840: Pathways to the Future - Jean Eddy, CEO, American Student Assistance

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to EdUp on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. That's probably the slowest I've ever said my intro, but I want to make sure you hear it because we're excited to continue to bring you amazing guests in and around higher education today to talk about really critical, important, amazing topics. Look, higher ed's in a funky space right now, right? What we know, or we know a couple of things. One, people want jobs. And however they go about getting those jobs, whether it's through formal higher education, through skills stacking, credentials, what else is there? There's degrees, credentials, credit, non-credit. There's so many ways that somebody can become educated and get a post-secondary education. I don't think there's anybody that goes through education in any way that raises their hand at the end and says, please don't hire me. I don't think there's anybody that ever says that, right? So everybody's after making a better life for themselves. And that's why it's so critical that we have these conversations because we are all educating the workforce of tomorrow in our various ways throughout higher education. 

Now, one person that I know that does that and deals with this every day is my guest co-host. It's probably been a year and a half or so, maybe more, since she came on. You'll recognize her. She's everywhere. Both my guest and my guest co-host are everywhere. And you look them up and they're doing all these interviews everywhere. And I'm like, no, we got a good combo today. I'm going to bring her in right now. Ladies and gentlemen, she is the CEO of Jobs for the Future. She is Maria Flynn. Maria, welcome back.

Maria Flynn: Hi, Joe. It's great to be back and to have this conversation today.

Joe Sallustio: Well, how do you feel about all the prep work we did for this?

Maria Flynn: I feel totally prepared.

Joe Sallustio: You do? Hours of prep. Surprise. So we don't prep, right? It's my guest co-hosts that come back and they think that I'm going to schedule time with them to prep and I go, we don't prep at the EdUp Experience. This whole thing is a giant train wreck of goodness, a giant train wreck of goodness. And Maria, tell us where you're at today. What's going on in your life, Jobs for the Future? How are things?

Maria Flynn: Things are great at Jobs for the Future. So I am calling in from my house today outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

Joe Sallustio: And you're not often in your house? Is that why you say you're in your house?

Maria Flynn: It's true, because typically I'm on the road, but not this week.

Joe Sallustio: Well, good. Well, we're glad that you were able to make this because I think we're going to have a really fun conversation today. I'm going to bring in our guest right now. I've been saving this. We've been loading up this applause button for ladies and gentlemen. Her name is Jean Eddy, and she is CEO at American Student Assistance. See how I already messed that up, Jean? How are you?

Jean Eddy: I'm great. How about you?

Joe Sallustio: I'm feeling great. I'm feeling great about this interview today and having both of you here to talk about students, right? So why don't you level set for us? Tell us about American Student Assistance. What do you do and how do you do it?

Jean Eddy: OK, so at American Student Assistance, we help kids. We're changing the way how kids learn about careers and plan for their future. And we do that a few ways. I mean, primarily, I think the differentiator for American Student Assistance or ASA, as we're called, is to basically work directly with kids. And so we have a number of programs starting in middle school where we reach out to kids directly. Everything we do is free, but kids have an opportunity to go exploring about who they are, what they like, what they don't like, what their skills and abilities are. And then we show them a myriad of careers that could align with those skills and abilities. And then later on, we help them test and try through internships, work-based learning experiences in high school, all kinds of things, boot camps, apprenticeships, those kinds of things. And so it's amazing. At the end of the day, what we're trying to do is have them leave high school with a plan. If we can do that and they can take the next steps towards their career, we feel we've always succeeded.

Joe Sallustio: So leaving high school with a plan can be multifaceted, right? Could it be a plan to enter the workforce because I don't want to go to college or maybe I don't see the value in college or maybe I don't think I can be successful in college, there's going to be a range, right? It could be going to college. It could be taking a year to explore, travel, the gap year phenomenon. How many ways do you prepare students? And how many ways do they, how many paths are there? Have we ever like measured how many pathways there are?

