thank you for joining me.

- Thank you, Steph, it's a pleasure to be with you.

- So let me just start big picture.

Is higher education in crisis?

- Higher education is in a big crisis, and if you look at the plan 2025 and what the Republican Party and this current administration are trying to achieve, self-described as forcing a recession on higher education, they are well on their way to trying or well on their way to achieving that.

- Elaborate on that, what is happening?

- Oh, there's a number of things, started right off in the first 100 days with a number of executive orders by the administration focused on DEI, pausing research grants, just to name a few, and reconnoitering this week with aggressive crackdown on foreign students and blocking foreign students from attending our institutions.

Clearly there's a desire to change the way higher education operates.

And I think at this point, coupled with the pending reconciliation and the budget bill, there will be an opportunity, or there will be a chance that the great harm will be reflected on the sector going forward and for long-term damage, quite frankly.

- What is the effect, not only on Brown, but also on the state, if these cuts to scientific research continue?

- The impact is about 238 million in research dollars.

That's actually what comes into the state.

If you were to cut that by 40, 20, 50%, whatever it may be, it's a huge impact.

And with that lost revenue, there will be layoffs and/or reductions in staffs, just by the nature of not having the research dollars to come in to perform that research.

That's just the economic reality, and that will harm small businesses, local businesses, local communities, when folks are no longer working in part of the community and part of the economic engine that is higher ed.

And then the long-term risk to science and healthcare, and what is happening on these campuses is really gonna be stalled and create some long-term problems for the country and our state.

- President Trump has threatened to cut about half a billion dollars from Brown, has not specified exactly what would be cut or over how many years.

If that comes to fruition, what does that mean for Brown University?

- Well, it would mean a serious reduction, I think, in their workforce.

I think the- - Layoffs?

- Layoffs, I think and unfortunately, I think the sector in the Northeast in particular, being blue states, I think is hurt more than others.

The number of students enrolling or ability to enroll in higher ed in the Northeast has declined dramatically.

And so institutions don't have the amount of students, incoming students, that they used to have.

And so there's this race to recruit students from other parts of the country, other regions.

But quite frankly, the demographics, the number of students coming across the country is smaller.

- [Steph] Those enrollment problems are part of why Johnson & Wales University recently said it will lay off 91 faculty members, about 5% of its workforce.

- We're there right now.

There will be a downsizing of the workforce, given the fiscal pressures being forced upon us by Washington.

- What can be done to reverse this problem?

- A lot is gonna lay in the hands of the United States Senate as the reconciliation bill moves forward beginning, I think, as early as next week.

Those cuts hurt the sector across the board.

I think a lot of people are mistaken to think that this is solely about the elite institutions, the Harvards, the Browns, the MITs, and it's not.

This is an attack on the entire higher education sector in our country.

- [Steph] Among Egan's concerns, a proposal in the House-passed bill to strip Pell Grants from many part-time students.

- Not every student's a traditional student.

There are students that have to work 30, 40 hours a week and just can't carry 12 credits or 15 credits to meet that mark.

And eight credits or nine credits or six will be the right, you know, it's gonna take them longer, but their financial situation and their family situation and their economic situation require that, and now you're limiting that tool.

It's very damning.

- There's criticism that Brown and other liberal arts colleges in the Northeast have become so far politically left that they are hostile to people who are more conservative or moderate.

Are the universities harming their own ability to get more students from other parts of the country to come here?

- I think that argument is not true.

I mean, I think that you tend to have a more left-leaning base on a campus just by the nature of the inquisitive nature and mind of young people.

I think institutions across our membership know and value the need to have diverse thought.

Quite honestly, I think the culture war that's attacking it is really harming the economic engine that is higher ed more than it's changing the culture of campuses.

- Right, President Trump has attacked particularly Ivy League universities for the pro-Palestinian protests that have taken place, saying that the campuses are anti-Semitic.

What do you say to that?

- I think it was troubling, some of the debate and protests that were seen on campuses and I can understand that.

I think it's bigger than that.

I think it's about, again, forcing a recession on higher ed.

I'm not so sure that that's the sole focus.

I think the sole focus is changing higher ed's ability to do what it does.

- You sort of see it as an excuse?

- It's a list of grievances I think the administration has against institutions, and maybe an appropriate one.

But I think at the end of the day, they've been pretty clear what they're trying to achieve here.

- The Trump administration has paused student visas for international students.

But what does that do to Rhode Island's universities?

- It's significant.

I think it's about 5,000 students attend, international students attend institutions in Rhode Island.

It's about 10% of the population.

And so you know, quite frankly, not all of them are gonna be targeted.

There are, you know, as this week showed, there's a renewed push on Chinese foreign students.

You know, so a percentage of that 10% is a big number of our marketplace and of our students that, again, we talked about our full-pays that come here, spend tons of money traveling, tons of money in the local economy, rent, and so forth, and then help really move the infrastructure along for higher ed to provide education for all Americans.

- Are international students more likely to pay the full sticker price?

- I think typically, yeah.

I think typically, you know, they don't have the benefit of the Federal Aid Programs, you know the benefit of the Student Aid Programs, but typically, yeah, we see that they tend to be full-pays.

- And let's talk about the high cost of tuition, because some of these private colleges are charging 80, $90,000 a year, including room and board.

That has to be contributing to the enrollment issues, no?

- I don't think so.

Again, we've seen record enrollment across the country.

We have declining enrollment in the Northeast to a degree.

I think the sticker price, which is referred to 80, 90,000, is what very few people pay.

- Meaning, after scholarships?

- After scholarships, grants- - Aid.

- Grant aid and support, which is typically at most institutions about 50% less than what the sticker price is.

- College endowments started to be taxed for the first time during Trump's first term, and the House Republicans' new budget proposal would dramatically increase that tax.

Currently, Brown is the only university in Rhode Island whose endowment reaches the threshold to be taxed.

How will that impact Brown?

- I think we're talking in the tens or 20 millions of dollars of tax.

I mean, it's legitimate dollars.

And it's just another cut, right, combined with an approximate 25 million in hits to NIH funding, combined with, you know, an ongoing deficit, combined with all of the pressures that they have.

You know, you start to have some real financial impacts to any institution.

- There are obviously people who are not super sympathetic to Brown's financial troubles.

They see it as an elite Ivy League institution that doesn't contribute enough money to the city.

They don't have to pay taxes.

They obviously make a payment in lieu of taxes.

That's voluntary.

What do you say to those critics?

- Well, I think the economic impact of the eight schools, the four particularly in Providence and Brown alone, you know, we're the second largest non-government employee sector in the state, education, so you know, we employ quite a few Rhode Islanders.

And I think that, when you look at what each institution does, every one of our institutions has some formal or informal agreement with their host community.

The one that Brown and its three partners in the city, Providence College, Johnson & Wales, and RISD, completed two years ago, is pretty phenomenal gift to the city.

I mean, it's a contribution that they do as a partnership.

And we're talking $177 million over 20 years.

It's impactful.

And I think, you know, for those that question the value, Brown, the economic impact, you need to go look at some of those local businesses, those pizza shops, those dry cleaners.

- What is your biggest fear?

- I think we're living in it right now.

Yeah, I think we're at a point where we're questioning the value of higher education.

I find it ironic that around the globe, we're the envy of the world in higher education.

But yet, in our own country, from not only our leaders, but the general public, we're not seen in even a similar equal light.