The College Crisis: Heads of Dartmouth & Berkeley Debate the Decline of US Universities

**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
I was just sitting here contemplating about how I'm going to pay back all my student loans.

**Jason** (0:05)
I've applied over 300 jobs.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:07)
I don't have a job. Student loan debt just reached an all-time high $1.48 trillion as of June of this year, a historic drop in US college enrollment.

**Sian Beilock** (0:18)
We exist to educate, to teach you how to think, not what to think.

**Rich Lyons** (0:24)
We'd better be thinking about big transitions or transformations if I can use the word, because there's a lot of new competition coming into our market.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:35)
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons and Dartmouth President Sian Beilock.

**Jason** (0:49)
Hello, sir. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much.

**Rich Lyons** (0:54)
Nice to see you.

**Chamath** (0:54)
Good to see you.

**Rich Lyons** (0:55)
Nice to see you.

**Chamath** (0:57)
Thanks for being here. Nice to meet you.

**Rich Lyons** (0:58)
Nice to see you.

**Chamath** (0:59)
Yes. Go Bears.

**Sian Beilock** (1:01)
Go Bears.

**Rich Lyons** (1:03)
All right.

**Chamath** (1:05)
All right.

**Sian Beilock** (1:05)
Big green. Let's not forget the big green.

**Rich Lyons** (1:07)
Welcome.

**Chamath** (1:08)
Okay. So what an interesting time to lead a university in America. So many things to talk about, but I wanted to start with the premise that student loan debt seems to be a challenge on the young population, the emerging working population today. At the same time, government research funding seems to be getting cut back, and there seems to be questions about the administrative overhead fees that are getting paid. What is the business model of the university today, the revenue and the expenses, and what does it look like going forward from your point of view, and how are you planning for that? Let's just start with that broad picture about the business model and how it's changing.

**Rich Lyons** (1:50)
There's a lot to that question. I'll start, and Sian will certainly have lots to contribute. You know, at the top level, if we think about, you know, how do we sustainably provide the fundamental and translational research that we're so good at, that we're built for, or the education, really transformative educational experiences that many of you have had in these great universities.
So, you know, one way to think about that is, on the research side, if there is less federal funding coming in over time, and I think that's a good bet, can we partner more with industry? Are there other sources? Is there a way to gear philanthropy even more toward the kinds of research that we need to make sure we're doing? So we are thinking about what that bundle, that funding model looks like on the research side. And on the education side as well, you mentioned debt and an issue that that's become. I think what you would find, whether at Dartmouth or at Berkeley, that if you're coming to one of these institutions from a lower income family, you're probably paying no tuition. And many of them are leaving with very little debt. So to say there's all these higher education institutions and then to talk about averages, I think you would be surprised at how much support lower income students are getting.

**Sian Beilock** (3:06)
Yeah, and I would just add to that, that I don't think education is one size fits all. And at a place like Dartmouth, which is, I would talk about it as a different kind of IV. It is cheaper to go to Dartmouth if you're lower or middle income now than it was 10 years ago. And that's because of the philanthropy that we receive from amazing alums and families. And that is what we want to do. We want to make institutions a place where anyone can go regardless of background, bring the best and brightest together and send them off without a huge debt burden. We package without loans. A third of our students go for free.
And they come out, on average, making more than they would otherwise if they hadn't gone to a school like Dartmouth. But I think it comes down to the institutions having some responsibility for pushing out students and making sure that they're not serving them an education that then they can't find jobs in. And so as we think about loan burdens and others, I do believe the institutions have a responsibility to their students. And I think we have to do a lot more in talking about ROI than we do right now. So in that case, though...

**Chamath** (4:08)
Sorry, let me just add one follow up to that. Does that mean that we have too many universities in the United States and they charge too much generally? So you guys are leading two of the top institutions in the United States. Are all of the second tier, the third tier, the fourth tier that are providing perhaps negative ROI on the cost of their education, do they need to kind of get shut down or reformed, or what's the future of that?