Jean Eddy: We haven't measured an exact number of pathways, but I will tell you ASA works a lot with Jobs for the Future. And one of the things that we're looking at right now is how do we measure those pathways? How many of them are there? But certainly some of the things that you mentioned are absolutely there. I mean, many, many kids will go to college. And I contend that if they know what they love, what they're good at, and they can see a way to get a career through that experience in college, then that is absolutely the best outcome. But a young person can also say, I have skills and abilities that don't require a college degree. I want a career that maybe has a certificate or maybe need to do an apprenticeship or an internship or a training program that an employer will offer, which many of them do now, that's also a very good way to get into something that can build a very, very successful career for a young person.

Joe Sallustio: Epic. Let me ask you this and then I'll pass it to you, Maria. Do you think that kids are unaware of, like, are they not thinking about a job? They're just going to school every day and, you know, is there... Is there maybe the better question is how important is it to to get to kids at whatever level to make them think about what's coming? Because what happens if you don't do that, right? Do they just swim in in in nothingness for a while until they figure it out? And do we let people fall through the cracks?

Jean Eddy: Well, I think you make a good point. What I will say, however, is that what I don't want to have happen is for a young person to immediately think that they've got to pick what it is they want to grow, what they want to do when they grow up. I think that's absolutely wrong. And I think it's a question that I wish we would stop asking our young children. It should really be, what do you love to do? What are you good at? And then show them all the ways that they can have a successful future doing that. So it's really not about, let's figure out what that job is. I will say, however, that if you look at studies about stress levels in kids, particularly in high school, their stress level goes up substantially between freshmen and senior year because they are feeling a pressure about they've got to decide what it is they're going to study because they don't know what it is they want to do.

Joe Sallustio: Yikes! Maria?

Maria Flynn: Yeah. So, Jean, I know before you became CEO of ASA, you had a number of leadership positions in what I would call traditional higher ed. And so just curious like about kind of your own journey, I think to this place where I really feel that you are a leader in the field around helping us all think through this idea of multiple quality pathways that may or may not require a four year degree. But as someone who really spent many years leading those systems, just maybe tell us how you kind of came to kind of expand your perception and like how you think traditional higher ed should be adjusting if at all moving forward.

Jean Eddy: I think we're doing the work I do now at ASA has me coming full circle in my career. Working in higher ed, I worked with a lot of young people. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of young people who were on a college campus and they really didn't know why they were there. And some of them use that college experience as an opportunity to find out, which is a great way to find out if you can afford to do that. But college has become more and more and more expensive. But for those kids who that's money is not a factor, then it is a great way to kind of find yourself, so to speak, and be able to have a career path. But there were many young people who really didn't understand why they were there. They took too long to graduate because they kept bouncing from one thing to the next, or the worst case scenario, they dropped out because they just couldn't figure out what it was they were doing and why.

Joe Sallustio: It's fuzzy math.

Jean Eddy: Not only is it fuzzy math, but I would contend that a lot of these kids who took out a significant amount of money in order to go to school, for those kids who could not finish, they ended up with a lot of debt, they had to pay it back and they had no way to do that. So to my mind, working with kids to help them figure this out early on makes perfect sense because I would say that more and more young people will go to college. If we do our jobs right, they will go to college and they will have a plan in mind of what's going to happen. But I would also say there'll be a lot of kids, hopefully, who discover careers that they had no idea were out there that would really make their hearts sing. And that's what we should be working on now.

Maria Flynn: And so I know ASA has a number of digital platforms, as you said, you make available for free to young people. Maybe just tell us a little bit about some of those. I know you've added several to your portfolio over the past couple of years.

Jean Eddy: Sure. So, you know, we start off very simply with offering, you know, kids in middle school the ability to watch videos. And you would say, why in the world would the kid watch a video? You know, that's what kids do. The videos we have, we've got 26 of them, and they basically show the day in the life of a young person who's following someone in a career around. But it could also be a young person who's trying to make the case with his or her parents about a career that they've discovered that really, really isn't the conventional thing that one's parents would want them to do. I think of if you watch your own kids and you watch them, particularly on YouTube, they watch other kids playing games and they spend hours doing it. Well, this is kind of the philosophy with us. And we have a lot of young people watching these videos to really have them see that other kids are feeling the same things that they're feeling. 

