Jason Perry: On this special episode of "The Hinckley Report," from Snow College.

Americans are evaluating the value of college education, lawmakers are changing how institutions are organized and funded, and a congressional debate brings politics and civic engagement to a campus.

announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund and by donations to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jason Perry: Hello, and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

I'm Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

We're coming to you today on the road from the campus of Snow College in Ephraim, Utah.

Covering the week, we have Snow College President Stacee McIff; Representative Karen Peterson, a Republican from Davis County in the Utah House; and Francis Gibson, chair of the Snow College Board of Trustees.

So glad to have you all with us, particularly this connection to Snow College here in Ephraim, Utah.

President, this was a big week.

We were able to have the 4th congressional debate here on this campus, in fact, on this very stage where we are today.

Talk about that for just a moment, because you had students involved, you were involved, this civic engagement is such a critical part of higher education.

Talk about that debate here for just a moment.

Stacee McIff: It was a really exciting opportunity for our students and for our whole community.

We've never hosted an official debate in Ephraim before, so it was very exciting for us.

And then having our students come and watch and be able to participate, meet the candidates and talk with them about their questions, it was really exciting and a special opportunity for them.

And civic engagement is a core function of what we do at Snow.

We just, through some legislative funding, established our Badger Ready Plan, and that Badger Ready Plan is about establishing durable skill development very intentionally in our general education and in all of our courses, and civic engagement is one of those pieces.

Jason Perry: Yeah, why was that?

That's--you have some series of core principles right there, and that is a very prominent one.

Why was that one of the ones that you decided to focus on as a university, as a college?

Stacee McIff: Well, we think it's very important for students to develop this interest and love and engagement and investment in community and in each other.

And so, having those opportunities to have the dialogue and to have an expansion of ideas and gain knowledge through other people, that's part of the college experience, is expanding your thought process.

Jason Perry: Yeah, something we think about a lot.

And Representative, this is something you and your colleagues have thought a lot about as well.

In fact, I wanna mention this joint resolution that was signed.

It was signed by Governor Cox, by President Stuart Adams, by the speaker of the House, all the higher education leaders, all the institutional presidents were there.

And this is what it said.

It talked about the core mission of higher education, and it said that it is to cultivate minds, foster discovery, build a civil society, and prepare students for meaningful lives and successful careers.

Interesting to see that put out with the high kind of interest of the legislature and our leaders.

Talk about those principles for a moment.

Karen Peterson: So, we have kind of a dual purpose in higher education, both just training for competencies so people are ready for the workforce and can have good economic opportunities, but also we want people to be able to leave knowing more about the world that they live in and the country that they live in.

It's just a really critical piece.

And our universities all have, you know, created these centers like the Hinckley Institute and the Leavitt Center and so many that give our students these opportunities to come be interns.

I've had incredible interns over the years, high school students and college students from--at the legislature that have come and seen what it's like, seeing what really happens, seeing how they can be civically engaged the rest of their lives.

Jason Perry: Yeah, Francis, not just with your hat that you have now as the chair of the Board of Trustees here at Snow, but also as a former legislator, talk about that connection between sort of civic engagement, those lessons, and higher education, because there seems--they seem to be connected in some way in terms of the impact and the connection over time.

Francis Gibson: I think we live in a world where social media and everyone gets bogged down in what that means, and it can be good, but it can also be bad.

I think about our universities.

We have great young men and young women that are attending colleges, technical schools, universities.

To be able to help them understand you're the next leader, you're gonna take the torch from the gray-haired men that seem to be running the country or running our communities or even in our small--our PTA.

What does it mean to be involved in small civic organizations, whether it be Kiwanis Club or a PTA or Rotary, all the way up to you can be president of the United States if you want to be it, if that still is your goal or your desire.

But I think it starts at universities just teaching people what does it mean to have civil dialogue and be able to communicate your ideas and exchange ideas civilly, respectfully, and then being able to go out and espouse those in our communities?

Karen Peterson: You know, I served as an intern when I was in college and at the Utah Legislature.

I remember the first couple days coming to the legislature just feeling so overwhelmed by it and thinking, "Oh my gosh, all these people are just so incredible, so amazing.

How did they get here?"

And then--but being there 45 days and realizing they're, you know, the PTA mom from their community, they're a business owner from their community, they're an engaged citizen, and they got here because they cared.

