803: How to Revolutionize Education Access - with Chris Lowery⁠, Commissioner, ⁠Indiana Commission for Higher Education⁠

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. Elvin Freitas, of course, co-founder of this podcast has said it to me many times. He says, "Don't make these time-bound because they're evergreen. So you don't want to say what time you're doing this or what day you're doing this because who knows when it could be released." But I'm so freaking excited. Why? Because we're one week away from our four year anniversary of the EdUp Experience. So when you hear this episode, it's probably going to be weeks from now.

But I just don't care because four years of blood, sweat and tears interviewing the most innovative leaders in and around higher education. We feel like it's a pretty solid accomplishment. Of course, this podcast has been downloaded and played nearly 370,000 times over the last four years. And a big hug and thank you from me to you, those of you that listen to this podcast. Maybe you listened once and you're like, "This stinks." But you did listen once and I appreciate that. And then maybe you've listened many times and I love you for it. And so does Elvin. We really appreciate it. And it gives us the juice that we need. 

And as I've told you guys, Elvin, he edits these in his New York City two-bedroom condo apartment. And he does this when his kids and wife go to sleep. He does it in the bathroom. He edits all these things in his bathroom. And I record every single day at lunch between 12 to 1. I eat my lunch in about five minutes and then I spend the rest of the time picking food out of my teeth while I interview today's higher ed leaders, which is what I'm gonna do today, except I've brought somebody along for the ride to help me. He is an innovative leader in higher education in his own right. Why do I know this? Because I interviewed him. That's why on episode 331 released October 10, 2021. There's a lot of 21's - that's pretty cool when I think about that now.

So let me bring him to the mic. You're going to recognize his voice when you hear him. Ladies and gentlemen, he is the one and only Dr. Chuck Johnson, president of Vincennes University. Welcome back to the EdUp Experience!

Dr. Chuck Johnson: Thank you, Joe. Great to be with you.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: It's fantastic. It's been a few years, my friend.

Dr. Chuck Johnson: It has. And you haven't aged.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know what? Thank you for saying that. In fact, I'm going to have you call my wife for me and let her know that. You haven't aged either, even though you've been a president for now eight years. So that's not wearing on you at all, is it?

Dr. Chuck Johnson: It's the camera angle.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know what Chuck, now that I have you, before I bring in our guest, I gotta ask you a question even though you're my co-host. Because we know, and you know this, there are so many people in higher ed that I think aspired to be a college president at one point. Maybe we're dissuaded from doing so now because of the hot seat that being a president can be. What's been your secret to longevity eight years later?

Dr. Chuck Johnson: I don't know if it's a secret or not. I think that I've just been blessed to work with a great board and great faculty and staff. We have a great leadership team. One of the things is just I'm enthused every day about the mission of the institution. And I see every day greater potential for us and working with our partners in Indiana and certainly with Chris and his seat in the Commission for Higher Education. I'm really excited about the future. And I guess that gets me up every morning ready to go.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yes. And just like I hoped you would, Chuck, because I want to give you a little stuff. You've done what many rookie guest co-hosts do, which is reveal the guest name before I have a chance to introduce them. But that's OK. You always get a mulligan. So I'm going to bring him in now since you already said his name. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is. His name is Chris Lowery. He is the commissioner for higher education for the state of Indiana. Not a commissioner. He is the commissioner. Chris, how are you?

Chris Lowery: Hey Joe, I'm well. Thank you so much. It's great to be here with my friend Chuck Johnson. As you said, he's just an exceptional higher ed leader. And by the way, congratulations, four years. That's very cool.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's a lot of talking, Chris. A lot of talking, which I know you know something about being a commissioner for higher education for the state of Indiana. What does that mean? Give us the lay of the land, lay it out for us. Somebody's listening and goes, "What does a commissioner for a state do for higher education?" Tell us what that looks like.