But from there, we introduce them to a product called Futurescape, which is basically something that has games, puzzles, a whole host of things. And what it does is it identifies talents and interests. And it basically is, I'm going to say, a kid version of a Myers-Briggs. And when that actually comes to fruition, suddenly, a student is thrown into a planetarium, is the way I'm going to describe it. And there are multiple planets in it. And within those planets, some are big, some are glowing, some are little. But the big glowing planets are the areas of interest that this young person should pursue. And once they see that planet, they can click on it. And suddenly, they're going to get an awful lot of information about all of these careers in that space. And then if this interested, they can learn more and more and more. 

They then go over to our Evolve Me platform, which allows them to test and try things. So they could learn how to code in Python. They could learn financial responsibility. They could learn how to interview. They could sign up for a mentorship. They could go out and sign up for an internship. So this is our kind of testing and trying platform where kids can do a whole host of things, all in an effort to have them feel comfortable about their skills and abilities matching up with what's possible for them.

Joe Sallustio: That's so cool. That's so cool. You think about it like that. The gamification piece of this is really important, right? I don't know. My kids, for a long time, my daughter, she's nine now, but from seven to eight, she would watch videos of other girls making slime. And she would just have slime and they would put Sour Patch Kids in it and M&Ms and grass and just make big bowls of slime. And I would say, what are you doing? It's slime, right? But it's watching other kids doing it. And then you think about adults, right? You think about us. How many of you, when something breaks or you're to put something together, sit and read the 20 pages of directions or you look up the product on YouTube and somebody's walking you through it. We're all starting to learn by doing in ways that we never thought of before. 

But getting back to your original point, when you talk about, you know, the higher ed pathway is for some, you can find yourself if you have enough money, which most people don't, you can leave yourself an incredible debt if you don't finish a degree. And then you go through years of those that have that crushing debt go through years and years of trying to build themselves out of it. What about financial literacy for kids? Is it missing? You know, and I remember when my mom took me to the bank at, I don't know, maybe 16 to fill out a check, right? Which I don't even have checks anymore. But I was so nervous to fill out this check when you think about it now. But I was nervous to fill out a check because I'm like, where's the money? It's not, you know, I mean, I got into my piggy bank and now this piece of paper has my money and you start to understand debt and all of these things, credit. How important or how I know how important it is, but is it missing in kids today?

Jean Eddy: Yeah, I would say it's totally missing. And one of the things that we do with in the Evolve Me program is to help kids figure out how to build a budget, how to be able to look at a career and say, OK, in this career, you're going to make X amount of money. And let's say you want to do this career and you live in San Francisco. This is how much money you can expect to make. This is how much your average rent is going to be. Really? Yes. And this is how it all kind of puts a budget together, you know, kind of like it or not. And so you can see the difference between working in San Francisco or working in Kansas City in the same job and what that means. I'm not going to say surprisingly, I was going to say surprisingly, but I'm not going to say that a lot of kids go that route. A lot of kids do that. So I think that they like to do it in a non-threatening way that they can kind of fool around with it, figure it out and not have someone be standing over their shoulder saying, okay, this is how you have to do this.

Maria Flynn: So interesting. I just think having it in that kind of young person friendly context is so important because I feel a lot of the research that's out there right now around higher ed return on investment is just is not in a very user friendly format. And so I think the work that ASA is doing is so, is so critical. It's kind of like Joe said, my 11 year old daughter is a pretty much lives on YouTube. So the more you can kind of put the content and the information in ways that they're going to naturally digest it and interact with it, I think is terrific.

Jean Eddy: I think one of the things that we found out early on, and I would have to say that we had really great people working on this, but from day one as we were building all of these programs, we had kids with us every step of the way. And sometimes they would come up with designs or ways to approach things that I thought, nobody is going to go for this. And they're wildly popular. So obviously, you know, kids know kids. And it is really shown, at least in the number of kids where we interact with more than 15 million kids a year. So we have a lot of kids who are appreciating what other kids spent their time working with us to create.

Maria Flynn: And Jean, I believe, you know, a couple of years ago, you all made, you know, a strategic decision to do this kind of direct to kid approach kind of versus working through some of the traditional systems. Is that accurate? Like wondering like, how did you think about that? Like what are the pros and cons that you saw there?

