Washington Update: Dismantling the Department of Education and Redefining Oversight for Higher Ed:

Changing Higher Ed podcast 252 with Host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Tom Netting

Transcript: Changing Higher Ed Podcast 252 with guest Tom Netting

Introduction to Changing Higher Ed^®

David: Welcome to Changing Higher Ed®, a podcast dedicated to helping higher education leaders improve their institutions. With your host, Dr. Drumm McNaughton, CEO of The Change Leader, a consultancy that helps higher ed leaders holistically transform their institutions. Learn more at changinghighered.com. And now, here’s your host, Drumm McNaughton.

[00:00:20] Introduction and Guest Welcome

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you, David.

Our podcast today welcomes back one of my favorite guests, Tom Netting, president of TEN Government Strategies. Tom has worked in the public policy arena for over 30 years, advocating before congress, federal agencies and state governments on behalf of private institutions of higher education and post-secondary education companies.

He’s a leader in the strategic policy development and advocacy areas. He joins us today to give us an update on what’s going on in higher ed, especially with all the cuts at the department, Congress, et cetera, et cetera.

Tom, welcome back to the program.

Tom Netting: To be back with you. It’s, been a busy time.

[00:01:03] Current Political Climate in Washington

Drumm McNaughton: Really, gosh, I, I. No, it’s just, we have a new president who is upending everything, new, i.e. two months. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything going on in Washington like it is right now.

Tom Netting: Well, no. And again, a new secretary who, she’s only been in office for a little over two weeks now. I guess two weeks and a day if you’re counting officially, or two and a half weeks and a day. But yeah lots going on there, lots going on in Congress, all related to higher ed policy.

Drumm McNaughton: And speaking of higher ed policy, that’s your expertise?

Tom Netting: Well, I don’t know about expertise, but I’m trying, Drumm, I’m keeping my head above water as best I can.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, my wife says I’m trying all the time, but I don’t think she means it the same way that you do. So let’s just jump in folks, Tom, we’ve had him on the podcast multiple times, so we don’t need an introduction other than to say he knows pretty much everybody in Washington. He helps write policy. He doesn’t dictate it to God. It’s the other way around, but you get the point. So, Tom, what’s going on? I.

Tom Netting: What isn’t going on? Goodness gracious.

[00:02:14] Dismantling the Department of Education: Updates

Tom Netting: Since last we spoke, we have a Secretary of Education now officially confirmed. Linda McMahon went through the confirmation process and both at the committee level in February and then through the Senate floor. Immediately upon her confirmation Monday, I guess it’s three weeks ago now from today, a lot of activity started to take place in the Department of Education in short succession.

We had everything from her announcements of the desire to, and Mr. Trump’s announcements, of her desire to put herself out of a job. And over the last two and a half, three weeks, she’s been working towards doing exactly that. We’ve had reductions in force where we’ve seen literally, close to, almost exactly half of the over 4,100 or so, depending on who’s counting, individuals at the US Department of Education and in their regions across the country, reduced in terms of both opportunities for retirements and early retirements, and then also a reduction in force. All of which have taken place over the last two and a half weeks, and most recently, literally last week before the weekend, we saw not only an executive order that called directly for quote the dismantling unquote of the Department of Education, but also that was then followed up by last Friday, comments from the president that he is looking to shift key critical portions of responsibilities, in particular within higher ed, over to other cabinet level agencies.

[00:03:46] Impact on Higher Education Institutions

Drumm McNaughton: So let’s go through each of the areas that people were RIFed, laid off, whatever the term we want to use. Because they’re gonna impact an awful lot of higher ed institutions.

Tom Netting: Oh, absolutely, Drumm, both at the regional level, as I said, as well as here in Washington DC. There has been a substantial number of individuals that, again, as I said, either retired or took the VERA, which is the secondary offer for early retirement, and then the RIFs that happened last week. Between all of those, and it varies a little bit on the counts, but you get the general gist of it. Literally the three largest portions within the agency that were impacted were FSA, Federal Student Aid, the Office of Civil Rights, and then to a lesser, but to a significant magnitude, other various disciplines portions of the Department of Education, including critical areas like the General Counsel’s office and others.