Chris Lowery: That's a great question. The first person who I think asked me that was my 89-year-old mother who I told this to two years ago. And she said, "So is that good? Is that a good thing?" And I said, "Mom, I'm employed. So doing something I'm going to love." But yeah. So the Commission for Higher Education in Indiana is technically the coordinating body for all of our public colleges and universities. Chuck Johnson leads one of those seven - Vincennes University. And then we have 29 independent colleges in Indiana. So 36 altogether, multiple campuses of some of the organizations. So we have a broad reach of higher ed here in Indiana. 

So we're the coordinating body, but we also are the organization that oversees academic credentials for our higher ed institutions. What programs are offering, we approve their degree offerings and so forth. We also help set a strategy for the state. We're referring to ours as the Hope Agenda these days and I can dig into that. But then one of the most significant things, responsibilities we are given is to oversee and manage our very generous need-based financial aid portfolio. Our team oversees and manages about a $400 million portfolio. We think it is too. And others think it's so too. We're first in the Midwest in need-based financial aid and we're fifth in the nation.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Thanks. So that's a lot. What does staff look like? Who helps you do this?

Chris Lowery: Yeah. You know, I echo some things that Chuck said. I am so fortunate. I'm so blessed. We have such an incredible organization here. We have about 65 people across the organization, the majority of whom are located here in Indianapolis, where our headquarters are located. And we're about a block from the state house, conveniently located. But then we have folks who are also stationed around the state and they work with high schools, you know, to help students as they prepare to matriculate. They work with community and faith-based organizations. Sometimes they're working with our universities and colleges. 

I do a lot of that. I'm on the road quite a bit. But funny story about that, I think it was the third time that I had visited Chuck Johnson on his campus when I was, I don't know, Chuck, what all of 10 months into my role. He's just awesome. He was waiting for me and we're going to do this little tour and there were some things he really wanted to show me, which were just great. But I could tell the question was like, "Why are you here again?" And as well, don't put out a restraining order on me. But I really go out because I think it's so important for a person in my role to really be close to what's happening at our institutions, hear what the challenges are, hear what the opportunities are. I frankly, I just don't know how to do it other than trying to be present.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well, I think that's a good segue. Chuck, I'd usually like do some kind of, you know, segue and open it up to the guest co-host take over. But I know you're good with a mic, so run with it.

Dr. Chuck Johnson: Well, you know, I want to echo Chris has shown a great propensity not just to sit in Indianapolis and kind of talk in big policy words, but he does get out. And of course, Chris brings a background, having been on the ground in higher education, working on some innovative workforce programs and partnerships within his previous role. And I think that has given him an appreciation for not just what has to happen at the state level, but what has to happen locally at campuses. So Chris, one of the things I know that your background is important is how do we build these bridges across different levels of higher education? I don't know if you want to talk about some of the things we're in dual credit and some of the things that we're doing as a state to help align the academic credentials and work-based learning for youths and things like that.

Chris Lowery: Chuck, thank you. And to edify really quickly, Chuck and I really got to know each other when I was senior vice president at Ivy Tech Community College here in Indiana, worked very closely. In fact, Chuck, we probably met when I was still in industry. Joe and your listeners, I've been in higher ed for about 10 years now, but came out of manufacturing, advanced manufacturing here in Indiana where I built my career and then felt a calling and was recruited into another role.

You know, I think the work that we're trying to do to align with education has been really critically important. It continues to grow and we've seen some real levels of success, you know, with our high schools and really making sure that things like dual credit really count, that it's just not random acts of dual credit that kids are accumulating. You know, Chuck's institution with his leadership has really been at the forefront of that nationally in really being embedded in our high schools, in our career tech ed centers, and making sure that students as they're learning are getting those college credits and not just getting those college credits, but then earning a credential that I'm sure this would be familiar to your listeners, you know, stacks into, you know, continuing progress in a degree so that, you know, they might be doing something, I'll take advanced manufacturing.

You know, earning an industry certification from Manufacturing Skills Standards Council and showing the student how that fits into then an academic credential and that they can build on, you know, up through and including, you know, bachelor's degrees so that lifelong learning and, you know, building their own careers, but then also meeting the needs of the labor market. I can't recall right now what our current ranking is, but we've always been in the top handful of states in terms of robustness and dual credit. And gosh, over the last couple of years, I think our intentionality has really come through. We launched a couple of years ago, something called the Indiana College Core and that's a block of 30 credit hours that a student can earn while in high school and it's fully transferable.