Jean Eddy: When we first started off in this space, we tried everything. We tried direct grants to schools. We tried grants to the state of Massachusetts, to school systems, as well as doing something direct to kid. What we realized was that there are all kinds of kids in the school systems right now that need a different approach to how they are going to get to a successful future. We had great results working with schools. The problem we had is that you can't create a model for one school, have it work really well, and then say to the next school system, okay, you can do it this way. That's not how it rolls. Each school wants to put their own imprint on it. And because of that, you have to do it again and again and again. In the meantime, you've got a whole host of kids out there who aren't getting the information that they need to kind of have that successful future. But going direct to kid suddenly changes all of that. And so we really spent a lot of our efforts going directly to kids so that we could have a bigger impact faster. But I would also say that we can't forget about the systems that are around us because all kids, every kid needs an opportunity to be able to have this kind of interaction and ways of doing things that are different. So we are now moving even more, I would say aggressively, into systems, working with other nonprofits who are interested in this space to be able to work with school systems to be able to make the changes that we hope can be made. And there are some out there that are absolutely fabulous. Simply a matter of getting the word out, showing models, getting more and more people on the bandwagon.

Joe Sallustio: How do you think about the parent side of this? Because I mean, equity is a big deal. I'm sure you're dealing with maybe that have more privilege, some that are coming in their first gen, their students from a first gen, first gen from a family, and they're going up through the school system for the first time. Parents may speak English, may not, may know about financial responsibility, may not. Do you do any parent outreach to and how important is that, if at all, to the kids progressing to the point where they're thinking about their future?

Jean Eddy: Parent outreach is certainly important and they are big players in this space. There's no doubt about it. We do not have specific programs for parents. It's one of the things that we are looking at to do next. I would have to say that kids, in the surveying we've done to check the awareness of ASA, what we find is that parents actually know a lot about ASA. But if you ask the next question of how did you find out, it's because their children are telling them. So they are doing something cool somewhere and they are talking about it. I've had teachers who we do not usually interact with who have reached out to me saying that a young person in their class has talked about what they've been doing on their mobile device. And then I've had teachers ask about getting more information. Can they use it in the classroom? Those kinds of things. Word of mouth is a really good thing, but we need to make a concerted effort to engage parents in this as well. What we're trying to do is walk a line because right now the way we focus on young people, kids think this is all about them and this is theirs. So what we're trying not to do is have it be something that is imposed by somebody else, whether it's mom or dad, a school system, anything like that. This is kid focused. And I think that's why it resonates so well.

Joe Sallustio: That's a fact. That's a fact. Talk about I'll pass it back to you, Maria, after after this. But I do want to ask about what gets you up out of that chair doing a cartwheel in your living room? What's that? Right. I know everybody just saw it happen, but what's that metric or that moment or that outcome that gets you to get up out of your chair and go, yes, that's why I'm doing this?

Jean Eddy: I would have to say it's when a young person is either is coming to us and saying something like, they participated in a program or they were the recipient of something that we did in a school system and how it absolutely changed their life. We had a group of young women who were in a school system in Massachusetts, who we gave a grant to that school for them to do something innovative that basically had these young women being entrepreneurs and innovators. And they basically ended up doing a project that had them working with a NASA scientist about the soil composition on Mars. These young girls who are like 13 years old acted like they were seasoned professionals talking about how they were able to do this and be successful at it. And when I see someone who has come to a realization of what they want to do and how they can do it, that is what makes me do a cartwheel.

Joe Sallustio: Victory.

Maria Flynn: That's a great example. And, I know you recently came out with a book, too, right, that is really looking at the idea of how do we crisis proof today's learners, which I think is timely given all the conversations around AI and kind of continual changes in the labor market and skill needs. Maybe just tell us a bit about the book and some of the findings that you outline there.