When you look at it in toto, as I said, out some 4,153 people, some 2100 were let go. This also includes, and I think it’s important to note, not only those individuals here in Washington, but as I said, the regionals. You had a multiple number 12 regional offices for the Office of Civil Rights. That went from seven down to five.

You also have the school participation division specifically within higher education. This is the over entities that are not only oversight, but also are the helpful with the daily functions and operations, the core missions, if you will, of the Department. Everything from getting new program approvals, changes of ownership, audits and program reviews, the whole process of Department of Ed and a number of those agencies at the various regional level were shut down as well. The overall enforcement and oversight division took a major hit as part of this. The multi-region task force was dismantled among many other things.

Drumm McNaughton: So for those listeners who don’t know.

[00:05:55] Civil Rights and DEI Changes

Drumm McNaughton: You mentioned, OCR, the Office of Civil Rights. What does that do?

Tom Netting: It includes a lot of different functions but I think the one that is most corollary to what we’ve seen with the executive orders is diversity, equity, and inclusion. A lot of the DEI related responsibilities. But civil rights include so much more. You take into consideration that includes a lot of Title IX, it includes a lot of the other violence against women, a lot of the various different safety issues as civil rights would imply it encompasses a great deal. A lot of the reason, however, that it was one of the areas so significantly pulled was because of the Trump administration’s belief that there was a great deal of largesse due to DEI and DEIA related programs and policies that could be pulled away.

Drumm McNaughton: And so with that, there were an awful lot of cases, Title IX, civil rights cases, that were pending. What’s gonna happen with those?

Tom Netting: A very good question. The Department says that even with the reductions in force and with the retirements et al, that the staff that are remaining are having their responsibilities redistributed. Certainly I would think that also includes, from conversations I’ve had with people in the department, additions not retractions or subtractions. But additional responsibilities handed off to people.

I think it’s important to note the nexus between civil rights and the considerable reductions there, but as I said, the general counsel’s office. Another facet of civil rights and some of these issues are gonna reside in the general counsel’s office, and literally two thirds of that office was taken away as well. That includes everything from, disputes with the Department, a lot of the claims, BDR claims, as well as so many others. So it’ll be interesting to see who picks up the slack, so to speak, of all of these responsibilities, both ongoing as well as potentially new.

Drumm McNaughton: So with those responsibilities, it doesn’t seem to me that, yeah, they say somebody’s gotta pick ’em up. But if you’ve got half of your workforce there and some divisions have been completely decimated, how does that happen?

Tom Netting: Well, I think that some of what, if you listen very critically to what they’re saying is, they do believe, they the Republicans and the Trump administration, do believe that there are a number of efficiencies that can be brought forward to affect change. The same way in which the Biden administration placed a great deal of emphasis and premium on student loan reform and the ability to provide additional relief in terms of write offs and the like. This administration is focused on a number of efficiencies, including trying to clear up a number of the backlogs of everything from audits and program reviews that have been outstanding for years to changes of ownership, changes of location, institutional issues with regards to a change of scope or maybe new addition of new programs. There has been a significant backlog of a lot of those routine issues as well.

Keep in mind that this was, at the same time, the Biden administration had the challenge of putting together the FAFSA and getting that rolled out, so there were other things they were focused upon, but one could argue that some of these other issues were put to the back or put to the side, and now this administration is trying to catch those back up in their view, and they believe that there are efficiencies that can be utilized to do so.

[00:09:33] Cuts Impacting Higher Education: Core Functions and Mission Critical Functions

Drumm McNaughton: I have no doubt that there are efficiencies that could be used. I just question some of the cuts that they’ve made. And speaking of that, nice segue, by the way, Drumm, what are some of the other cuts that have gone on at the Department that are important for colleges and universities to know.

Tom Netting: Well, I think the one that is most important, Drumm, is again, the two words that I hear, or the two phrases I hear used and almost interchangeably, is core functions as well as mission critical functions of the Department. As I just alluded to, there are a lot of those that, look the schools do need help with the day-to-day operational issues that they’ve worked with their regionals, whatever region of the country they’re in, or at the national level. And to your point now that individuals have been set aside as of last Friday, the schools are in a quandary as to where to go. I do have some information that hopefully can be helpful to your listenership in that regard.