And it's just been remarkable to see how that's grown. When I came on board 21 months ago, about 84 of our roughly 500 high schools were doing that. And our team, along with great leaders like Chuck and others said, you know what? More students should have this available. And that's one of those things that I look at and say the team, our partners have been really successful in. We went from 84 high schools in April of 2022 to 141 this past August, 225. And our target is to be in the 300 range this coming August because we think it makes so much sense for kids. They save time, they save money, and the track record is they go at a higher rate to college and they also complete at a better rate. 

So anyway, that's one example, I think, of where we've just really been intentional. And one of the other things, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention and Chuck's part of this is we have formed something in the last year here at the commission called the Pentagon or the Partnership Pentagon. And we've been really, really intentional about asking senior leaders - a handful from five areas of our society to help us think about higher ed and what it means. As you might guess, that includes higher ed leaders like Chuck. Government, probably not a surprise. Business leaders, but also philanthropy. And we're really blessed here in Indiana. We just have some remarkable philanthropic organizations. And then on the nonprofit side, specifically community and faith-based organizations, because the fact of the matter is back to Chuck's point about communities, they have a better reach into the community than I know I ever will or our office ever will, or more than likely any one institution would. And so those folks come together.

With a regular convening, we have an outside organization that helps convene us, pick our brains, et cetera. And by the way, the culmination of that is going to be a report that we issue this coming summer that'll help inform where we go forward strategically.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That is amazing. Thanks. Chuck, keep going.

Dr. Chuck Johnson: Well, Chris, you know, one of the other things I know that that last legislative session were big accomplishments were the 21st Century Scholar auto-enroll in which in 21st Century Scholar. For those who don't know is our really very, very successful program to help low-income students who are identified in junior high and that they commit to this and meet certain academic and other expectations. They're guaranteed funding to help cover tuition to any of the state institutions or take it to the private institutions to pursue their education. I know historically, we've seen you have the data to talk about how successful those 21st Century Scholars are despite the challenges they face and how much more successful they are than students who come from similar backgrounds. I don't know if you want to talk about the program, the auto-enroll or the success of 21st Century Scholar.

Chris Lowery: Chuck, thank you. You saw me smile. That makes my day. Victory! Yeah, and Joe, I'll give you context here too. I've kind of been around a while. Industry, et cetera, in my early career, was a policy wonk at the State House and all the way back to the 1980s. And had my appetite whetted around education and I've stayed connected to it since. We did some major education reform in 1987 when I was working for the governor. And that was truly a highlight of my career. I would tell you that what happened last year with the 21st Century Scholars expansion at the very least equals it. 

So here's what it is. You know, Chuck described this is Indiana's promise program to young people who don't have the financial means to go to college. We identify them in middle schools. Chuck said, essentially children who qualify for free and reduced lunch. During their high school period, they follow something called the Scholar Success Program. I like to think of it as good student and good citizen checklist. Stay out of trouble, get a minimum GPA, do career planning, fill out the FAFSA, all of these things. And assuming they do those things, they're awarded the 21st Century Scholar funding as they matriculate. All tuition covered, as Chuck said, at any one of our state universities or colleges. It goes a healthy way toward the private institutions too. 

And the deal is this, these kids are so incredibly successful for having gone through the program. Our data show us that in recent years, Indiana's college-going rate, so kids leaving high school, going to college has been around 53%. It's declined and we're focusing on it like crazy. Here's the very, here's the really interesting part. 21st Century Scholars have a college-going rate of over 80%. And their low-income peers who didn't get into the program, only 30% go. So right there, the delta is incredible. And after they're on the role and you know, Chuck and his peers and business leaders, you know, we talked a lot about the 21st Century Scholars program and what I learned was less than half, 48% in the previous year, 48% were able to be signed up because we sort of had to chase these kids down somewhere, make sure they got the form signed, make sure they got it home. Some schools were better at it than others, some families presented a challenge and so forth. And during a couple of different discussions, and I know I'm not the first to have said this, but I said,