And so, it was kind of a nice full-circle experience to then be able to serve in the legislature myself.

But college gave me that opportunity.

Jason Perry: President, when you were talking about civic engagement, how do you find this line where you're trying to get students to be engaged, but you're also not telling them what to think necessarily, teach them how to have these conversations that Francis was just talking about?

But how do you find that where you say whatever it is, your beliefs, your opinions about certain things, how to make sure you get them engaged without being stifled in some way?

Stacee McIff: Well, I think there are a lot of different ways to be civically engaged, and for us at Snow, we have mostly freshmen and sophomores.

So these are 18, 19, 20-year-olds who are getting their first taste of civic engagement, and again, like I said before, expansion of ideas.

But that can take different forms.

So, it could be a debate within a class.

It could be a group assignment where you're trying to negotiate how the assignment is going to go forward.

It's service projects.

Especially here in rural Utah, I mean, we have to pool our resources together to do things, and so we do a lot of collaborating.

And I think that's a big piece of it too.

But just understanding others's perspectives is a big part of that.

And I definitely don't think it needs to be mandated or, you know, you must do this or that, or this is how civic engagement is done.

It can be very unique to a class, to even an individual, and what we need to do is give opportunities in the classroom but also outside the classroom for students to have that freedom to explore and express.

Francis Gibson: I'm a firm believer, Jason, that communities are better small, and we go small, work our way up, as opposed to having a top-down approach where everything is mandated from the top and we all have to take it.

It starts in your own household, and then it goes into your own community, whether it be your church or whatever, and it just kind of grows from there.

And I think that's how solid communities are made.

I think that's where communities thrive the best is when they're local, and we go local and get bigger.

Jason Perry: Representative, take just a moment before we leave this with what you think the expectations are of the legislature when it comes to the approach to higher education in the state.

We'll talk about some of the bills that you have run as the chair of Higher Education Committee.

But talk about when you and your colleagues, when you look at higher education, what do you think the high-level expectation is?

Karen Peterson: So first and foremost, just some institutional neutrality, right?

That the institution itself isn't telling students how to think or what to think, but giving them opportunities just to hear different perspectives.

And as you know, President McIff talked about what they're modeling on their campus and in their classrooms.

That's the expectation, right?

Let our students come here, let them understand that, you know, Utah has a set of values, but part of those values are that we wanna learn from one another and that we want to make our state better together and we wanna problem-solve.

Jason Perry: How do you think that's received?

How are you doing this on your campus through the lens of a rural college?

Stacee McIff: I think we do very well on that, and it's that freedom and that exploration that we have always valued.

But especially in a small environment where you're in a class with 20 people, your professor knows your name, and you walk down the sidewalk and you know people, but there's always somebody new to meet as well.

And it's that, especially as a new student coming out of high school, having the opportunity to explore those new ideas and think about things differently and find ways to bridge the gap between what you thought--what you've always thought and maybe other ideas that are out there.

There are so many big problems that we need to solve, and so it's our responsibility to help this next generation of leaders think through some of these solutions because they're not easy solutions.

Jason Perry: They are not.

And this is what--the backdrop, Francis, a moment about where people see higher education, sort of the value of it.

And as you start doing some polling, you ask, "Is higher education still important?"

I want to break down a couple very high-level polls, first at the national level and then in the state of Utah.

The first one is national.

If you'll give me a comment on this, a brand new Gallup poll surveyed and found 31% of Americans, so that's just 31%, now consider a college education as very important, this category, very important.

That's down 70% since 2013.

That's a pretty big drop.

Explain why that's kind of the case and maybe make a little play for higher education still.

Francis Gibson: Yeah, I honestly, when we look nationally, you know, you look at some of the things that have happened at some of our Ivy League schools, Columbia, for example, and all of the rioting and just the takeover, and it's really become more about philosophy and politics than it has been about civic engagement from a civil perspective.

And people look at the cost of higher ed.

What is the cost of higher ed, and what are my children learning?

What am I paying for as an adult for my son or daughter to go there?

I think that is a big driver for this.

And I think the biggest thing for universities--we can't forget it.

It's about the students, it's about the community, and it shouldn't be about the bureaucracy.

And I think sometimes our communities or our parents or people who have these ideas where higher ed is no longer important are looking at the bureaucracy of it and saying, "What am I paying for?

Has the university or has the college forgotten about my son or daughter as a student?

