AI transcript
0:00:08 So, let’s talk a little bit about what you see as the purpose of college.
0:00:14 I’ve heard you say that some people use it for chasing status, was your phrase, while
0:00:20 others use it to prepare themselves to improve not just themselves and their families, but
0:00:21 society.
0:00:23 So, what do you see as the mission?
0:00:29 Well, part of the ethos of Jesuit institutions from the beginning is that we want our students
0:00:34 to learn and get all the tools they need to flourish, and we want to give them opportunity.
0:00:38 But we also want them to have all of that, not just for them, but for the world.
0:00:43 That we have this enormous force multiplier of sending them out with the desire to matter
0:00:45 and the skills to really do that.
0:00:51 And they will choose how, but we really need for them to understand that the saccharine
0:00:57 high of just getting the job that pays the most or seeking status for themselves, that’s
0:01:01 not what will make them happy, and that is not the point of their lives.
0:01:05 And so, they can do that and still be happy, but what really drives you is knowing, looking
0:01:08 back on your deathbed at your life.
0:01:10 How did I matter?
0:01:17 I’d like to introduce our guest for today, Tanya Tetlow, president of Fordham University.
0:01:22 Fordham is a well-regarded private university in New York City, founded in 1841 and run
0:01:27 for most of its history by the Jesuits, the Roman Catholic religious order that dates
0:01:29 to the 16th century.
0:01:34 Tetlow is the first female president of Fordham, as well as the first layperson.
0:01:38 There’s a very daunting hall of portraits outside of my office, you know, all of these
0:01:41 priests going back to 1841.
0:01:48 Tetlow’s own father was, in fact, a priest, but while getting his psychology PhD at Fordham,
0:01:52 he met his would-be wife, another graduate student, so he left the priesthood.
0:01:58 Tanya was born in New York not long before the family moved to New Orleans, so Fordham
0:01:59 is in her genes.
0:02:04 A good way to recruit me is they can tell me, “You exist because of us.”
0:02:09 Fordham did recruit her, and she returned as president in 2022.
0:02:14 Before that, Tetlow was president of Loyola University in New Orleans, another Jesuit
0:02:19 school, one of 27 in the U.S. and about 130 globally.
0:02:25 The Jesuits have always been big on educating as well as evangelizing.
0:02:31 Tetlow is a lawyer by training and taught law for a while at Tulane, and before that,
0:02:34 she was a federal prosecutor in New Orleans.
0:02:39 What does it say about the state of higher education that Fordham chose as its president
0:02:43 not only a non-priest, but a former prosecutor?
0:02:49 We spent our time, all of us in these jobs, playing defense and navigating crises.
0:02:57 Everything from the protest movements to efforts from those who work here to make sure that
0:03:03 they’re paid well and fairly and how to balance that against remaining affordable to students,
0:03:05 and bridging that gap just gets harder and harder.
0:03:11 Today on Freakonomics Radio, another conversation in our ongoing look at what college is really
0:03:13 for.
0:03:18 With higher ed under attack from multiple angles, Tetlow sees an urgency in turning
0:03:20 things around.
0:03:25 The countries against whom the U.S. competes, none of them are disinvesting from education
0:03:26 right now.
0:03:30 We talk about the difference between religious and secular universities.
0:03:34 I don’t have to be afraid to talk about values in my out loud voice.
0:03:41 And we talk about why, despite all the trouble and controversy, the enterprise is worth defending.
0:03:59 If you want a great city, build a university and wait 200 years.
0:04:05 This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything with
0:04:15 your host, Steven Dubner.
0:04:20 Kamala Harris, before serving as vice president and U.S. senator, was a prosecutor, the district
0:04:24 attorney for San Francisco and the California Attorney General.
0:04:30 Now that she’s running for president, Harris is leaning into her experience as a prosecutor.
0:04:37 So in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds.
0:04:47 So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s tight.
0:04:51 As a fellow former prosecutor, I really admire that background in her.
0:04:57 Can you imagine ways in which that background can be useful as perhaps president of the
0:04:58 United States?
0:05:06 Well, in a funny way, you have such ultimate power as a prosecutor over your one single
0:05:07 case.
0:05:13 I found that really good preparation for having power in other settings.
0:05:18 What did you learn from being a prosecutor that helps you in your role as a college president?
0:05:21 It’s the only kind of lawyer where your ethical duty is not to represent a client, but to
0:05:23 do justice.
0:05:24 That is what you’re charged with.