"So we know who these kids are, and so is there a reason we wouldn't just automatically sign them up?" You know, and again, I wasn't the first. Yeah, I mean, that's sort of the V8 moment, right? And so we began talking with policymakers and again, Chuck and his peers just did a remarkable job of helping really press this issue. And what was so neat was we saw folks across the political spectrum go, "Look, this is the right thing to do." You know, community leaders, business leaders and others, all of them just lined up to help testify on this. So we went to the governor, went to the legislative leaders and said, we got this idea. The program has been in existence for 32 years. We're missing half the kids. And the reality is when they go, right, they have much greater successes in life. 

Joe, this was fun, by the way. You know, we have... This is a red state and we have a strong fiscal condition in our state. It's been well paid attention to excellent bond rating and all of those things. And so talking in economic terms matters. And so our team, our business intelligence team did a return on investment analysis of this. And you can probably already guess these kind of things. Just the delta in the improvement of lifetime wages for the kids who do this ends up being 10X the original state investment. Their increase in likely tax, you know, the tax receipts, and that was only local and state. We didn't even look at the Fed side of it more than compensates for the original investment, right? This is just one of those, the proverbial no-brainer to do this. And what was so exciting, a couple of things I'll just cut to the chase here. Something like this, again, this is like a big deal. And one economist who's well known here in Indiana writes a lot, referred to it, I think in his words, I'm close to this, as the most significant economic development initiative in 50 years. 

So you have accepted the truth. They did. And I always like to say with alacrity, there was good cheer around it. I think through the entire process, Joe, committee hearings, floor hearings, House, Senate, and all that stuff, I think there was one vote one time against it. I think there was one. So virtually unanimously supported throughout. And then here's the really, really big deal that occurred. The students who had been eighth graders at the end of 2022, the summer of 2022 when we were still chasing them down, we were able to enroll about 19,900 of those kids.

This past year on June 30th, we were operating under the new way, automatic enrollment. And literally I got to hit the proverbial button on a keyboard. They made me feel good. I know it really did nothing, but right. But that afternoon we auto-enrolled all of these young people who were eligible. Remember it was 19,900 the year before. This past summer on June 30th, it exceeded 46,000 kids. I mean, you know, I mean, it, gosh, I have to, you know, it was like an emotional moment because you can, you know, can literally afterwards...

Dr. Joe Sallustio: What? That was the button you hit after it. That was the button we hit afterward. 

Chris Lowery: Yeah. But you know, to think about 26,000, actually more than that, you know, young people who would have this opportunity that, you know, you and Chuck, and I'm sure all listeners have had, you know, at this chance at higher ed and all the economics and social mobility and prosperity that can come with that was just pretty terrific.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, I'm glad to hit on some other topics too. I don't wanna do a monologue here.

Chris Lowery: Are you kidding me? No, I'm not.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah. Look at this when we talk about impact, right? That's that's real measurable incredible impact affecting the lives of people in this country, which we need to do more of and more often to highlight that impact. That's why we do this podcast is because we want to have you talk about that level of impact. So other leaders in other states can hear about the impact that people are making. We could talk about colleges and universities all the time. There's policymakers, there's ed tech companies, and there's so many ways to impact the lives of adults and of traditional college-age students, but you this isn't all sunshine and rainbows your your life all the time, right? I mean you're wrestling with some real policy issues, I would guess and this is me assuming on a daily basis, right because there is a political atmosphere or political - I don't know the right word, but it's a political environment I guess that we live in depending on your look, both positive and negative, and there's issues that matter to some and not to others, and other issues that matter to those people and not to those people, how do you balance all of that? And what are you really wrestling with policy-wise in higher education?

Chris Lowery: Yeah, so how do you balance all that? Well, I asked you that. So I don't know the answer.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, I was looking to you, Joe, help me here. I thought this was this therapy session.

