792: Why HBCU Enrollment is Poised to Grow - with Andrea Horton, Chief Marketing Officer, Thurgood Marshall College Fund

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to EdUp on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. Dr. Joe Sallustio back with you here on another episode. This is really special for us by the way, you guys, as I record this episode this morning with my amazing guest host and guest last night, which of course will be like a month before it comes out, but we passed 350,000 plays of our podcast episodes. We couldn't believe it when we tried to get to 35 and then we were like, well, that was pretty good. And then we got to 350, actually 350,000. We're like, wow, there's 350,000 people listening to this podcast. That's 350,000 about 740 episodes. That means we're close to 500 listens per episode. And that includes some of the ones that we just released, which of course don't have that many listens because these are evergreen over time. So we've got, I don't know, almost 40 episodes over a thousand listens. 

And you think about the impact of this podcast. I always say, and Elvin says too, this is your podcast. What does that mean? Well, it means if you have something to say, we're going to give you a mic and if you have somebody that you want to interview, I'm going to give you a cohost mic and that this becomes your podcast, not just ours. So we've brought you incredible guests who end up coming back to cohost episodes. That's what makes this podcast so special.

Anyway, let's get to the point of this podcast episode. I'm bringing back to the microphone someone who was interviewed as a guest at one of our live remotes, if you will, at Anthology Together 2023. And she's back now to grill somebody else instead of getting grilled. Ladies and gentlemen, my guest co-host today, her name is Kathy Shaw and she's a director at Titan Partners. Kathy, welcome back to an EdUp mic.

Kathy Shaw: Thanks Joe. Excited to be here.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: So I got to meet you in person, which was great, right? So a lot of people who I have come guest cohost with me, I've only interviewed them on Zoom and then they come back and cohost. But we got to see each other in person. You got to have the experience of a live in-person remote. And now you're back. So we didn't scare you off is basically what it's come down to.

Kathy Shaw: Those bright lights only made me want more.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: All right. Well, we're glad to have you back. By the way, those reports that you put out about student success from Titan - the last time we spoke, I had a chance to really go through and read them. Really incredible data that you guys were able to contribute to the industry. Student success is such, it's funny, because I came back, that was during the summer. And then of course, people that listen to this know that I'm the chief experience officer at Lindenwood. And I come back and I swear as kids are moving in, the mental health issues like explode, explode. Before they even start school kids are going "I'm having problems just with moving" and stuff and suddenly what does that do to our ability to serve students. It was just great to have that data for us to go, "Okay, wait Titan's done something with this. We should go take a peek and see what can be done." What's next for you guys? What are you working on now?

Kathy Shaw: Our research Joe, thanks for asking, is evergreen just like this podcast. We did a release called "Listening to Learners" in September, which was all about something you just mentioned in your role at Lindenwood, which is how do students feel like they belong on campus, both in the classroom and outside of the classroom? What drives that feeling of belonging, which we all know then, you know, is good news for persistence, retention, and ultimately graduation outcomes. So that came out in September. 

And then just recently, a few weeks ago, with all the buzz still about generative AI and what it's going to do to the field of higher education more generally, we've got a report that just tracks data for student usage, faculty usage and adoption, and in particular details about use cases of how generative AI may or may not facilitate learning and the feelings about what it might do to prepare students for the workforce. There's a notion that gen AI literacy is going to be important for workforce outcomes in the future. And Titan is doing our best to track that for the field.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Did you say generative AI? Because I've still got some people that are, that are here. Do I look like I know what a JPEG is? So we've got, we still got work to do to bring everybody along to that, that generative AI. I looked up how to make my own GPT. I got, I got a little bit of the way and I'm like, forget this. I ain't, I'm not doing that. I got a podcast with my amazing guests today. 

So we're talking about student persistence. We're talking about recruitment, persistence, support, mental health. And our guest today is working on all of those things in a particular way. And I'm going to bring her to the microphone right now. So she doesn't have to listen to me talk anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, she's Andrea Horton. She is the chief marketing officer at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. What's going on, Andrea? How are you?