0:05:30 And so I spent as much time talking to witnesses or defendants who are cooperating about how
0:05:34 they ended up there and what their lives were like and really learning who they were as
0:05:40 people in ways that I don’t know is typical of people in that job, but I really loved.
0:05:43 Tell me maybe your most memorable case.
0:05:53 I had a case where a high school teacher helped an old buddy who was in prison collect some
0:05:54 packages.
0:05:56 That isn’t going to end well.
0:05:57 No.
0:06:02 And it was just one of the most fascinating cases about human beings and how we delude
0:06:03 ourselves.
0:06:07 A high school teacher whose old buddy from high school, the popular kid who would never
0:06:14 talk to him in high school, finally reached out from prison to see if they could be friends.
0:06:19 And he out of so many high school drama kind of psychology decided, “Oh, sure, I will accept
0:06:23 these packages coming in the mail without knowing what they are,” and got dragged into
0:06:25 this whole drug scheme.
0:06:28 So the teacher who got dragged into it cooperated.
0:06:31 No one else would have been brave enough to do it because he was up against the major
0:06:32 kingpins.
0:06:34 He’s your witness then?
0:06:35 He’s my witness.
0:06:39 And we were going against the person who was running a heroin scheme from jail.
0:06:45 But it took a long time to just get him to admit his real emotions rather than have bravado
0:06:47 on the stand.
0:06:51 And finally, after berating him and prep, got him to admit, “I was afraid.”
0:06:53 I mean, I don’t blame him.
0:06:54 Did you in that case?
0:06:55 Yes.
0:07:02 So when I think of the Jesuit tradition, I think of inquiry and intellectualism.
0:07:07 And I think especially of the concept of discernment, which I gather is very important within the
0:07:08 tradition.
0:07:13 And it strikes me that discernment is fairly absent these days, at least in the public
0:07:14 square.
0:07:19 One reason I wanted to speak with you today, because I figured you could teach me and all
0:07:24 of us a little bit about how to get in touch with that, maybe apply it.
0:07:30 So I’d like you to define discernment as you see it and describe how you try to spread
0:07:34 that as a president of a Jesuit university.
0:07:40 It is basically the opposite of social media in shorthand.
0:07:48 So discernment means to take time to consider a big decision and not to jump to conclusions.
0:07:50 It means being open and curious.
0:07:55 It means assuming good intentions of the person you’re disagreeing with, which we are all
0:07:57 very bad at right now.
0:08:03 And it means being self-aware enough of your own biases and filters that you realize what
0:08:06 will prevent you from seeing the truth.
0:08:12 And right now, I think we’re all feeling the pressure to teach those skills to our students,
0:08:17 especially this fall as we approach the election and all the turmoil that society’s going
0:08:18 through.
0:08:22 How do we double down on teaching those skills when they have become so counter-cultural?
0:08:28 Yeah, but I would imagine that you are recruiting for students who already buy into the notion
0:08:30 of discernment, no?
0:08:31 It’s chicken and egg, right?
0:08:37 The students who are attracted to us tend to have this sense of purpose.
0:08:41 And I will say the two Jesuit institutions I’ve led have student communities who don’t
0:08:46 lean into self-righteousness in quite the same way that young people are tempted by
0:08:47 right now.
0:08:52 What do you think would happen if you could play some version of Freaky Friday and bring
0:09:01 the entire educational architecture of Fordham to a place like Harvard or Penn for a week
0:09:07 and apply all the layers of discernment in education there?
0:09:10 How would that go over with those student bodies, do you think?
0:09:16 Well, there is a freedom I find in being in a religious institution where I don’t have
0:09:21 to be afraid to talk about values in my out loud voice in quite the same way that in a
0:09:27 secular institution, we were just so afraid of offending by having any reference to religion
0:09:28 at all.
0:09:34 Can you give an example of some kind of conversation you might have liked to have at Tulane where
0:09:38 you felt it wouldn’t be accepted?
0:09:44 When we would talk about diversity there, we were left to some of the more tepid values
0:09:46 of hospitality and welcome.
0:09:52 And when I talk about it at a Jesuit institution, I’m able to really lean into the fact that
0:09:59 our faith believes profoundly in the equality and human dignity of every single person,
0:10:04 that we believe that we owe people more when they need more.
0:10:09 Pope Francis, who’s the first Jesuit pope, has said that some universities I know in
0:10:14 America are too liberal and he accused them of training technicians and specialists instead
0:10:15 of whole people.
0:10:17 I’m curious for your take on that.
