(bright synth music) - [Announcer] This is "Carolina Business Review."

Major support provided by High Point University, the Premier Life Skills University, focused on preparing students for the world as it is going to be.

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Well, school has started for sure, and the Labor Day, Bell has told for the end of summer 2025.

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Welcome once again.

Thank you for supporting the most widely watched dialog on Carolina business policy and public affairs here in the Carolinas.

I am Chris William, and we reengage our panel on things like the overall economy, health care, certainly education, and anything else that may be looming large for us right here in the region.

And later on, we welcome back the College of Charleston boss, Doctor Andrew Hsu.

Stay with us.

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On this edition of Carolina Business Review Aaron Nelson from the chamber for a Greater Chapel Hill, Carrboro James Mcquillen of the Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce, and special guest Andrew Hsu, president of the College of Charleston.

(upbeat rock music) Hello.

Welcome again to our program.

And thank you for supporting it.

Gentleman, always nice to see you.

Welcome back.

Good to see you.

Thank you for having me back.

So you didn't get the seersucker suit, Aaron?

I almost went seersucker.

I almost like it.

You look good.

Thank you.

I think we look good.

Yeah.

It was.

So, two bow ties to.

I just noticed that you both kind of rock bow ties a lot, and it's a good.

and a haircut on both of them.

Yes, yes.

Thank you.

Now, we got all that out of the way.

So is this Carolina Blue, by the way?

You're wearing a Carolina blue is up for some debate and discussion.

My socks.

Certainly.

This might be more seafoam.

Did wear it to represent my community.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Gentlemen.

Thank you.

I get a little, you know, little to flip in some time.

But thank you for being here.

What what is not what is more serious is Medicaid cuts and how they end up impacting things like rural hospitals in places like Orangeburg County, but also in urban areas like the triangle and certainly Chapel Hill.

You feel the effects there and maybe schools, but how is that starting to come down the pipeline?

Oh, folks are worried.

Our hospital is a $4 billion in annual revenue, and 50% of it comes from a federal source.

So they are anxious about it, and they are now calculating what the cuts are going to mean.

And then state cuts may come on top of that.

Actually, the state has already done some reductions.

And then for our friendly qualified health centers, the folks that are working with, the folks that are uninsured or under-insured, it's going to have a huge multi-million dollar impact on them.

How about the rural hospital?

Well, I'm going to say it's the same thing for us because we do have federally qualified, but clinics that are in Orangeburg, as well as a hospital that's a regional hospital.

So they're there are six counties that really touch Orangeburg County, and none of them have hospitals.

So you have folks coming to us from a lot of different counties and they're of a lower socioeconomic, group.

And so the they may not be insured.

And when, or they may have Medicaid because of that, that status.

But with the cuts, they may choose not to, be seen.

So, so are these cuts.

I mean, certainly it's a challenge, but are these cuts, are they an emergency?

Well, I think it's two cuts.

One is a reduction in what we compensate hospitals and others, and then a reduction what?

People get paid.

The other one was Medicaid expansion.

Those folks that didn't make too little to qualify.

And folks have made too much for us.

That was many small business people.

The photographer, the sole proprietor became eligible with Medicaid expansion in North Carolina, and losing that health care, that health insurance will be expensive.

Plus, the ACA rates are going to go through the roof and the subsidies are going to disappear.

There's a lot of concern about folks and their health care.

Does that does that flow through past the health care providers?

James, into the school system?

I think it does, because you have, especially in our school system, where over 90% of the kids get free or reduced.

Okay.

Yeah, pretty much free lunch, right?

But again, I think we have to look at the economics of your area.

We don't have a lot of high paying jobs.

We're still an agricultural county.

And then we have low to medium wage jobs in our area.

So.

And then the other component is the number of elderly.

So there are a lot of elderly individuals who are on Medicare and Medicaid or on Medicaid only.

And those cuts impact anyone harshly.

It will be that, that that older group will shift to housing because we're going to run out of time.

And we could we could chase this one down.

But, housing itself has stabilized.

Prices have stabilized.

That's good in that they have stabilized.

It's bad because prices have stayed stubbornly high.

Oh, yeah.

Stabilized high.

We are seeing moderation in rental market, which comes from supply.

We have been asking that code for going down.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's been even for us for almost three years in the multifamily and some slight declines that have come because we've added new product to the market.

But in the, single family, it is very expensive.

And in communities like ours were sometimes resistant to new development.

We just need to add more housing.

Yeah, that more housing.

James, what about it?

I think we all need to add more housing.

We're seeing more, stick built, single family homes.