Chris Lowery: You know, one thing I would hope folks realize about me again, Chuck and I have known each other a long time. I try to fancy myself as being terribly pragmatic. You know. How do you address something that is complex? By the way, I think I think the issues we face with higher ed are complex and they're not complicated. Right? Complicated means you've got a math formula. Let's just figure it out and we're done. They're complex because they've got so many tentacles and as you said, there are so many things that are adjacent. Even the Pentagon that I described, all of those players, everybody has an interest. I think everybody ultimately has the best at heart. 

So with that, one of the things that we decided as a team right after I came into this role. And in fact, I had talked with our commission members. We have 14 commission members, by the way, all appointed by the governor, staggered terms, and they're the ones who actually hired the commissioner. So I'm on the governor's cabinet, but appointed by those commission members. But anyway, even my point being even back to talking with the search team and then the commission members, some of whom I've known a long time, I said, look, we're going to be terribly pragmatic about this. And as we began getting to work, what will now be two years in April, May, June, we said, look, data is really, really important and simplicity of story really matters. And I think two things that our team pulled together that have had great impact were what we refer to as the economic and the social four by four.

A lot of people are now using it, which is great. We want folks to use it. And so here's what we did, Joe. We wanted to really drive the point, whether someone was, you know, really on board to support the kind of changes we've been pursuing, whether they were skeptical, whether they were, you know, opposed. We just wanted to have the facts. So here's what here's what we did. We looked at four levels of educational attainment that are pretty broadly known. Someone with less than a high school diploma, a high school diploma, an associate degree or significant amounts of college, and a bachelor's degree and higher. It's really easy to get data around those things. In the economic grid, we had four data points, so four by four. Average wages, unemployment rate, labor participation rate, and net wealth accumulation. Not surprising to anyone listening to this, with each level you scale up, it improves significantly. 

When we started showing that data really robustly, I think it was like in the fall of 2022, in Indiana, the unemployment rate for someone with less than a high school diploma was like close to 7%. For someone with a bachelor's degree, it was 0.9%.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: No way!

Chris Lowery: And it remains that kind of way now, you know, and unemployment's gone up a little bit as, as we deal with inflation and so forth as an economy. But all of those things scale labor participation rates and it scales across each level. Thirty percent difference between those extremes. Then on the social side, what we wanted to make sure of, you might have heard me as I rattled off a while ago, a mantra around here is economic and social mobility and prosperity. All four of those words are really critically important. So on the social side, we've looked at a few different things, but ones we stayed really closely to are utilization of public assistance, infant mortality, life expectancy, and even death by opioid per capita. Well, the stats show us all of those things just improve with educational attainment.

We know there are others, rates of incarceration, being a victim of crime. All of those things are just inextricably connected to the degree, the level to which someone is able to achieve some additional educational attainment. It was really very interesting. The one statistic in particular, life expectancy, as I began to talk to anybody who would listen was going to hear this, you know, Chuck knows I'm really shy. A lot of people, so a lot of people heard this, but you know, when I would talk with groups, large and small and share, and I'd ask for a raise of hands, of course, the audience in advance and literally audiences where no one in the room did not have a bachelor's and higher, right? Everybody, everybody in the room had that benefit.

And then I would just pose a number and I'd say, so tell me what you think this number is 12 and interesting guesses. And I'd say, okay, here's, here's what it is. Those of us in this room have have on average an expectancy life expectancy, 12 years longer than someone with, with less than high school diploma. And by the way, it's insane to even think about, I mean, by the way, it's, it's stretched out to 13 years now, Joe, it's, it's stretched out even more. Infant mortality, it's 2X on the extremes. And again, it scales across each one. It's not like there's just some weird thing between the top number and the bottom number. 

So you ask about those challenges. We have all of them, right? Whether it's the college going rate, whether it's completions, by the way, our state's done a really good job of improving completions in the last few years. 11th best in the nation now. Or talking about how do we really focus on retaining our graduates here in Indiana. Any of these complexities, what are we doing with enrollment? What are we doing with costs of education? And what I believe is our need to support good institutions like we have here in Indiana. We've just stuck to those numbers and then back them up with additional things like the return on analysis. 