Most traditionally what we heard all of last week was go to Caseteams.ed.Gov, and a one 800 number. There are individuals who are now, I think, heads of the School Eligibility and Oversight Services Group, in particular, Jeremy Early, who is the acting director of that group, as well as others are the names that I’m starting to hear focused and surfaced. , There are others for the Performance Management Group, and as with regard to the School Participation Division, you really need to drill down a little bit further into that.

If it’s an audit function, you can still go to FSA, ezaudit.Ed.gov. These are the various four different, if you will, divisions. Customarily you have the regionals to go to or the national, but these are now, again, being more consolidated and, we’re starting to at least learn some of the directives of who you go to to start to rekindle or reopen or reaffirm where you are in the process.

Drumm McNaughton: The big news last week was student loans.

[00:11:36] Student Loan Program Shifts

Tom Netting: Yep.

Drumm McNaughton: Talk us through that, please.

Tom Netting: To the degree that I can.

Drumm McNaughton: Are you saying it’s not clear?

Tom Netting: I’m saying that, like so many things right now, it’s a fluid process.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah, we used to have a saying in the Navy, Flexibility is the key to success. Indecision is the key to flexibility.

Tom Netting: Well, there you go. And I don’t know that it’s indecision. I do believe that they have a directive that they want to go. I don’t think it has been fully made clear to, certainly, the communities that are being impacted by it, whether that be the students, the institutions, or candidly the agencies themselves.

To try and answer your question though, the big news that came out last Friday, on the heels of the reduction in force, but it wasn’t new news. If you listen very carefully, these were things that the Trump administration has said all the way from the campaign trail. He admitted, from early on, and he’s doing exactly what he said in terms of trying to dismantle the Department of Education and taking portions of it and redistributing them to other agencies.

What we had heard, or I will take my own position, I assume that if they were going to move the student loan programs, that the logical potential progression would be treasury. In the past there was a experimental program of delivering, of administration of, some of the student loan programs over at Treasury. It didn’t go so well, but it was still a test pilot. Well, what was announced last week was from an, kind of an off the cuff set of comments from the Oval Office, from Mr. Trump, talking in a different venue, the individuals that were in the room had nothing to do with higher ed policy, but the Press Corps asked the question about the student loan issues and the reductions in force and the executive order that he signed in a ceremony the previous day on Thursday of last week, and asked what this meant for the student loan programs. And he said that he was taking the portfolio and immediately quote unquote, taking it not over to treasury, but taking it over to the small business administration. What that means is, if you listen carefully to the word portfolio, this doesn’t mean that the Department of Education is not going to be doing the administration, meaning the delivery of student loans, but the collection activities that would appear, are now going to be shifted over to the SBA, the small business administration. It takes a considerable amount of effort to make a change of that magnitude, to be sure. So we don’t know all of the details yet. We don’t know the specifics. We don’t know what immediately really means, ’cause that’s not something you can simply flip a switch and do. But it appears that they’re looking to do, (my word) would be a reset. To where all of the existing loan portfolio may be shifted over to SBA, all of the primary functions that are still under law, and I think it’s important to emphasize that, are still under law for the Department of Education to be responsible for the administration of grants, as well as loans, will still reside over at the Department of Education.

And in fact, secretary McMahon reemphasized that on the circuit on Sunday when she was on CBS and one or two of the other stations. Again, continued to say, “core functions”, quote unquote, “mission critical responsibilities”, quote unquote, “will still be administered through a leaner department of education, but it appears collection activities, which is a huge issue right now, Drumm, may be shifted over to the small business administration.

Drumm McNaughton: And in some ways that makes sense because they already do collections for small business loans, et cetera. I know we’ve got one. But one thing I heard, and of course, I read the news, you read the news, but you talk to those that are making the news as well, which you know, there’s a bit of a difference. I read something that the indexing of student loans to salary has been impacted by this. There was one woman that I read in the news, she was an attorney who was paying $500 a month or so for her student loan, been paying them that way for eight years, and her latest bill, it went up to $2,000 and she couldn’t understand what was going on with that.