We need more multifamily homes.

We've discussed that.

There's probably on the board 4 to 6000 new homes that are going to be coming to the Orangeburg County area, primarily in eastern north for county, but in the city, and right around the county seat of Orangeburg, a city we're looking at about 5 to 600.

Okay.

All right.

What in general, we hear over and over.

We got about two minutes left.

Bring our guest on.

We hear over and over about economic development when Scout Motors jet zero.

Let me take your pick.

They seem to come down the pike.

These these elephant, have been bagged over and over again on these big names.

But trying to find jobs for that, trying to find talent that will feed and, Yeah.

So then the housing is critical.

I was in a meeting with, like, old school salty economic developer Big Buffalo hunter economic development people.

And they're now saying child care and housing are the two things that they weren't talking about that before, oh, ten years ago now.

It was about getting the the jobs would come, it would all work out.

And now we're here and we got to find housing.

We've got to, find childcare if we're gonna recruit the talent that these major employers are going to need.

Yeah.

You're in the same area when you go down toward Orangeburg.

Of course.

You see Scout and everything else coming out of the ground.

I'm smiling because I'm thinking about what you're saying.

You're finding a softer, gentler developer, right?

Who is thinking, really?

Who's thinking about those things that if we're building this, will there be enough, childcare, even for housing?

I'm sorry, not for housing, for, economic development.

With industry coming to the area they're considering, if we build something really large, how will that impact affect the employees in the area and taken care of?

They always cared about utilities.

They needed infrastructure.

They cared.

Right?

Delivered water.

They just added infrastructure.

Now means housing and childcare and a few other things.

What do you think the change in tone came from economic developers that we're pretty much go, go, go.

Just get out of my way and let me bring them in.

I think it's the workforce.

Today's workforce demands a little bit more than the older workforce did, and I think it's that they realize that it is actually, truthfully, a problem.

And the employers are asking this question.

They're not just asking, can I get the kilowatts?

They're asking, where would my kids live?

Yeah.

Gentlemen.

Thank you.

Stay with us for and bring our guest on just a moment.

I want to take just just an extra second here because, we are coming up on the one year anniversary of what Hurricane Helene did in western North Carolina, upstate, South Carolina.

And we are going to convene the exact same folks that we had that were not only casualties, but leadership.

During that period of time of of September of last year when that hurricane decimated not just communities but people's lives.

So we are going to have on the program.

She is the head of the Asheville Chamber.

Kit Cramer, will be joining us again along with David Jackson.

David is the, the chair of president of the Boone Chamber.

Peter O'Leary is chimney Rock.

Mayor, Carol Pritchett is Lake Lure mayor, and Ben Duncan is the South Carolina Office of Resiliency.

They five will be joining us on this set again to mark the one year anniversary, but to review on where they came, what they've learned and where they're headed from there.

In general, North Carolina may be basking in CNBC's glorious praise of being the best state for business, but the Old North State is not going to want to completely discount South Carolina's effort in economic development.

The Palmetto State may be half the size in population, in fact, but it also may have twice the commitment and motivation to compete with its Carolina cousin.

South Carolina certainly does feel like it's punching above its weight, so to speak, when it comes to economic wins.

As we've talked about over and over on this program and the low country is key to many of those efforts and successes that is better known as the Charleston region.

Joining us from Charleston is the College of Charleston president, Doctor Andrew Hsu.

Doctor Hsu, welcome to the program.

Thank you.

Chris.

So, so good to be back here.

It's nice to have you.

You were here last time when we were in the midst of Covid, and it's it's it's it's actually nice to shake your hand.

So thanks for taking time to come up here.

Thanks for having me back.

So when you live in a market like the low country, like Charleston, we've here, we've heard all the great stories about economic development and winds, and you've got a you've got a 240 plus year old college that you are head of.

What is job one for you?

What do you need to get done?

So for us, job number one of course is student success.

We want to make sure that all students who come to us will get a degree four years from when they joined us, and more importantly, that they're job ready, that they will develop a great career for the rest of their lives.

So job number one is student success.

Okay.

What would job number two be?

Well, job number two would be to develop a national reputation that would again help our students with the value of the degrees that they have.

And I want to just take one kind of one sidebar on that.

So if job number two is the national rep, I want to cite this number.

So 2019, when you started your job at the College of Charleston, you had roughly 11,000 average applications by by students to attend.

Now it's 32,000.

It's three x it's over 32,000.

What's that from.

How do you how do you save.