Have they forgotten about the communities in which they are built around?"

The communities are built around the students that they serve.

I think that is sort of right now the question that people are looking at going, "Are we truly getting what we're paying for?"

Jason Perry: Yeah, let's break this down for a moment.

And Representative Peterson, because Francis just hit exactly what the common remarks are.

People who lack confidence most often say things like political agendas on campus, high costs, inadequate preparation for the workforce.

These are some of the very high-level things that you hear sort of when people say they're losing confidence or faith in higher ed.

Talk about those because I know it's part of the conversation with our own legislature.

Karen Peterson: Yes, definitely, right?

We want our students to, if they make an investment in both their time and money to come to one of our institutions, the worst-case scenario in my mind is they leave without a certificate or degree and they leave with debt.

Like, that is the worst-case scenario, right?

So, what are we doing to ensure that the certificates that they're getting or degrees they're getting are meaningful, that we're thoughtful about that cost for them?

I was just looking at enrollment numbers kind of across the state, and, you know, we continue to see more and more students coming to our schools, but we see--we're seeing more and more part-time students because the cost of living here in Utah is just getting so challenging.

And so, when you think about both, you know, "Can I afford to pay my rent?

Can I afford to feed my family?

Can I put gas in my car?

And can I cover this tuition?"

it's becoming increasingly difficult.

And so, you know, as a legislature, we've thought a lot about affordability and access.

How do we ensure that these opportunities still can exist for our students and for our families and really be available to them as far as flexible scheduling, how we deliver our education, but also what is the cost?

And the legislature has made significant investment in higher education to ensure that we can keep those costs reasonable for our students.

Jason Perry: Go ahead, President.

Stacee McIff: I'll just say that I think sometimes the definition of college has been too narrow, and that's also not appealing to a broad group of people.

So, if you think that there's only one way to do college, then maybe it's not that appealing, or if you think it's going to be a repeat of what you did in high school, and maybe some students didn't love their high school experience.

So, we need to expand the definition of what is college.

At Snow, for example, we are the technical college as well as a degree-granting institution.

And so, we have programs like welding where you can come for three semesters and get a great job and go directly to work.

Or if somebody wants to go to medical school, they come here and get an excellent education, and then they move on and are successful in that way.

But I think for a long time, college has been defined too narrowly, and we need to be better about showing students that whatever you want to do, we're going to help you get there.

Jason Perry: This may connect, Representative, to the Utah poll that we've done.

This is the Hinckley Institute with the "Deseret News."

This is just of Utahns.

They found that 67% of Utahns express confidence in colleges and universities compared to 53% nationally.

But what's interesting is where Utahns seem to place the highest confidence, and maybe the hope, is in small businesses, community colleges, and higher ed.

So when you look at the three highest, you know, vote-getters in the state of Utah, those are the ones--two of them are connected to higher education in this expanded view that the president just talked about.

Karen Peterson: Right, well, and you think about, you know, we've been having a lot of conversations about the waitlist at our technical colleges, right?

People are starting to understand, you know, it used to be technical colleges, you thought about dirty jobs or, you know, like really, I don't know, just different work environments.

But so many of our technical careers now are in incredible places where it's emerging technology.

They're having these incredible experiences.

And they're also creating skillsets that don't get impacted by changing digital disruption, right?

Like, we're always going to need plumbers.

We're going to need electricians.

We're going to need people who can weld.

We're going to need people who can do these skills forever.

And people see that, you know, these are the kind of skills I can learn and are going to last me a lifetime, whether I decide to continue on for a bachelor's degree later or not, you know, so I learn how to run my own business or those kinds of things that, you know, continuing education might provide.

But I think we've done a pretty good job the last couple of years in really highlighting those experiences through our college counselor--high school counselors as students are thinking about college and working with parents and talking about the expanded role that technical education can play in our state.

Jason Perry: I want to talk about funding for just a moment.

Representative, we're gonna start--former Representative Gibson.

I still call you that from time to time.

It turns out that maybe this is one of the age-old historic conversations, going back as far as you want to go back, is the funding of higher education.

Talk about that from your former perspective to now, and maybe we'll talk about a bill that you've recently--and Representative Peterson, talk about that funding, and where the state is on how much money you put into higher education.

Francis Gibson: The state budget has finite resources, and there's never a shortage of demand.

I remember just--and Representative will attest to this, there's always a bigger request than there actually is funding.