Andrea Horton: I am awesome. Thanks for having me on the podcast.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: We're glad to have you. And you, I think, have some very important things to say and things to share. But for our audience, I always like to start with the fact that there may be somebody out there that has not heard of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. So what do you do and how do you do it? And let's start there.

Andrea Horton: So the Thurgood Marshall College Fund has been advancing equity, access, and inclusion for over 35 years. What that means is we really work to support students at historically black colleges and universities through student scholarships. We want to make sure everyone has access to a higher education. We do talent sourcing and equity and upskilling programs, ensuring that students at historically black colleges and universities have a pathway to corporate America, to great lucrative careers. We also focus on capacity building. That means that we support the institutions themselves, ensuring that they are sustainable, that they have proper funding. And then lastly, policy and advocacy, which I'm sure we'll get into a little bit more where we talk about really advocating for HBCUs on Capitol Hill.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I've had the pleasure and honor of interviewing a bunch of HBCU presidents, most recently, Helene Gayle from Spelman and Rick Gallot from Grambling State. Got to remember it's been 700 episodes. So sometimes it challenges my memory doing such great work. You know what I mean? I mean, HBCUs seeing a resurgence of sorts, but I want to read something from your website. Because the minute I started doing my research, I saw this and I'm going to read it and I'd like you to respond to it.

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund boasts an 80 to 90% graduation rate of its scholars compared to a 40% graduation rate for Black/African-American students overall. Wow. Why do you think that is? What's TMCF for short doing that makes it so good for these students?

Andrea Horton: So one of the biggest reasons students don't persist is because of money. All right, so that's foundational to what we do in supporting students, ensuring that students have scholarship dollars and funding so that they can persist through graduation. So that's number one. Secondly, what we ensure is that students make that connection between their education and the workforce. So we really provide internship opportunities. We provide professional development. It really helps students connect those dots and develop those soft skills. And really we help position them to compete in a very competitive workforce today. And that's why we see students persisting because one, they have the dollars to support their education, but two, they begin to get very crystal clear as a result of our programming on where they want to land after graduation.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Let me ask one quick follow up, then I'll pass it to you, Kathy. Do you think that Thurgood Marshall helps the students, these black students see the end better than maybe a college or university does by itself where, yeah, you're going to go to school. Yes, you need to persist. But at the end, we're going to help you get into this workforce. We're going to help you find this job in ways that maybe a college isn't set up to do. Do you think that that makes a big difference?

Andrea Horton: Absolutely, and I think that's across the board, whether it's an HBCU or PWI. I mean, students have to make that connectivity between their education and the workforce. And that's why internships are so very important. And so what we find is that many of our students who are first generation like me, and I'm a proud graduate of Spelman College, by the way. Hey.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Hey.

Andrea Horton: I was a first generation college student, but also a first generation corporate, meaning that while my parents didn't go to college, they also didn't pursue a corporate career. So that means that conversations at the dinner table around me were not things that could help me navigate corporate spaces. And what we do is ensure that our students understand how to navigate corporate spaces and how to compete.

Kathy Shaw: Wow, that's amazing, Andrea. I guess for our listeners, who might be thinking about college or sending their kids to college, right? How do folks find out about TMCF services and programs?

Andrea Horton: So they can go to tmcf.org and our website is just full of information about HBCUs, about the work that we do, about our scholarship offerings and about our programming offerings as well.

Kathy Shaw: Got it. You also mentioned intersectionality of some lived experiences that I think I'd love for you to share more about, right? You mentioned for yourself, you were a first gen student and also that you had been the first in your family to explore a corporate career. So which of the programs that you mentioned at TMCF really helps students, I guess, stay connected to their families while trying these new things, right? I've often heard first generation students describe their experience as, well, I don't feel at home at home anymore. And I don't feel at home at school anymore. You know, how can the programs at TMCF really assist with keeping families together while having students try new things?

Andrea Horton: So our experiences have been centered around the family, around generational impact, around community impact. In fact, a few of our programs offer students an opportunity to create nonprofit mission-based businesses that will give back to their community. And I think in that way, that helps students to understand the connectivity still between themselves and their families, their communities. There was a saying that Dr. Johnnetta Cole, the president at the time at Spelman College, used to say to us, "Pull as you climb." And that is a mantra that we certainly embody here at TMCF because it's about doing better for yourself, but also about blazing trails for the others who'll come behind you.