Tom Netting: Some of the indexing. I have to assume, and again, I don’t ever like to assume ’cause of, know, the old adage that goes

Drumm McNaughton: Oh yes,

Tom Netting: I would have to assume that some of that might have been because she was on some form of income contingent or income based repayment program. If you take away those income based or income contingent repayment programs, then the overall volume and the overall magnitude of the repayment could be significantly higher. That would be my assumption as to why it jumped from $500 to potentially an exponential number larger than that. But some of that could very well once again, who have had to have done with her being removed from, like, the SAVE program, which is the program that the Biden administration, the most recent iteration of the large income-based repayment program, that was found by the courts to be unconstitutional and the Trump administration is unwinding. That would be my assumption and my assertion. I certainly wouldn’t know the particulars of that individual, but I think I’m pretty safe in terms of my assumption there.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah, save, safe. It’s pretty close. It’s just one letter difference. Right.

Tom Netting: There you go.

Drumm McNaughton: So what else? Is there anything else out of the Department that we need to think about?

Tom Netting: Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s a number of things. What does this mean for, I know institutions that have some kind of dialogue open with the Department or certainly grasping or trying to gain traction and knowing where they are or where they, where things stand?

I brought up the student loan issue. When last we spoke, Drumm, you asked me one of the things that, what I thought that all school representatives that are listening to your very important podcast should be concerned about and it was the burgeoning student loan debt crisis. And the fact that has not gone away and in fact, Drumm, it continues to amplify itself. The numbers that were being discussed back when we talked just two short to three short weeks ago, were a focus of student loans that were in delinquency of around 30 to 40, 50%. Those numbers are now up around 70 or 80%. And if you consider the fact that delinquency is normally a precursor to default, that’s a substantial and sizable portion of the community that could very well be headed to default.

And that’s a drain on the federal fiscal interest. It also has potential implications for institutions across the entire higher ed spectrum in terms of cohort default rates and the eligibility requirements that are tied to cohort default rates. And you also have the recognition that Congress, and we’ll talk about some of congressional activity here in a little bit. But there is a focus now on risk sharing based on loan repayments or the lack thereof.

So all of this combined is another major area that, let’s hope, even if it’s Treasury or now SBA, or the Department of Education itself, we’ve gotta get individuals back into the mindset that their responsibility to repay their loans has come back to the fore after four to five years, or two to three years, depending on when the individual started, of not having any repayment obligations.

Drumm McNaughton: And that could be huge from college perspective. I can’t see Congress, and we talk about this when we get there, I can’t see Congress making this retroactive. Well, let’s put this a. I can’t see it, it could be. Right? In the last three years we’ve had more colleges go out of business, universities go out of business, through mergers, closures, whatever, than we’ve seen in the past 20 years. But if this goes forward with any kind of retroactive risk sharing, et cetera, we’re gonna see those numbers increase significantly.

Tom Netting: I like to consider myself, Drumm, sometimes a student of history. Number one to learn from it, and also the old adage of, or doomed to repeat it. This is one of those times, Drumm, where the past may be a prologue to something we need to do.

If you’ll recall the 1989 Budget Reconciliation Act is what brought us cohort default rates to begin with. It wasn’t through a normal reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and when they did it back then, it was a phased in set of cohort default rates. Starting at 35%, going down to 30% and going down to 25%, which is the threshold that has been used literally for now several decades. I would submit to you that given what we’re dealing with right now and the size and scope of the potential issues with regards to defaults that I just alluded to, that it is maybe time to once again look at, as we transition back to student borrowers having to repay their loans, hopefully we also transition back and recognize that the institutions should not be overly negatively impacted, and phase down the cohort default rate numbers yet again, in order so that schools are not harmed for things that they have literally little to no control over.

Drumm McNaughton: And this brings up another interesting point with Congress, and I’m sorry, I think we just segued to another part of that. Was there anything else you wanted to hit on with the, with the Department?

Tom Netting: Again, Title IX is another one of those areas where schools are, I hope, aware of the fact that we now are back to one set of policies as opposed to two. You can argue whether it’s the better set or not, the better set of policies to have. But staying away from that conversation ‘ cause going down that rabbit hole could take another full podcast.