Jean Eddy: So I wrote the book. I've done a lot of talking about the book. I did it primarily because I feel as though we have a generation of kids that we need to do a better job with. We just do. And there are so many of us out in this space who are coming up with some really good ideas. We need to start to implement them. We need to start to change some systems. And there are certain things that at least in the time that I have been working through this at ASA in this last six years at least, there are certain things that I have learned along the way that really I think could help us in making things change for the better. Things like helping kids with softer, durable skills as we talk about them and the things that they need to be crisis-proof when jobs change constantly. We have no idea what these kids are facing as far as jobs right now, but there are certain things that they need to have. They need digital literacy, they need data analysis, they need adaptability. I think more than anything, they need adaptability. They need communication skills. They need problem solving skills. Those are the things we can help kids learn right now to be able to be as flexible as they possibly can be moving forward. 

I also think that the pandemic taught us a lot and we are now living in a very hybrid world. What can we do to really help systems, school systems be able to work with kids and allow them to do things in the hybrid space that might help a learner approach something in a very different way than they might in a traditional class. There were those kinds of things that what I am suggesting may be of help as we try and move this forward and make some change that is very definitely needed.

Maria Flynn: Do you see opportunities at the kind of at the federal policy level to drive some of these changes or how are you feeling about kind of opportunities there?

Jean Eddy: I think that there have been some encouraging things that have happened on the federal level. We need to do more. I think everybody and I know President Biden has talked about this, that clear career exploration has to happen much earlier in the process and we need to do more to help kids have those kinds of experiences and know what's out there, I think that is absolutely critical. I also think that funding for these programs is critical. You know some of the things that have happened with allowing Pell Grants to be used for shorter term programs is certainly gonna help for those people who wanna do a certificate or a boot camp or just a short term training program. Those are the kinds of places if we do more of that. And I also think that if we incentivize school systems to do more of the hybrid approach that and the career exploration that we will be much more able to give kids the things they need. So yes, absolutely policy conversations need to be happening.

Maria Flynn: Yeah, I agree. 'Cause I think right now as you're saying, like there's kind of pockets of excellence, but we definitely need to see this, you know, these approaches spread out more equitably across the country.

Joe Sallustio: I'm thinking about your book, it's that I'm reading this first sentence and I was you while you guys were talking, I was thinking about this, the description that you have on the ASA.org website. You like how I tied that in? That was pretty slick, right? But each year, millions of young people arrive on college campuses to learn that they're unprepared for what will ultimately be a very expensive experiment. And you just go, that's so right. That's so right. And I say this as a 40 somethingish man who just paid off my undergraduate loans recently. That was years ago, long time ago. And I just paid them off. And I went, wow, that felt good. But could I have paid it off earlier? Maybe the interest rate was low. So I understood what I was doing but but the fact to still paid off it was like this monumental achievement in you go out. Wow. I actually was one of those people. I took a four year experiment and I ended up with a BS in speech communications, which I didn't use really a BS in BSing until I started this podcast. And I really was using my degree. But so true, right? The funny thing about higher ed is that if you if go through it and you're prepared and you get through it you can change your life and you can earn way more than if you don't have it But if you don't complete and you become one of those some college no degree folks You you actually have possibly hurt the generational wealth of your family and in your entire situation so we can help higher ed can help you beyond anything you could dream and also hurt you if you don't complete it's really an interesting paradigm that we live in, isn't it?

Jean Eddy: Yes, you know, for sure. but I would also say, and, and have a notice I've said this a million times, I'm sure. A college university experience is something that you get so much out of apart from any kind of career trajectory. And we cannot lose that. So many young people go on a college campus and that's where they really grow up. And not only do they grow up, but they, they have to learn how to do very basic things when they're on a college campus. And the joy of it is that they can meet fabulous people. They make lifelong friends. Oftentimes they meet their, their life partner, and have experiences that they would otherwise not have. And I'm talking about things like hearing great debates or wonderful speakers or being able to participate in symposiums and things that they would never have an opportunity to do unless they were on a college campus. So I don't wanna take that away either, but I think that wouldn't it be just so great if we could prepare someone to be ready for that experience and know that in addition to all those great things, they could also be working on a career. I mean, think about the kid who goes to college, thinks they wanna do X, Y or Z, they graduate from college, they go into that and then they hate it. And that happens a lot. What happens to them? They're almost in the same position as that person who dropped out of college and didn't have a way forward. They're in a profession that the person who did go to college and then found out that they hated it, that they have to stay there until they can figure out what is it they're going to do now.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah, and don't transfer because you may not get all your credits to transfer and then you got more time in it. I mean, there's so many hooks in there. But you're right. You you do learn so much. I mean, I learned to put all whites with colored clothes because you didn't have time to separate it out. So I learned how to do. I mean, seriously, I learned it's where I learned how to do laundry. Not that I do it well, but I mean, you learn life skills too, right? And you learn how to be, how to communicate with people I think is the biggest part of it. A lot, a lot, there was a lot of learning loss during COVID for kids. What do you see in now as we're talking about being with people, interacting with people, what's it, what's it like for kids right now who were COVID kids? They're coming out of it, okay?