Certainly a lot of that is, the national reputation that we are now recognized as one of the best, programs in it's, academic rigor in, the ability to prepare students for the workforce and and in the ability of students to be successful and thrive on our campus.

Well, congratulations.

A good number to post.

We're going to open it up.

Aaron.

Question a lot of that success.

Also, I'm sure from having talented faculty and staff, what are the challenges?

We're talking about housing.

I mean, what are the challenges about recruiting?

The faculty that you need.

So certainly in terms of recruiting faculty, cost of living in the low country, the availability of affordable housing is, is crucial and often cited as a challenge for us to attract talent to South Carolina and especially to Charleston region.

It's student housing.

Also a challenge.

Student housing.

Sorry, sir.

Pressure to have more on campus pressure to build in the community.

Student housing certainly is a big issue for us.

And, as you can imagine, we now have 12,000 students and we can only house about 3500 students on campus.

And the rest of the students are in the, are in downtown on the peninsula, competing for the limited housing with local residents.

And that is a major issue for us because the, the, quick increase in cost, in, in rent and also, creates a challenge for the local community as students competing with local citizens.

And we certainly are trying our best to, provide more student housing to bring students back, from the community to our campus.

And we're, in fact, in the middle of trying to, build a new residence hall.

You can only stick with the students for a second, right?

Because that's that's the reason you're there.

I is the new thing.

How do you what how do you enter I into the typical academic day without the students taking advantage of the the tools that they have?

So, sure.

So we're applying AI in many different ways.

In fact, we just, started a major initiative for and which is called, up by our accrediting body, SAG CAC, which requires us to focus on one quality enhancement program and for the next five years, or 5 to 10 years, we're focusing on intentional AI, which means that we're going to be using AI in all things that we do in supporting students, which include a chat bot, called Clyde, that is available to students 24 over seven, provide answers to any questions within seconds.

But more importantly, we're bringing AI into the classrooms.

So we have, provided, faculty members with summer grants for them to to develop ideas on how to incorporate AI into their teaching.

Whether you're teaching political science or you're teaching philosophy or, sciences or technology, everybody, all the students need AI.

These days.

And so we have a major initiative on developing AI in the classrooms.

Is there opportunities for programing in AI because it seems like the students who understand how to program, you know, you need is a syllabus program.

You know, you well, learning to do the coding.

Yeah.

Okay.

There are superstars right now in industry.

So.

So right now, what we're doing is we're developing an academic minor that you can couple with any major.

If you are an arts major or are a philosophy major or a business major, you can get a minor in applied AI, which will allow you or to acquire the knowledge necessary, whether it's coding.

Well, quite frankly, these days you use AI to code.

Programs still apply AI, right?

So, it'll teach students those skills.

Practical skills to apply.

Yeah, I want to a lot of people may not know that your doc and post-doc work.

You're an aerospace engineer?

I'm an aerospace engineer.

I like to call myself a rocket scientist.

I was going to get to it.

But you stole my punch line.

But no, doctor.

But I want to.

I want to say so you know a little bit about cause and effect.

You know, a little bit about inflection points.

So back to the idea of student student housing.

What where's the tipping point for for kids attending?

They can't afford to live in Charleston.

I mean, have you past the inflection point?

Is there have you passed the tipping point for that kind of cost?

And how do you know it's only going to get worse?

So how do you I guess, how do you address it as IT administration?

Yeah.

I don't think we have reached the tipping point yet.

So our students are still coming from South Carolina and from all over the country.

But we do know, housing cost is a major issue right now.

You know, there are three things that probably affect students success academics, their emotional, health.

And the third one is finance.

Right.

So housing place, significantly in their financial health and, and sooner or later we're going to reach that tipping point where students can no longer afford.

This is why we're trying to stave off that danger.

We're trying to build affordable housing on campus so that we can bring more and more students back to campus.

Is Charleston, I say Charleston?

Is the city in the community complying to help you do that?

So certainly, the city is very much behind us and wanting to help us.

And and, as you know, Charleston, for for the Lowcountry historic preservation is is the it is very important.

And certainly it's important for the university as well.

So we certainly meet resistance from that end goal, but we're trying to do our best to work with our local community, work with the, the community that are, overseeing historic preservation to address those issues.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're, I think, student borrowing interest rates will probably have a bigger impact right now.

2500 for a two bedroom seems crazy to many people, but when two students split it and you borrowed it at 3% federal interest in it, it's not yet a problem that we're hearing.

But speaking from a college town in the college, that does make it difficult for the rest of the population.

And finding student housing on campus, and pushing against those headwinds of historic preservation will be a priority question.