But the reality is that right now, the biden administration’s proposals are no longer. The Trump administration proposals from his 45th presidency are the regulatory rule of the land. Which means that some half of the institutions that were in the blockaded states never transitioned, and they’re fine. But those that were in states that transitioned to the new Biden rules now have to revert back to prior regulation and prior circumstances and systems. I believe most institutions are aware of that, but that’s another major issue that, lest we be looking at all of these other changes in whether there’ll be a department or how it’ll operate or things of that nature, again, some of the day-to-day functions you are responsible for Title IX to be sure and making sure you’re in compliance with those regulations is certainly important as well.

Drumm McNaughton: And those regulations, because the Biden regulations just came out in a dear colleague letter or something like that, they never made it into the Federal Register, is that correct?

Tom Netting: They did, they made it into Federal Register and they were effective August 1st of last year, of 2024.

Drumm McNaughton: So if the regulations made it into the Federal Register, how can they be set aside like that?

Tom Netting: Well, because the courts ruled them, there was a blockade, as you may recall, in 26 states. And, subsequent to that, the Supreme Court has ruled that it was unconstitutional and removed all of that set of regulations and reverted back to the Trump administrations, presidential 45 requirements.

Drumm McNaughton: So it’s not only the DEI, but it also has to do with the evidentiary nature of

Tom Netting: This is Title IX, DEI is a little, is different, but.

Drumm McNaughton: Right. But Biden put

Tom Netting: All of the transgender issues and all of those issues are now back to the Trump 45 presidency requirements, as well as some of the new executive orders and other information that he put out, not only on DEI, but on transgender individuals and binary recognition and also the requirements around athletics and particularly women’s athletics.

Drumm McNaughton: Okay. That’s helpful. Thank you.

Tom Netting: No worries.

Drumm McNaughton: What else?

[00:24:11] Congressional Actions and Budget Reconciliation

Tom Netting: Congress. We started the transition over into that in the segue. Lots going on there as well. We had a congress, when last we spoke, that was grappling with a March 14th deadline, which has come and gone, and Congress did in fact make determinations by that deadline on how they were going to deal with the current fiscal year’s spending. The appropriations process. And what they decided was, essentially, to punt it for an entire fiscal year, so the funding remains essentially frozen and the same, from what it was in the prior year, fiscal year 2024. We’re now in fiscal year 2025 that the fiscal year runs different than the calendar year. It’s October one through September 31st, so we’re about halfway through the fiscal year. And they punted the decisions to the end of this fiscal year.

At the same time, what the Congress is also looking at is budget reconciliation. That’s a process, as I alluded to earlier, where congress takes a look at their overall budget. It tries to make determinations on how to reform it, make cuts and make spending decisions and changes that are often hard. And this will be no different. Reconciliation is something that they’re focused on now. You’ve heard the conversations around the DOGE and the Department of Efficiency, and, cuts. And while there are tax cuts that are being considered. In order to fund those tax cuts there are other cuts that have to be made to other programs in order to finance those.

All of those discussions are what’s happening right now in Washington, as we look at the President bringing forth his budget. We look at the House of Representatives that has already passed a proposal to cut within education alone, just within the Department of Education and Education related agencies, $330 billion with a B, out of several trillion dollars overall, that the House is proposing to cut. The Senate is looking at a different equation, a different mindset in terms of what that overall number will be, as well as how that will potentially go about. So we’re watching a lot of that transpire in the broadest issues within Congress right now.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, the interesting thing about doing it via reconciliation, is that it doesn’t have to pass the 60 vote muster in the Senate to bring it to the being. They can work on it in just a simple majority vote.

Tom Netting: That is correct. But the give and take with that is you also have what they call the “vote-a-ramas” and the “ammendment-a-rama” because you then have the ability for when that legislation comes to the floor for anybody in the Senate to bring forth amendments to modify that legislation. So as has happened in the past you can have a sustained period of time to try and go through the huge litany of amendments, from both sides of the aisle, keep that in mind, from both sides of the aisle, to try and get to a final bill and a final proposal. So we have that ahead of us.