Kathy Shaw: I love that. Thank you for sharing.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Pull as you climb. I like that a lot too. How do you, so how does it work? Give us the kind of the guts, Andrea. So I'm an HBCU college president. I've got students. I say, hey, Andrea, I want to partner with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Do I need to bring my own partners to the table? Are there scholarships that I want to create? So kind of give me the lay of the land.

Andrea Horton: Yeah. So all of our programs are really student-centric. That means the students have to be the one to opt in. We're not asking our institutions to take on yet another task. We really help to augment and supplement the programs that they have existing already. So in that way, as a CMO, we do direct mail. So we buy lists from College Board and others to understand students who are graduating from high school, speaking to both the students and the parents so they're aware of the resources that are available through us as they pursue HBCU education. So we do a lot of advertising, a lot of marketing to students to make sure they know that these opportunities are available. 

Once a student opts in, they can apply for all that they qualify for. So typically a high school student, their first engagement with us is a scholarship. So they're looking for money to help pay for college. And in fact, I just sent my son to college, to an HBCU. So we were, you know, scouring TMCF website, as well as other scholarship websites to apply for money for college. Once a student gets a scholarship with us, and even if they don't, once they're in our database, we continue to remarket to them, letting them know when new scholarships are available or when other programming opportunities become open that they can participate in.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: So you're in this funny, by the way, there's never a better way to analyze your own work than when you have to take a family friend or your own kid through it. And you're going through your own website and you're going, we gotta fix that. What is that? So it's like self-analyzing your own work. Right?

Andrea Horton: Exactly. And then the focus is on one. So now everything that my son is experiencing is exactly what the whole market is experiencing. So we've got to change our whole strategy.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: There you go. So you're in this funny space, though, awareness where, you know, how do you get in front of as many of these students as possible? Right. How do you get in front of them right when they need you to be in front of them? These black and African-American students. And then how do you get them to engage? It's not like you're asking them to go buy something. You're asking them to go through a process to get something. But still, I would imagine it's really hard to get students to engage, whether it's a lack of trust or motivation. So you get in this space where you go, I just don't understand why more students aren't, right? Isn't that a funny space to be in?

Andrea Horton: It is, and so as it relates to scholarships, we get 64,000 applications per scholarship season.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Amazing.

Andrea Horton: Yeah, so students definitely understand the value of getting the scholarship to help pay for school. Now, at least the first year. Now the second year, we engage parents because students are, you know, they're in class, they have all these things, all these balls that they have in the air. And they don't answer emails or anything else.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: They don't answer emails.

Andrea Horton: In fact, we have text campaigns that we're building now. But the parents are the ones that really stay locked in. So we want to make sure that we bring the parents along as a part of that strategy. The other thing I talk to my team about is this unarticulated need. If you're a first generation student, sometimes you don't understand the gravity of building your resume. And so one of the things that we try to do is really speak to the heart of even things that the student can't articulate themselves to make sure they understand the value that participating in our programs can offer to them in their future.

Kathy Shaw: So I want to go back to this awareness point that Joe brought up and Andrea, obviously, students are looking for ways to finance their education, right? So the scholarships are the hook, as you said. What do you think are the biggest barriers to enrollment or re-enrollment at HBCUs today?

Andrea Horton: Again, I think it's finances. I really do. I think that's a big thing. And then I think broadly, you're gonna have the percentage of students that just, maybe mom and dad wanted them to pursue a higher education in this way at a four-year institution, but that may not be how they're wired. They may need to work first before pursuing education. That's another thing we're exploring as an organization, different pathways, because there's, you know, all kinds of ways for our students to be successful. We have the National Black Talent Bank, which is offering students who don't see themselves at a four-year institution right away an opportunity to work in a great career, get trained, get business skills, and then along the way have a pathway to pursue their education. And so we just kind of flip the script for those students.

