important issues in higher education.

We look forward to continuing the conversation with you in the future.

Dr. Brian Bridges is the Secretary of Higher Education in the great state of New Jersey.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

- Thank you, Steve.

I appreciate it.

Anytime - You got it.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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