0:10:23 Well, it’s interesting because this parallel attack in this country on the value of liberal
0:10:30 arts and for us as Catholic institutions, we cling to our core curriculums fiercely.
0:10:33 In this country, it’s not really a liberal problem.
0:10:39 It’s more from the other side, this mocking of English majors as if much of the powerhouse
0:10:41 of this country didn’t major in English, right?
0:10:48 And when we talk to employers, they’re desperate for us to teach those kind of emotional intelligence,
0:10:53 communication, critical thinking skills that you learn in philosophy and English and all
0:10:57 of those kinds of courses because that’s really hard to teach on the job.
0:11:01 They can teach technical skills on the job and frankly, the technical skills we teach
0:11:06 are often defunct by the time the kids graduate, right?
0:11:09 Those change too much.
0:11:13 So Fordham is a Catholic university, but the share of students who describe themselves
0:11:15 as Catholic surprised me.
0:11:17 Can you talk about that?
0:11:19 It’s about 40%.
0:11:25 We became religiously pluralist in a way that’s kind of a hidden story of American higher
0:11:26 ed.
0:11:32 Catholic students were not always welcome in the first half of the 20th century and before
0:11:36 at elite institutions, which we sometimes forget were founded as Protestant institutions
0:11:42 and had attitudes towards really immigrants, Irish Italians, others coming in off the ships
0:11:47 and not wanting them there in the same way they created quotas and caps for Jewish students.
0:11:52 And so Catholic schools, when they were founded, were full of Catholics who did not have other
0:11:56 options and we welcome Jewish students who often did not have other options.
0:12:01 When those doors opened, we had some of the same dilemmas of women’s colleges and HBCUs
0:12:03 of what do we do?
0:12:07 And so we very much welcome students from all face and it changed who we are.
0:12:10 We became very ecumenical.
0:12:14 But now far more of our student body is just secular.
0:12:17 They were raised with no religious tradition whatsoever.
0:12:23 When I look at the student population at Fordham, I see that it’s got about 40% of what are
0:12:31 called underrepresented populations, 17% Hispanic, Latino, 13% Asian, 5.5% Black.
0:12:35 It strikes me that you’re significantly more diverse than a lot of the very liberal schools
0:12:38 that talk about diversity a lot.
0:12:40 How does that happen?
0:12:44 Well, partly success begets success.
0:12:48 To come to a school that is already diverse means you have strength in numbers, where
0:12:51 you won’t be alone.
0:12:55 And I think it really helps to be in New York, a place that is already so diverse.
0:12:59 We get to recruit in our backyard, we get to attract people to a city that has everyone
0:13:02 in the world here.
0:13:09 I’m curious how the Jesuit tradition and Catholicism generally intersect with the politics of
0:13:10 this moment.
0:13:17 Many of my Catholic friends and family members are really torn because they don’t like Donald
0:13:21 Trump as a person or a candidate for a variety of reasons.
0:13:23 But they do really like the fact that he’s created a Supreme Court that has put much
0:13:25 stricter limits on abortion.
0:13:28 And I’m curious how that plays out at Fordham.
0:13:33 Well, Catholic doctrine does not neatly fit in either political party, because in many
0:13:39 ways it’s the opposite of libertarianism, which also doesn’t neatly fit in either party.
0:13:46 So Catholic teaching would be somewhat more conservative, restrictive on social issues,
0:13:50 but far more progressive on economic issues than the Republican Party.
0:13:55 Catholic social teaching to many more conservative Catholics seems incredibly radical, but it
0:13:58 is, in fact, the doctrine we’ve had for a very long time in the church, and it’s pretty
0:14:01 clearly what’s in the Gospels.
0:14:04 Give an example of that for those who don’t know.
0:14:08 The Catholic Church believes profoundly in caring for the poor as a priority, caring
0:14:14 about the right to organize labor, racial justice, all of those kinds of issues that
0:14:21 don’t neatly fit with a Republican Party that does care about restricting abortion and
0:14:22 other things.
0:14:28 In American society, we’ve always had a balance that was critical between individual rights
0:14:32 and a sense of community and responsibility.
0:14:35 That balance is really out of whack right now.
0:14:40 We’ve leaned so heavily into individual rights, which are crucial, but if they’re unmoored
0:14:45 from the idea of community, of what we owe each other, they’re really quite dangerous.
0:14:48 If we’re all in it for ourselves, who are we?