Kathy Shaw: Yeah, I think the different pathways is definitely a theme we've been seeing for sure in workforce, right? If you have the skills, hopefully you can get considered for a job that will path meaningfully. As you're designing this program, are there other initiatives at TMCF going on that you'd like listeners to be aware of, maybe just for the next calendar year in 2024?

Andrea Horton: Yeah, we have our standard programming and I don't want to give listeners the idea that we're only training students to go into corporate America. We understand that there's all kinds of careers that students are pursuing. So we do have our corporate sort of training programs, professional development programs, but we also have programming aimed at innovation and entrepreneurship. And that's targeted to students who are interested in pursuing, opening their own business. Some students may want to be entrepreneurs. And so we really focus on building that skill set, that acumen of how to pitch an idea, how to put together your financials, how to gain financing to support your effort. We also understand there are students who want to have an entrepreneurial path. So these are students who will drive innovation inside corporations, but they are uniquely prepared to really pitch high-stake ideas that really move companies from one space to a whole different pursuit. 

Then we have programming for educators. So we have our Teacher Quality and Retention Program, which we think is very important because we know that black students perform better when they have teachers in a classroom that look like them. They really have something to aspire to. So our goal through TQRP is to support black students and teachers staying in the classroom. We select pre-service teachers and then we stick with them through their third year of teaching, really helping them to develop curriculum, develop their engaging classroom, special education. We just really give them all the resources they need to have a productive career in education. So those are kind of the big categories that we cover in our programming.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Hey, Andrea, quick question because you cover so many areas. One of the things that we do know is there are a lot of African-American black students that are not going into STEM careers. Can you connect those dots for us, what you're doing around STEM to facilitate more black students heading into technology careers?

Andrea Horton: Yeah, so we have longtime partners, Wells Fargo being one, Medtronic who's in the MedTech space, Boeing who clearly is in the STEM space. All of our partners are really helping us to recruit and retain and develop STEM talent. And so those programs really, again, mean, STEM is not an easy field to pursue. I was a little daunted by an engineering major, however, if you have that propensity to really be an engineer and you're able to connect the dots with a Boeing or a Medtronic, then I think that really, again, helps students to persist in those fields.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Your entrepreneurial area, connecting that with STEM, you have the pitch, which is basically you're pitching your idea. So 150 scholars come together around tech and apps and, you know, how to innovate and create that and maybe receive funding to run with an idea. That runway is important when you see hope in your ideas too, right? So you could have ideas. You could want to get into STEM. You could want to get into technology and it looks really hard. You know, if you look at engineering, you just think about going into engineering. You're like this. I mean, I can't even imagine. So I'll give you lots of credit, but you think about that maybe as a first gen student, go, I can't do that. There's no way. You have to see the possibility. So something like the pitch gives you that possibility, doesn't it?

Andrea Horton: Absolutely. So the pitch and we have several sort of pitch competition and innovation challenges. The pitch in particular challenges our students to come up with a technology-based idea, create a prototype of that idea and then pitch it to a panel of entrepreneurs. 

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Shark Tank.

Andrea Horton: It is our version of Shark Tank. 

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Victory. 

Andrea Horton: It does give our students again exposure and practice to what that field actually looks like. And maybe a little bit of rejection because you know there's a grit is a really important factor and Kathy knows this from all the research she does. Grit is so important and student you know there's a knock on students today that they don't have grit that students of the past might have had. I don't think that's true. I think there's just more around us. If you think about technology and social media and all the ways that we experience things. But getting some rejection is healthy if it's constructive and allows you to move forward without doing the old higher ed, look left, look right, and only one of you is going to make it. That's not where we need to be. We need to be talking about who we include, not who we exclude. And I know that's an important part of all that you do.

Andrea Horton: I'm so glad you brought that up because I think there could be a perspective or a perception that we bring everybody along. Our programs are quite competitive. As I mentioned, even for our scholarship programming, we get 65,000 applications a year. Those scholarships are, you know, those are scored on a rubric and really blindly scored so that the students with the highest score get the scholarships. And even as an employee, my son had to compete in the same way.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Are you kidding me?