And I think right now legislators are looking at higher ed, and just recently, within the last few years, they told every university, "10% cut."

And every school had to go back and say, "Okay, where are we gonna find this?"

Where--and then it was really not a cut, it was just a reallocation of resources.

What in our universities can we say we can do without?

Where can we become more lean?

Where can we become more efficient?

If we have a course that we have very, very few students taking, maybe it's not highly sought after in the workforce, we're going to eliminate that program, and we're going to reallocate those resources.

University of Utah, one of the best engineering programs in the state.

Every engineer that graduates there has a job.

Should we be putting more into the engineering program at the University of Utah?

That's just an example.

I don't want to offend any other college's engineering programs.

But as an example, University of Utah is one of the premier engineering programs.

Should we be investing more there on the campus of the University of Utah?

And what other programs can we do differently?

So as legislators, they're always looking for ways to make the money go further.

And it's always a challenge because the higher ed is competing against Medicaid, it's competing against public ed, and it's competing against transportation issues and housing issues.

There's so many things going on.

And so if the universities are viewed as being inefficient with the funds that they get, as a legislator, I'm not going to continue to invest into things that we're losing.

I need to put those resources elsewhere.

Jason Perry: Representative, talk about, it was your bill, the strategic reinvestment, and then we'll talk about how we're implementing it here at Snow.

Karen Peterson: Yeah, so, you know, it was a very interesting experience the whole way through with that piece of legislation.

But it really was based initially on the data that we were seeing around how many programs do we have in our institutions and what do the enrollment numbers look like in some of these programs?

And, you know, student demands have changed.

Students want to do different things than they used to do.

As we've had emerging technologies, the industry demands have changed in the kind of programs that we have for our students.

And so, thinking about--but we do have finite resources, and every dollar needs to count.

And I know our higher education institutions have always tried to make every dollar count.

But it was an opportunity to pause and say, "What could we stop doing so that we could start doing something?"

Because in any organization, in any system, stopping doing things is a lot harder than adding new things, right?

So it gave all of us an opportunity to look at those numbers, to think together about what are we doing best?

And I think one of the most interesting reinvestments both is we have more faculty now than we had before.

So we have invested in teaching, which is incredibly important.

And second, a number of our institutions have invested in career, career counseling, career opportunities for our students so that they don't only have the competencies, but they can go and be successful in an interview, that their resume is ready, that they've had an internship or externship opportunity, and they really are prepared not just with the skills, but with those durable skills.

They know how to work well with others.

They know how to show up on time.

They know how to, you know, just problem solve in a way that's more than just some book learning.

And I think that's also an incredibly important investment as we talk about the continued ROI of higher ed.

Jason Perry: President, will you talk about that strategic reinvestment, how you approached it, and where are you putting those resources?

Stacee McIff: Well, I first want to say that we are very grateful to the Utah legislature for the trust that they put into Snow College and the other institutions in Utah.

We offer a lower tuition rate.

And I've just been so grateful to legislators who want to help, especially in our rural community.

So I'm grateful for that.

But the reinvestment was a great opportunity for us.

That was about $1.68 million for us, and it's hard to find that kind of money with a small budget.

But we're reinvesting in respiratory therapy, rad tech, rural entrepreneurship, our CDL program.

And we were able to do all of that through natural attrition in some ways, but just reallocating those resources.

It was a very healthy practice, and we're going to continue that practice as time goes by.

So I would say overall it was very beneficial to Snow.

Jason Perry: Okay, we'll keep watching that.

Of course, we're working on that at the University of Utah still, so we'll watch that closely.

I want to put all of these into perspective, and Francis, let's talk about where the state is going.

We have our investment in our students, but we also have what our demographers are calling a very clear cliff coming in higher education, enrollment cliff.

In September, the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute issued a report that said that Utah's 18 to 24 population will grow through 2028, and then we're going to have two decades of decline in the state of Utah in that population, people coming into college.

Put that in perspective, particularly as a chair of a board of trustees for a very important college.

Francis Gibson: Yeah, we're starting to look now, how do we get our adults who started college to get them to come back and finish?

When we look about--when we look at the advent of AI and some of the people who may find themselves out of a traditional job because AI is going to be able to do some of those jobs more, these folks are going to need to retool themselves and become something different.

When I think about college, I was going to say this at the end, the world is looking for problem solvers.