No, I'm just agreeing with you.

Oh, it's a real challenge.

Do you have a question?

I don't I mean, not I mean, it's a first for me.

I respond.

Oh yeah, how about that?

So, so so I guess, you know, I think I agree is exactly right.

Even though, explicitly we're addressing the housing costs for our students.

But I think we're also helping our communities to solve the affordability problem for housing, because once we can bring more students back on our campus, then that would make more, affordable housing available to the citizens.

Perfect.

That was my question.

Do you agree?

And he said, yes, I'm good catch.

Good recovery.

James.

Yeah.

My question is that, typically students believe they should have this college experience, right?

Right.

And sometimes that's the wrong mindset.

They believe that college is a right, not a privilege.

And I believe it's a privilege.

Do you find that the kids today are coming in looking more for the college experience or the college education?

I think these days, certainly more and more, they're looking for both.

You know, you when when we grew up, I guess maybe not you, but but certainly when I grew up, the college education is mostly what we were looking for.

But these days, I do think that students are also looking for that college experience, but that I think, it's important for them to have that experience because, we now define student success not just as success inside the classroom, but success outside of the classroom is almost as important or sometimes even more important for our students.

But are we doing them a disservice because, again, the competition is global.

And, you know, I was in school in college in the mid 80s.

So we were we didn't worry too much about global competition.

We knew it was on the on the rise, but right now that is their competition.

So should there be more focus?

Well that that is their competition.

But I would argue that and the US higher education is still the very best in the world.

And the reason that it's the very best is that we strive to prepare the whole person.

We're not just focusing on technology, on computer science.

We're focusing on providing students with, well-rounded, education and, and, making sure that they're not only successful on academics, they're also successful in life and in their career.

We're going to run out of time.

We have three minutes left.

I want to I want to come back to the Trump administration scrutiny on higher ed and specifically with Harvard and Columbia.

But it does.

It does bring up it whether it sends a chill down your spine as an administrator, it does bring up the idea of scrutiny and higher education.

So when you talk to your direct reports and Doctor Eshoo, when you talk to your counterparts at other schools, and it's a different environment now, how do you approach what's appropriate for your students?

What's appropriate for you as a public school in South Carolina?

And what's fair as higher ed providing, as you said, a good education.

So I think it's, our goal is to have every student be successful.

And that's what I asked my staff to focus on is, is look beyond the eye and look at every single student as individuals and make sure that they're all successful, that they all have the opportunity to be successful.

Every student is different.

They're growing up environment.

They're, K-12 preparation.

They're all different.

And, and, us as higher education specialists or our, our goal is to make sure that we provide the necessary support for them on an individual basis to make make sure everyone has success.

Do you how do you pair that dialog along with that?

You are that you do receive public funds from the General Assembly in South Carolina and in.

It's not the right way to say it, doctor Choo.

But is it like whistling past the graveyard to some degree to make sure that, you know, we want to keep our funding, we want to keep it at the level.

What's your how do you feel about public funding when it's when it's coming to you in the future and now?

So certainly, South Carolina has been increasing its public funding to the universities and in, in South Carolina significantly over the six years I've been to South Carolina, for example, when I came, only eight and half percent of our budget comes from the state.

Now it's over well over 20%, right?

So it more than doubled.

And certainly we as a public institution rely on public funding.

And that would, place a responsibility on us to help provide affordable education to South Carolina citizens.

And we're, for the last six years since I've been here, the state had provided, so-called tuition mitigation funds.

And we have not raised a dollar on our in-state tuition for for the last six years.

Thank you.

We're we're out of time.

But, thanks for being a guest on our program again.

And I know you probably feel like you've died and gone to heaven.

You're living in a great city and running an institution that has high credibility.

So thank you.

Well, thank you, Chris.

Nice to see you.

Glad to have you in the studio.

Thank you, thank you.

Don't don't get up.

Don't leave yet.

James, good to see you.

Thanks for driving in from Orangeburg.

I know that's not a small haul, but thank you.

Always glad to be asked to to to thank you.

Thanks, James.

In Chapel Hill, we I know that's a drive, but thanks.

Here.

I took the train easy.

You know you do that.

I like that I'm doing a half hours at the time for the whole way.

It's great.

Thank you.

Good to see you.

Until next week.

I'm Chris William, and we certai hope your week is good.

And your weekend is good, too.

Good night.

- [Announcer] Gratefully acknowledging support by, Martin Marietta, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Foundation for the Carolinas, Sonoco, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, High Point University, and by viewers like you.

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(upbeat rock music)