Andrea Horton: And so, yes, I think our students do get a healthy sense of rejection. Our Leadership Institute, which is our award-winning professional development conference, we get 2,000 applications for 500 spots. And there are students who apply year after year. I started with the organization in our talent acquisition team and would have students who applied two, three times before they were actually offered to go to this program. So it's quite competitive.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Creates perseverance too. If you can apply all that time and finally get it, I mean, think about how that feels.

Kathy Shaw: Yeah, I think that's something we see in our research, which particularly applies to first generation students. Grit and independent problem solving is what got them into college. But then once they get there, that thing grit almost works against them in that they don't reach out to the student support services that are available to them on campus. And we have to normalize asking for help for this population in particular. And so I guess what I'd love to hear from you, Andrea is let's hear a success story about grit and how to translate that into success in college and beyond. I'm sure with all the students you support, that there's gotta be some real great like feel good success stories. So let's hear one.

Andrea Horton: So it's funny, I just had a meeting with this now graduate a week ago, maybe it was two weeks ago, but this young man attended Prairie View A&M in Texas. And as I mentioned, I started with the organization in our talent acquisition team. That means that I was the one going to campus selecting students for our various programs. This particular student had applied to our Leadership Institute program. He was a first generation student. And I learned later, literally had absolutely no support, no family support whatsoever. So he was scheduled for a certain time. He was five minutes late to the interview. True to our brand, you can't be late. He came into the office with all kinds of excuses about traffic and this and this. And I just held up my hand and said, listen, you're not ready for this opportunity. You're not serious about this opportunity. You're late. You're wasting your time and you're wasting my time. And so he asked a few pointed questions. He was like, but, it's only five minutes. And I was like, this is the way the world works, you know, for us. You should have been 15 minutes early. You're on time, you're late.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And when you're early, you're on time, right?

Andrea Horton: Exactly right. And so I shared with him that if he was serious about the opportunity, he should take some time to learn more about TMCF, learn more about himself and come back next year. So believe it or not, he came back the following year. And when I tell you, he knocked my socks off. He had done the work. And once we had our formal interview, I had an opportunity to talk and learn, talk to him and learn a little bit more about him. And that's when I learned he was first generation. They asked the school asked if he wanted a major and a minor. And he said, I want two majors. Who wants a minor? I mean, this is how innocent, right? And I'm so good about like the inside baseball terms that we have, right? So just, just had no idea.

After my interview, he talked to some other students who had interviewed and who had participated in our programs and learned more about leadership. He had started to participate in some clubs on campus, got a couple leadership positions. I offered him to go to Leadership Institute that year, because he had just, again, really done the work. He attended Leadership Institute, highly engaged, just soaking everything in. And then at the end of Leadership Institute, this big figure, I'm standing in the hallway and it comes barreling toward me and I'm like, my God, what is this? He bear hugs me. Surprise. Miss Horton, I got an offer. I did it. He got a job offer from Walmart as a regional manager. And it was such a full circle moment. I can't tell you how to leave his company. And I got pretty emotional because what you recognize is these students, these families are betting everything they have on this education. And that's why TMCF says we're where education pays off because we really help students take that bet. You know, some of these parents, they're getting parent plus loans, they're going into even more debt and they're sending their kids in order to do something better. They don't quite know what better looks like, but they're betting on it. And so the work that we do really makes sure that those bets pay off. And for this student in particular paid off. He's now a proud graduate of Prairie View. He's a published author. He is just doing extremely well. And that's just one of many stories that I could share with you.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That is amazing. And I bet it was hard for you to say you're late. But that message must have been so hard to deliver, but look at how it paid off in spades. That's amazing.

Andrea Horton: Absolutely. And that's, and we really take, we, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, we take seriously the role we play because what we don't want to have happen is that the first time he's told that is in his career when the stakes are even higher and he could be fired and lose his, you know, way to make a living and all those things. We take this very seriously.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's a fact. That's a fact. You know, it's a good point, right? Enabling. It's OK. It's only five minutes. You know, don't worry about it. And then you get into the job and you know what? I will tell you and you guys know there's always somebody there's always somebody that's going, well, it's only, I mean, 10 minutes late. What's the big deal? And I'm going, it's a huge deal. It's a responsibility and awareness and self control. You can't brush your teeth at the same time and get to work on time. You know, kids aside, sometimes you got kid things that come up and as a dad, I understand that. But when you can't get there consistently on time, you know, you want to enable people to think that the world's going to just help them work it out all the time. It's not they're going to leave you cold and hard. And it's just the way it is, you know.