Accountants are problem solvers, engineers, attorneys, medical doctors are all problem solvers.

But so are our technical skills as well.

And so, it's going to be--it's really important for colleges and universities to produce problem solvers.

And everyone has a different way that they solve problems best.

Maybe it's with my mind, maybe it's with my hands.

Whatever that's going to be, as higher ed, we need to be able to produce problem solvers to go out in the world and to fix problems.

And that is multifaceted.

And as we start, you know, we start to see a decline in 18 to 24, there are going to be a whole lot of folks that are going to be 35 to 50 who may need to retool themselves, and we need to be able to reach out to them and be creative.

Not everyone can come to class between 8 and 2 p.m.

We may need to be open from 4 to 10 p.m.

And how do we offer that and get our faculty on board to say, "I'm willing to teach an 8 o'clock at night class," even though it may be inconvenient and nontraditional?

We're trying to get a very nontraditional person back in so they can go back out and solve problems.

Jason Perry: Representative, talk about how you'll be approaching this as a policymaker and your connection to Snow also, because you see these reduced numbers and there's these questions that come up.

As we have the same number of institutions, fewer students coming into them, how do we make sure we're still providing the education, we have enough students to keep us going?

And on top of that, how do we make sure that we have Utah students participating?

'Cause the question is, do we start bringing out-of-state students?

Karen Peterson: You know, what's interesting is we really need to have a conversation, and we've kind of started it, thinking about, you know, how we operate as a system and how we operate in our regions.

You know, nothing frustrates me more than when I hear from a Utah student that said, "I started at this school, and I tried to transfer to this one, and they won't take my credits," right?

It's like, no, no, these are all Utah schools that, you know, we should have a way that our students can move seamlessly between our system.

And then think instead about how our system is doing in providing for this state.

And not always--we've been very institution-focused, and each of our institutions has different missions.

They have different roles within our system.

We don't want them all to be the same.

We want them to be different.

But we've been in this space of competition for Utah students and thinking about, you know, so much of our funding has been based on enrollment numbers, it's been based on growth.

You know, what instead we need to be thinking about is outcomes.

How can we just focus on outcomes for students, how our institutions are getting those outcomes, and how as a system we facilitate the outcomes for students rather than all of us just competing for the same student in Utah County, right, that's just getting offers from everyone.

How do we instead think about that student's path across the system and how each of our institutions can help them get there?

Jason Perry: How are you approaching this?

This is a coming problem we're gonna have to grapple with.

Stacee McIff: Especially because Snow has the largest ratio of 18 to 24-year-olds in our student population of any in the system.

We're 84% 18 to 24-year-olds.

And so as Chair Gibson mentioned, we're looking at how do we help the adult populations, especially in our rural six counties.

We serve these very rural six counties, 16,000 square miles.

It's not easy for people to come in and become educated.

And we're about half the bachelor's attainment rate in our area than Utah County.

And so we're going to be partnering this regional approach with UVU and MTECH, so we will have a region that includes our six counties plus UVU and MTECH's region.

And I think there are some real opportunities there to work together and leverage different resources and competitive advantages.

Even Snow has competitive advantages that can help UVU and MTECH.

And so, working together more, I think, will help us solve some of these issues that we know are coming.

Jason Perry: Representative, you ran some legislation, talked about sort of regional connections.

We have about 30, 40 seconds left.

Talk about how that might help as we start having more cooperation between the universities.

Karen Peterson: Right, and I think that as we think about especially that opportunity for a student to maybe start at a technical college and then see themselves in a degree-granting institution, I'm thrilled with how many degree-granting institutions are now teaching general ed courses at technical college campuses.

So, we can work together, we can do this best for students, and I'm excited about it.

Jason Perry: Last word in the last 20 seconds, Francis, on this connection through your board chair.

How are you going to have these cooperation agreements of sorts with these other universities regionally?

Francis Gibson: I think it's just important to be able to help work with UVU.

They have--there's more students graduate four-year degrees--while also working with MTECH.

You know, someone comes in and they get a plumbing certificate from MTECH, let Snow be able to provide the traditional educational piece so they can get their associate's degree and collectively just work for what's best in the--in our part of the state.

Jason Perry: Excellent, thank you so much for your insights.

We appreciate it.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available as a podcast.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

announcer: Funding for The Hinckley Report is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund and by donations to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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