Jean Eddy: I would say that that in any study you read, there is learning loss going on. And for, for many kids, it's going to take some time for them to get back up to speed for the kids. I worry about it. The kids who are, who are graduating high school this year and the next year, because I am not at all sure that they can make up for the time. Now I'm not saying every kid because there are some young people out there who took advantage of the pandemic and being at home and really use that time to kind of self discover and do some things on their own. But there were an awful lot of kids who didn't even bother. And those are the young people I'm worried about.

Maria Flynn: I guess taking us in a slightly different direction. I know something that JFF and ASA have in common is that we both do work in the impact investing space. And so I think for ASA, in addition to the digital tools that you have on your own platform, I know you're also looking at what innovations are out there in the space. And I always feel that you have a really great read on especially like what career navigation tools are starting up and what's out there. But just curious, like from ASA's perspective, why do you feel it's important to kind of you know, keeping up to date on those innovations and is there anything out there that's really exciting you right now?

Jean Eddy: I would say that we had to get into this space because there were not enough companies focused on particularly working with young people starting in middle school. There are more companies out there who are trying I'm gonna say retrain professionals, but there are not as many when it comes to being able to work with kids. Working in high school. And so we felt as though if there were companies out there who would do that, that we would absolutely want to invest in them because we need them. We need those places for our young people to go. There was no question. There are a few that I have been particularly excited about. We have one that I can't really talk about yet because things have not been totally signed. But I would have to say that it is a company that basically allows a young person directly to be able to work through career paths and see a number of ways to get to the career that they are envisioning. Excellent. And so to me, it is one vehicle that they can use in order to make this process work better for them.

Maria Flynn: That's great. Look forward to it.

Joe Sallustio: I'll keep my eye out for that. I'm sure you will be one of the people that I'm talking about. I thought she was going to reveal it. There was just a second I thought she was going to slip and reveal.

Jean Eddy: I can't, but we are quite excited about them.

Joe Sallustio: Jean, what's going on with AI? Right. This is like the question of our times. Hey, I do kids, you know, I get maybe the better question is, kids that you're dealing with using it? Do they know what it is? Are they experimenting?

Jean Eddy: Yes, they are using it. They're experimenting, doing all of those things. I think that one of the biggest things that we have to do right now is to educate young people about how to use it effectively. You know, some of the companies we're looking at right now are offering AI, particularly to teachers to help them kind of get through some of the, I'm going to say hours, hours of prep that they spend on. They get paid for probably and all that. All of those things. and how, and how, you know, ChatGPT can help them be able to do that. I think we have to be able to teach our young people how to use it effectively. I think there's a lot of experimenting going on and a lot of testing and trying going on, but I think that we can use AI for good. It's just a matter of being able to teach people how to do that. And it just, came so quickly that an awful lot of people just were not prepared. But I, one, absolutely love technology. Give me as much of it as you possibly can.

Maria Flynn: I know something else that you and your team are focused on right now is entrepreneurship. So kind of looking at entrepreneurship as a pathway for young people. How do you see that kind of fitting into the picture?