Andrea Horton: It's the fundamentals, right? I mean, we've got to make sure that the students are prepared with those fundamentals.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's a good message for all of us at work colleges and universities to say discipline really does matter. It matters here in school. It matters in the workforce. And we don't want to not support those things in that grit because the work world will not. They don't care. Right. There's always my, somebody might feel you're always replaceable. Right. That's my father-in-law always says that you're just one of many. You know what? Just make sure you remember that because there's always somebody else that's ready to step in and do your job. And I think that's right with this generation and guilty of it, you know, we're always like, you're wonderful. You're awesome. You know, you're this, you're that. But then when the students and the children get into you know, into higher ed, they understand like they might, they're one of thousands who graduated with a 4.0. They're one of, right. They're tens of thousands who were valedictorian. So what we stress with our students is now we need you to understand what is your point of difference? What makes you special? What's your elevator pitch? Cause it can't be, I'm hard working. I mean, everybody's hardworking. Kathy, do you have any more questions for Andrea before we wrap up?

Kathy Shaw: No, I want to take a pivot and go back to the institutional capacity building, right? A lot of the listeners of this podcast, you work at institutions. So where do you see the need being the greatest for the schools that you assist with that capacity building, you know, where are folks short staff, where is talent kind of in need and what can institutions do about it?

Andrea Horton: Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that question. So in this last year, applications that many of our HBCUs were up around 44%. So demand is high. And that's in a declining space, right? Enrollments overall in higher ed are down. That means the demand for HBCU education is up significantly. Some of the places where our institutions need funding is in, you know, they need buildings. We need more dorm rooms. We need higher performing labs, need, you know, technology. So those are that infrastructure is where our institutions really need the dollars. 

Many of your listeners may have seen the news lately where there's a lot of talk around the discrepancy in funding between HBCU public institutions and PWI public institutions in the state of Tennessee and the state of Maryland, where we've seen a lot of discrepancy in funding for certain schools, you know, being shortchanged. And that really, by and large, is HBCUs are not getting the equitable funding. So we would really love the listeners to support pushing for that, fighting for that. We're not asking for more than what we are owed. We're asking for exactly what states should be delivering to public HBCUs in the way of funding. And in that way, I mean, right now, there are billions of dollars in underfunding that were owed to HBCUs in certain states, what could we do with that? I mean, imagine what we could do with that in the way of infrastructure, in the way of STEM faculty, in the way of research. And even with the underfunding, we know that HBCUs are already punching above their weight. HBCUs are producing 23% of all African-American graduates. Right, but they only represent 3% of all of higher ed. 40% of all STEM degrees are being conferred at HBCUs and 60% of all black engineers are being conferred at HBCUs. So again, if we had equity in funding, we could do so much more.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Tell them like it is. And maybe last question for me here is, what if I'm an employer or a foundation and funder in the space? And I want to get involved with all the programs that TMCF, you what would you tell me?

Andrea Horton: Yeah. So we would love to get more corporations involved. You know, you can reach out to TMCF.org. There's a space there for anyone who wants to get involved, who wants to give, who wants to explore corporate partnership with us, anyone looking to hire more diverse employees. You know, we can certainly help create a program for that.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: So first of all, I do want to give a shout out for our team. I'm so proud of our organization. We purposely stay small in numbers so that 85% of the funding that we raise goes directly to our programs. Again, our not only is our work mission focused, but our employees are mission focused and they double down every day to make sure we're putting forth the best work so that we can have the largest impact on our students, our institutions and the world. Because at the end of the day, we are in pursuit of a more equitable society. 