More specifically to higher education. This week, the House of Representatives is going to once again bring the Divergent Act to the house floor. This is legislation that was passed in the 118th Congress in a bipartisan fashion, but was voted out of the committee on a party line partisan vote. It deals specifically with the financing coming from foreign entities and foreign countries. The cap on that is $250,000. They’re looking to lower it down to $50,000 in terms of contributions or support from other countries and the like. And if they’re countries of concern, I’m not using the exact words, but countries of concern, that goes down to zero. This is an attempt to get at some of the concerns with the Chinese government and the impact of other foreign governments on the higher education system here in the United States, and how that potentially, in many people’s views, plays into the delivery of education or some of the constructs of the delivery of education, in our nation’s colleges and universities and campuses across the country. It will come to the house floor probably this week. It died in the 118th Congress ’cause the Senate didn’t take it up. We’ll see whether or not the Senate takes it up this time.

[00:28:38] Research Funding: CANCELED

Drumm McNaughton: Question on research. Within the last three weeks we saw a number of research grants canceled. We saw the research funding canceled. What’s going on with that?

Tom Netting: Maine and California State University, or California, University of Cal. Anyway, there’s several of them. Drumm, I haven’t paid as much attention to that as I have with the other stuff that’s been going on, just trying to deal with the high level issues. But a lot of this deals specifically with, again, the culture and what is believed to be an adverse culture at some of these institutions in terms of their delivery of education and some of what they have allowed to happen in terms of antisemitism or other issues that are in front of those institutions to define or explain. And as a result, the Trump administration has said, if you’re not abiding by our regulatory framework and concerns around these issues, we have the authority and the right to pull back federal funding, in the form of grants, whether it be agricultural grants, which was the case in Maine, and I believe Columbia University was, with regards to some of the framework on, if I recall correctly, their applications and some of the forms that they had that was alluded to, had anti-Semitic language in the actual application forms. As I understand it from reading the news reports, Columbia University has withdrawn whatever the objectionable language was in order to retain and were receipt returned to receipt of funding. In Maine, the institutions that were up there made changes as well to address the concerns. But it does show that issues around antisemitism, around DEI, which was Maine’s case in particular if I recall correctly, are all things where enforcement actions are taking place or things to call attention to those issues in terms of eliminating funding, are things that the administration are taking very seriously.

Drumm McNaughton: And one of the things that I’ve read is in canceling things through DOGE. Any word that came up that said diversity was hacked, the funding was gone, but it didn’t take in account biodiversity versus just diversity. So using your analogy, it was a meat cleaver instead of a scalpel.

Tom Netting: And that happened as well over in the Department of Education. One of the things that you heard that was, segueing back over to Department issues for a minute, there were a lot of individuals that under the Biden administration, the vast majority of individuals over at the Department of Education were required to take a DEI course. Trump administration comes in and says Any individuals involved, quote unquote, in DEI are potentially at risk of being let go. Well, when everybody under the prior administration was required to take a course and everybody’s got that on their resume, if you will, it puts everybody in a very precarious position, because under the prior administration, they were doing exactly what they were told and were responsible to do, to keep their job and comply with their functions of their job. New administration comes in, pivots that, and now they’re potentially at risk of losing their jobs again because of what they were required to do under the prior administration. So some of that got very precarious, would be my word, in terms of individuals, by, again, no fault of their own on any side of this discussion. Employees, civil servants, just looking to be good civil servants and doing as instructed, pardon the pun, that then potentially found themselves potentially at odds with things as a result.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah. It’s, I’m, you’ve known me a long time. It’s hard for me to be speechless. Guess what? I’m speechless.

Tom Netting: Well, you’re not alone in this town right now in some of the lack of, or people being at a loss for words. It is a very dynamic time. It is one where, yet again,

“Dynamic”,

Drumm McNaughton: Tom?

Tom Netting: It, so, we’re all just trying to figure out where it takes us all.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah, it reminds me of that ancient Chinese curse. May you live in interesting times.

Tom Netting: I think we’re living in interesting times.

Drumm McNaughton: Most definitely. Anything else we need to cover?

[00:33:06] Advice for University Presidents

Drumm McNaughton: What can Presidents do to help their university, protect their university? Whatever the language is you want to use.