If I could too, you mentioned, and I would hate to miss this, your listeners, you know, whether they're, you know, my peers or Chuck's peers or, you know, the mix of your audience and learning from each other. And I have to give you a great example and hats off to the state of Idaho. Chuck mentioned in passing a few minutes ago about something we're calling, our pre-admission strategy. And the long and short of that is, is this, team had been talking about some of the challenges, what the marketplace looks like for the student or the consumer in my view. And one day as we were having these discussions, I said, you know what, I've got two adult kids, we went through the process with them. Of course, I lived this role in higher ed and now I've got this deal. I think the marketplace for the consumer with higher ed is kind of crummy.

And right. And my staff, our staff looked at me and they're like, how dare you say that? I said, no, no, no. Hear me out here. I said, here you have individuals who don't know all the options like right in Indiana. They don't know necessarily there are seven publics, 29 privates, all these campuses. They're likely to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. They ultimately sort of have to beg to get in with this application process and all of that, and then wait to find out if any of that works out.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: It's fuzzy math. It's fuzzy math, right?

Chris Lowery: Yeah. And so we had this sidewinding conversation. I said, you know, I've always been unapologetic about this. I believe in the markets, but if you can help a market perform better, could we do that? And yeah, to cut to the chase on this one, now chief of staff, he's brilliant, came back a couple of weeks later and he said, so Idaho's doing what we're talking about a couple of weeks ago. It's like, Josh, what's that? Because yeah, you the marketplace and all that. And, Idaho started something they call pre-admissions. We, we did what I love to think of as R and D. We just ripped it off and duplicated it. 

And it, you know, to oversimplify it, Joe, what we were able to do is we match up a student, an incoming high school senior student's GPA and SAT. We went to the institutions and said, hey, we know this is a rush, but if you'd like to participate this first year, tell us what a threshold would be. You give us the number, SAT and or GPA, we don't care. Then we reached out to all the high schools and said, hey, we need such, such, such data from you. Now in 2024, it's all gonna be automatic. We'll have all the data. And we were able to send to about 80% of all high school seniors this past September, a letter that I gotta tell you, I didn't even know when it went out that was coming from me, but it came from me when some friends started sending pictures of, look what my kid got. To all these high school seniors and saying, "Here are the institutions, public and private in Indiana to which you are pre-admitted. Here's information about how to apply at these institutions. Here's information about scholarships and grants, financial aid," on and on and on. It'll be even more robust this coming August and September. We reached 57,000 students, and the average student learned that he or she would be pre-admitted to 24 institutions in Indiana. 

The reason I mentioned seeing photos, literally, my phone blew up with friends, people I don't even know how they got my information, it was amazing. You know, look at what my kid got. My by the check somebody you know who sent basically said, you know, since sliced bread, our son of these schools were in Idaho really saw a nice going rate and you know, system, it benefits students, you know, walk into this decision with hopefully more knowledge and also an unsaid benefit Chuck and I'll pass it back to you. But you want to keep I would assume you want to keep Indiana talent in Indiana. So if I tell you all the institutions that students from Indiana can go to and they choose an institution in Indiana, that's a win for Indiana.

Dr. Chuck Johnson: Absolutely. I think, you know, the program Chris is talking about really is exciting. I think one of the challenges as a state as we've seen our college going rate decline has been what is the disconnect? And I think what Chris has tapped into is a lot of it is related to just not being aware and not not having the information to make good decisions. And so this 21st Century Scholar auto-enroll is a great piece when you combine that with the pre-admission. Now we've got folks who are seeing I have a way to afford my educational pathway and here are the pathways that I can be automatically seen to be have an inside track to. And then Chris, I know there's one more piece that was critical to this, and that was the FAFSA requirement as well. So you put those trifecta in there, and you might talk about that. I think we've really created an environment here in Indiana, and Chris, it's the leadership and his stewardship that is trying to address these issues at a root level, and I think will have a major impact in the future.

Chris Lowery: I'd love to talk about FAFSA really briefly, Chuck. And again, more R&D, seven states prior to us. Joe, I'm going to take that down, by the way.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Okay, just rip off and do it.