I would say for our programming, a couple of things I wanna shout out. We talked a lot about money. We are in the next five years seeking to raise a hundred million dollars just for scholarships. What is unique about our scholarships is it's not when we say need, we think anyone who doesn't have free money to go to college has a need. It's not about your income, it's not income based. So we wanna make sure that we are part of the solution of generating black wealth. A lot of families have great incomes, great paychecks, but they haven't yet been able to build wealth. And when you're paying for two or three children to go to college, then your wealth building is delayed even more. So we want to support students to pursue a higher education without going into student loan debt. We want to support families who still need to invest for their retirement, but want to, of course, send their kids to school.

So we are on an ambitious mission to raise $100 million for scholarship funding so that we can have more students at HBCUs not only going to school, but persisting and completing their degrees.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Amazing.

Andrea Horton: We have great partners. I want to shout out Wells Fargo. They've been with us for more than 20 years. They've supported hiring our students. They've supported our programming. But one of the things I do wanna call out is our new partnership with Novartis. Novartis is really on a mission to address inequities in healthcare and who better to partner with than TMCF to think through how we intentionally fund students who are pursuing healthcare careers or get students to pursue healthcare careers, get them to graduate and then work in those careers where they can make a difference in the quality of care for all people in America. So we are really addressing high scale issues in our society. One, making sure people who are now at the margins of society have a pathway to the American dream through a higher education. And then also on the other side, making sure that we have equity in spaces where we are still seeing a lot of inequities like in tech and healthcare and so on.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Thank you for that. And of course, the finishing question here, we ask every guest and give it some thought because you intersect with students, employers, institutions. What do you see for the future of higher education?

Andrea Horton: I think with the recent decision of the Supreme Court, no sort of race conscious admissions decisions. I think you're going to see more students pursuing an HBCU education. Traditionally, students have pursued going to PWIs, because typically they have more funding, right? You get better scholarship dollars. At many of our institutions, there are only a handful of presidential scholarships or full-ride scholarships. So PWIs being, traditionally being better funded, had an opportunity to really support our students financially. But if students are going to have a more difficult time pursuing that pathway, they're going to really increase their demand on HBCUs. What that means is all of the things that we see today becomes, you know, almost crisis level for us, meaning we need more residential halls, we need more professors, we need more labs, we need more buildings in order to really be able to support the increased demand at our institutions.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: It is amazing if you actually thank you for connecting those dots and you think about the domino effect of that Supreme Court decision and how, you know, because most institutions are going, I have too many buildings. There's too much infrastructure, but that may not be the case for HBCUs, as you're saying, who are going to see an increase in interest because of that Supreme Court decision. It's an interesting dynamic, sub-dynamic of what's going on in higher ed. Thank you for bringing that up here on the EdUp Experience, we really appreciate it because I think that's a, I don't even gotten into that at all, but that is an interesting phenomenon that's going on right now. 

Kathy, what do you think about this episode as your first time guest co-hosting gig?

Kathy Shaw: I had fun. It was helpful that our guest is doing such great work and I've been aware of the work of the organization TMCF for a long time. The impact is great. And I just love that individual story, Andrea, that you shared, right? For all of us that work in education and in particular higher ed, those experiences are the ones that drive us to keep doing the work because gosh, there's so much to do. And so many reasons to get dissuaded from doing it. And you have to remember the outcomes. That's what it's all about.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Ladies and gentlemen, one person who keeps telling us of the outcomes through her research is my guest co-host today. Her name is Kathy Shaw. She's the director at Titan Partners. Kathy, thank you for joining us today. It was an absolute pleasure to meet you in person and to have you back on a mic.

Kathy Shaw: Thanks, Joe. Anytime.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And of course, the guest of honor, she is my guest today. No, she is your guest today. Her name is Andrea Horton. She is the chief marketing officer at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. And it's TMCF.org if you're interested in learning more. Andrea, we hope you had a good time today, at least as we got to talk about TMCF.

Andrea Horton: I had a great time. Anytime I get to talk about what we do, I'm happy.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well, we'll take that. We'll take that and we appreciate your passion and the stories of success that you brought here. Ladies and gentlemen, you know what you have just done. You have just edupped.