Jean Eddy: I think more and more young people are wanting to try to do their own thing. I think we're in a society right now that really encourages young people to be able to go out there and try and make a go of it themselves. We need to give them the tools for how to do that. We have just recently engaged in a partnership with Nifty. Nifty works with school systems to have classes that allow kids to be able to do just that, to be able to create their own businesses and to be able to learn how to be able to approach doing that. Why I particularly love that is that there are all kinds of sections in our country right now where they are rural and there are not many opportunities for young people to go out and find a really fulfilling career right out of school. Learning how to be an entrepreneur allows them to be able to start to set a future for themselves, but not only themselves, but for the communities around them. And I think that we need to have that kind of mindset. If you research, you survey young people, particularly between 15 and 18, most of them want to be their own boss. Not a big surprise, but I would dare say that there are going to be those kids in that grouping who really have that zest for wanting to be able to create something of their own, and they need the tools to figure out how to do that.

Maria Flynn: I think it's a great opportunity to build more connection between career and technical education pathways and entrepreneurship. So folks who are coming out with CTE credentials, how they can learn to build their own businesses around those skills. So I think that's, there's an interesting possible connection there too.

Joe Sallustio: And you know, the fact that AI exists help, help, can help you build a business by taking away some of the things you might spend money for like marketing and so on. There are ways to use it to, and any kid who's coming out of college that has an engineering bend to him or her, you have so many technology innovation right now. There's so many companies that can start and make a huge difference to society. That's, that's great. Jean, I want to give you the last couple of questions. One really not a question. What else do you want to say about ASA? Open mic, anything that you want to dish on, say that we haven't touched on.

Jean Eddy: Go to our website, explore, explore the opportunities that we have there. You know, parents can go on our website and look at all all of the fun things that kids can do, but they can also look at an awful lot of research. Would love for them to do that. And I would also say, and on our website too, is a link to my book.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah, buy that book while you're there, everyone, seriously. You know, all proceeds for the book go back into what we do at ASA. Everything we do at ASA is free to kids and their families. So this is just a way of continuing to support the things that we really believe in that can help young kids plan for their future. As a fellow book author, because I wrote one, none of the proceeds were going back into the company that I worked for but nobody would buy my book. So you might as well go and buy Jean's because you'd be helping kids if you do it. So if you don't want to help kids don't buy it. Right. I mean anyway little reverse psychology. We care about people come on this podcast. We want to do everything and we can to help higher ed and education in general. Especially kids who will come into the system in years to come. Tell us crystal ball moment, Jean, what do you see for the future of education?

Jean Eddy: I think that our school systems, I think our K-12 school systems will change. I think we'll become more focused on the learner. I think that kids will have more opportunities to kind of explore everything that's out there. I also think that our colleges and universities are gonna change. More and more of them are changing all the time. And they are really addressing how kids learn in different ways and help them figure out what the end game is to this. I think this is a really exciting time. I think that's one of the reasons why I wrote the book. I'd like to do something to be able to say, you know, if I had my way or my wishes could come true, if we could incorporate these things, we could get there that much faster.

Joe Sallustio: Well said. Maria, what did you think about this interview with Jean today?

Maria Flynn: I thought it was so fun. We loved our work with ASA. We worked together for several years and just always just so happy about how aligned we are about how we look at the world and the changes that need to happen and kind of our shared vision for the future. So this was super fun. Appreciate you inviting me back.

Joe Sallustio: Of course. Well, and I want to know, and nobody can see this, but behind Maria, she has like a thousand books. It's a physical impossibility for anyone to read that many books, Maria. I didn't even know what's happening. And I don't think that's a fake background.

Maria Flynn: No, it's a real background. And I have Jean's book.

Joe Sallustio: So, you know, hey, see, at that. There you go a lot. And my father was a book collector, so friends in the family. He's collected a few and so have you. Ladies and gentlemen, amazing guest co-host today, she is Maria Flynn. She's the CEO of Jobs for the Future. Maria, I am so glad we had an opportunity to have you back. You know, I admire your work and everything that you're doing in space.

Maria Flynn: Thank you so much, Joe. This was great.

Joe Sallustio: And I hope our guest had a good time, ladies and gentlemen. Her name is Jean Eddy and she is CEO at ASA, the American Student Assistance. And Jean, did you have fun?

Jean Eddy: I did. It was a lot of fun.

Joe Sallustio: Well, we like surprises around here. Surprise. I even have a button that says so. Ladies and gentlemen, please check out ASA at ASA.org and the work that Jean and her crew of amazing leaders are doing to help kids. And you've just edupped.