Chris Lowery: Yeah, give credit, but just do so with alacrity, right? Do so with good cheer. Just take the good ideas and run. But seven states beat us to the punch on that. That's okay. There had been a bill offered for a number of years at the legislature to make FAFSA completion a requirement of graduation in the state. It had failed multiple times. And again, I think our approach was pragmatic and just very practical.

One of the numbers that stuck out for, you know, many, many people, including, policymakers was that we were able to discern that in the previous year, just for lack of filling out the FAFSA students who were in college, again, not counting those who said, gee, I can't go cause I can't afford it. In Indiana students in one year had left $70 million on the table because they hadn't completed the FAFSA. That gets people's attention, right?

And we know it's well beyond that because as Chuck said, then students are realizing, hey, there are all these schools I could get into. And by the way, now I'm getting these financial offers, sometimes unsolicited. So, we're the eighth in the nation now to do it. This year's seniors, graduating seniors are required to do it. There's an opt-out provision like I think every state has, but we expect the completion of those to increase significantly. And by the way, on various things we have.

We have five really big goals that we've set as part of this HOPE agenda. We set very aggressive goals. The out dates are 2030, but we're measuring them out year by year and going to hold ourselves accountable to the state. By the way, all this is going to be on a transparent portal in September, lagging and leading indicators, and then forecasting on every one of our initiatives to say how will they impact these various metrics.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Right. Accountability for all of this. Right. You got to know how things work. And we owe it to students and we owe it to our partner institutions. We owe it to the taxpayer.

Chris Lowery: Yeah, that's pretty simple.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Chuck, anything else you want to ask any burning questions? Chris, sounds like you guys are like lockstep.

Dr. Chuck Johnson: Well, yeah, I think that's a great way to put it, Joe. I think that Chris and the Commission for Higher Education are solution providers, they're partners in the process and I think that we have challenges like every location like every state, but I think we're taking some important strides and Chris is in is the right person in the seat that he's in for the needs of Indiana. Chris before we exit you here. I do want to ask what it's a burning question. I think every higher ed administrator probably every policymaker is dealing with and that's this value question about higher ed. You talked about it. You talked about why then is there so much narrative around higher ed that it's just not worth it? That the education's not worth it? That you could do the Elon Musk route. Go get some AI, start your own business, be Bill Gates, right? The reality of that is nil for 99.9999% of Americans. But somehow there's a wave of do something else. And we see it in two ways. One, there are kids that are choosing not to go to college. And then there are kids and adults that don't finish college once they start and they don't choose another college. They just stop. What do you make of that?

Chris Lowery: I think you. Yeah, I think you mentioned several things there. First, and I would be clear with anyone. I'll paraphrase what one of our former governors said. There's no plan A and plan B for a student. It's plan A and a plan A. It just depends on which one they choose. You know, someone may choose to pursue a short-term credential that gets them into a really well-paying job. You know, they achieve middle class. By the way, it happened to my family. My father did an apprenticeship with General Motors, and he's now deceased. That was the moment the Lowery family came into the middle class, having moved to the auto industry world of Indiana from Tennessee.

That's important. And the choice might be the pursuit of that, you know, degree at Chuck's University. But back to this value question, I think your Elon Musk example is perfect. I refer to that all the time as the unicorn. You know, into this conversation, well, you know, there's this story or, you hear about the millionaire next door, but statistically, it's the unicorn. And that's also part of the reason you know, that we're really using the data, economic, social data, very simple stuff, unemployment, wages, net wealth accumulation. Those are just facts. You know, they're unemotional. They are only facts. 

But I think showing and telling that value in a simplified format is critically important. We're about to launch. There'll be a press release later today. We were talked about at our commission, our regular commission meeting. We were given a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment here in Indiana, $1.3 million to dig into specifically that question. And it's not just related to folks in Indiana, but help us better understand where the disconnect is and what do we do to help folks see the value. You know, like we are better and how do we help other folks see that? So, you know, we're really excited about that and we think it will really help inform our strategy. 