Tom Netting: I think that the things, again, I was expecting this question. I think one of the things the Department is asking for is a little bit of patience. I think that we are learning more daily in terms of who the new points of contact are. So continuing to be vigilant in tracking that and looking to all of your agencies, whether it be ACE, whether it be NASFA, whether it be other groups at the national level, myself and others included, with just trying to get information out as we get it, is important to be focused upon. And the reality that some of this is, yet again, going to take some time to determine, for all individuals, where to go.

The other thing that I would emphasize is because I’ve heard from so many schools, students as you might expect, and lest we ever forget, the students that are the first and foremost thing, and should be in our minds. The students have trepidation and are fearful right now too because they don’t necessarily understand what all this media coverage means. Continuing to reassure your students as to the fact that these programs, as I’ve said before, are not going away. Hopefully one thing that the schools can take away is reminding all students that delivery of federal grants and loans preceded the Department of Education, 1965 HEA, 1979 establishment of the Department of Education. The funding is still there. The federal government is not pulling Pell Grants away. We’ll talk about potentially short-term Pell or Pell for prisoners or other things at a future date, but the core Pell Grant program and the core student loan programs are still there and will still be administered. The responsibility, however, is also there to continue to start reminding students while they’re still in school that loans are going to have to be repaid.

Drumm McNaughton: And that goes directly to one of the big challenges that higher ed’s facing, right now, is credibility because the cost of education is so high. A subject for another conversation.

Tom Netting: Again, another very important rabbit hole to potentially go down, Drumm.

Drumm McNaughton: Exactly. Well, Tom, as always, this has been fabulous. I want to thank you for taking time. I know how busy you are and I greatly appreciate it.

Tom Netting: And thank you, Drumm, for giving me the platform and the opportunity to share. How much I do want to try and help provide as much information to all communities as possible. Certainly right now, it is a challenge for all of us to stay on top of everything. I commend you for working to make that happen, and thank you for allowing me to be part of doing so with you.

[00:36:01] Three Takeaway for Higher Education Presidents and Boards

Drumm McNaughton: Always my pleasure sir. Three takeaways for Presidents, boards.

Tom Netting: Three

Drumm McNaughton: Besides keep their head down.

Tom Netting: Well, no, I wouldn’t say keep your head down. I would say keep your head up to try and see where some of this goes. The three things for the presidents. Number one, like I said, stay in contact with your students both to remind them that their student loans are in fact loans, but also that their student loans are, and their grants, are not in peril.

Number two would be to focus on working with your financial aid departments on helping them recognize and realize that right now they’re gonna need some help. Because they’re floundering to try and find their access points. So give them a little bit of grace, if you will. And, note that they are probably trying to do their dead level best to get information. So work with them and recognize that there is potentially an issue of information channels being somewhat disconnected right now.

And last but not least, I would also encourage you to continue to be on top of the issues around Title IX, DEI, and other issues with regards to civil rights and civil related issues. Look at where you are as an institution because the communities will be looking at your compliance with a changing environment.

Drumm McNaughton: Very good, thank you. What’s next for you, my friend?

Tom Netting: Continuing to try and keep one step ahead or one step aligned with all of these changes and continuing to try to address them. Again, Drumm, the thing that’s top of mind for me more than anything else is the student loan issues and the fact that we’ve gotta find a way to address the potential student loan crisis in terms of repayment that’s forthcoming and figure out how to address that. If SBA is the way we’re going to go about that, a lot of my focus is now trying to learn more about the Small Business Administration ’cause it’s not something I’m familiar with. But if that’s the new, the new game in town and the new sheriff in town, we need to get over there and make sure that for students and for the system, as well as for institutions, that this is as smooth a transition and as effective a transition as possible.

Drumm McNaughton: Very true. Tom, thank you again my friend. Always a pleasure to catch up with you.

Tom Netting: Appreciate you, Drumm.

Drumm McNaughton: You too.

[00:38:23] Conclusion

Drumm McNaughton: Thanks for listening this week and a special thank you to this week’s special guest, Tom Netting and for his Washington update. Tom, it’s always a pleasure having you on the show, and I look forward to the next time we get to catch up. Hopefully it won’t have to be in the next three to four weeks, but given all the changes, I suspect it will take care, my friend. Again, thank you.

And to my listeners, thanks for listening. I look forward to seeing you next wee