You know, someone I know really well, someone Chuck and I both know really well, he's a thought leader, just a leader here in Indiana, his name is Dennis Bland and runs this amazing organization called the Center for Leadership Development. By the way, he'd be a great interview in the work that he's done, but he talks oftentimes about what he refers to is the fact that people need an education on an education. And his organization has been doing that in inner city Indianapolis for 30 or 40 years. And it's very much bringing students oftentimes who are living in very deep poverty to an understanding about the value of education. And it's remarkable the number of young people who go to wonderful institutions in our state and out of state who have gone through CLD or the Center for Leadership Development because they've learned about the value of an education. 

We've got to do more of that scale. And back to that Pentagon, it can't just be government and it can't just be Chuck's institution and those of his peers. Community faith-based organizations have got to be part of this. Business has got to be loud about it. Philanthropy has got to lean in just like the Lilly Endowment did with us on this project and said, hey, we're putting up money to help figure this out. And in Indiana, I keep saying, we've got to lose some Hoosier humility. Literally, you know, unearth a few of these statistics starting about a year, a year and a half ago, Joe. And when we started sharing this, there were people going, really? No kidding. Again, I said earlier to you, believe in the markets. I think the markets are just sometimes brutally honest.

And it's interesting to me that there are these rankings, you know, won't mention any of the publications because I subscribe to many of them, but who do rankings of institutions. But here's what I believe in. I believe in the markets. One of things we found out is that Indiana's public and private institutions are the ninth best at attracting students from out of state. There are people flocking to our institutions. And to me, that shows value.

It's the affordability. Our institutions are very affordable. By the way, again, we have really, you know we've kept our tuition down. We're sixth best in the nation at having kept our tuition down at public institutions in the last 11 years. Now, a lot of people heard about Mitch Daniels doing that at Purdue. Love Mitch. Not even a long time. Did remarkable work. But guess what? The other institutions were doing that too. Sixth best in the nation.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: So people talk about institutions and a lot of averages to hit number six, right? It's not just.

Chris Lowery: That's exactly right. It took everybody, you know, working on this. So so that's that's pretty remarkable. You know, we're ninth best in the nation at attracting students from out of state. Now, we also still have our challenges. One of those that Chuck alluded to another podcast, we can talk about this one. But we're trying to make sure students stay in our state. How do we how do we have business lean into that and work with our institutions? Our institutions have all created remarkable plans on on how they're going to how they're going to do that. We've embedded it into our performance funding formula this past year and you know, we just want more students going finding what they want to do. We want to perform well. We're now 11th best in the nation at completions and holding down tuition and those costs and we also want to be the top one of the top states that we hold on to our talent because this is a great place to live work and play.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Chuck, you know what I realized? Time flies when you have a good storyteller. And if you want to be a good policymaker, you have to tell a good story because you have to, you're advocating for students. And I think Chris did a really good job because I zoned out for a while and all of sudden, I mean, I'm zoning into what he was saying, but all of a sudden 45 minutes, 50 minutes just breeze by.

Dr. Chuck Johnson: Yeah. Chris has, he's, he's at the helm of a lot of great things that have happened or are happening in Indiana. I'm glad to be part of the team and we're looking forward to the next several years and all these things coming to fruition for our benefit and for our state's benefit.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well, what an honor to be here with you, Chuck. A couple years later after interviewing you to have you back on the mic, ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Dr. Chuck Johnson. He's the president of Vincennes University. Please don't make this the last time you come back on.

Dr. Chuck Johnson: My pleasure. I'd love to be back anytime, Joe.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: All right. Well, you know, we're going to invite you to as many as you want to come back on. I think Chris, we're going to have to get him back once his episode is released. We're going to have to get him to co-host. Maybe there's some other presidents in Indiana. He's maybe wants to interview over here on the EdUp Experience. He's doing some great work, ladies and gentlemen. He is the Indiana commissioner for higher education. Chris Lowery, Chris, did you enjoy your time here on the EdUp Experience podcast?

Chris Lowery: Joe, Chuck, this was wonderful. The time flew by for me too. I looked like two minutes ago and went, my gosh, we've got two minutes left. Yes, I'd love to come back, Joe. Thanks much. Thanks for what you're doing. And Chuck, such a great partner. Always good to be with you.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's a sign of a great podcast, ladies and gents. You've just ed-upped.