0:14:53 And so what Catholic teachings really offer is a reminder that we do have to care about
0:14:58 community, that we have not just rights, but responsibilities.
0:15:02 After the break, the friction between rights and responsibilities and how it played out
0:15:04 at Fordham this past spring.
0:15:07 You don’t point bullhorns at the library during study session.
0:15:08 I’m Stephen Dubner.
0:15:09 You’re listening to Free Economics Radio.
0:15:10 We will be right back.
0:15:25 As President of Fordham University, Tanya Tetlow oversees roughly 17,000 students and
0:15:26 750 faculty.
0:15:31 The biggest majors are in finance, psychology, and government.
0:15:35 Fordham also has several prestigious graduate programs in business and law, education and
0:15:39 social work, and even some theology still.
0:15:44 The school is split between two main campuses, both in New York City, one in the Rose Hill
0:15:48 section of the Bronx, the other at Lincoln Center in Manhattan.
0:15:51 Those two campuses are about nine miles apart.
0:15:56 If you walked from one Fordham campus to the other, you would pass right through Columbia
0:15:58 University.
0:16:04 This past spring, as pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up encampments at many schools, Columbia
0:16:09 had some of the most intense protests, which led to more than a hundred arrests.
0:16:11 So what was happening at Fordham?
0:16:13 I asked Tetlow to describe it.
0:16:21 We have students who are from Palestine who are very worried about parents and grandparents
0:16:22 they can’t get in touch with.
0:16:28 They’re going through all the stages of grief and trauma, and they’ve been extraordinary.
0:16:33 And I’ve also felt, you know, if yelling at me will make you feel better for even half
0:16:34 a minute, go for it.
0:16:38 It is my honor because they are feeling so powerless.
0:16:45 We also have members of our community who are Jewish and Israeli and who lost family
0:16:47 members on October 7th.
0:16:54 And so it made me realize how close New York is to the Middle East and of how profound that
0:16:57 pain is for part of our community.
0:17:03 And so what was really impressive this year is student activists did prayer vigils and
0:17:08 they did teachings and they talked and they listened and they engage with complexity and
0:17:14 they really tried to do the work of expressing outrage at that which they are outraged by,
0:17:21 but without just yelling at the nearest authority figure or trying to disrupt the right of their
0:17:28 fellow students to learn, that got ratcheted up when the clearing out of Hamilton Hall at
0:17:29 Columbia happened.
0:17:30 By the police, we should say.
0:17:31 By the police.
0:17:32 Yeah.
0:17:38 By the next morning, students who told us later were really upset by that came and started
0:17:42 a little encampment in a classroom building in our Manhattan campus.
0:17:48 We persuaded most of them to leave, but we did end up having the police arrest on minor
0:17:52 misdemeanors, about 15 mostly students.
0:17:59 So that was painful because, you know, how do you navigate the rights of our 17,000 students
0:18:05 to learn on the CASPA finals with the rights of those dozen students to express themselves
0:18:06 and to protest.
0:18:07 And it was really hard.
0:18:08 And what happened then?
0:18:11 Did it deescalate after those arrests?
0:18:12 Yes.
0:18:18 I’ve read that when you were a kid, your father, who was a psychologist and professor and also
0:18:23 counseled prisoners, that he had a sign on his desk that said, “Question authority, but
0:18:26 politely and with respect.”
0:18:35 How do you feel that slogan relates to, let’s say, the campus politics around this particular
0:18:36 issue at Fordham?
0:18:41 Was authority questioned politely with respect and fruitfully or not really?
0:18:44 I think for the most part it was.
0:18:50 We met with student activists and they have been profound and persuasive and respectful
0:18:53 and thus very effective, right?
0:18:57 Going to people and saying, “I think that you’re an evil, awful person and I’m going
0:18:59 to scream at you until you agree with me.”
0:19:00 Doesn’t work.
0:19:01 It feels good.
0:19:04 It’s venting, but it is not the same as activism.
0:19:09 We have always authorized any request to protest on our campus at Student Spring Us.
0:19:11 We’re at 100% with that.
0:19:14 But what we navigate with them is, you know, you don’t point bullhorns at the library during
0:19:15 study session.
0:19:21 You find ways to make your ability to express yourself, not have to disrupt the education
0:19:22 of your fellow students.
0:19:26 And so when we think about those restrictions, we need to think about them, both for protest
0:19:28 we agree with and those we don’t.
0:19:34 You can’t just imagine that the protesters are expressing a cause that you believe in.
0:19:37 You also have to imagine one that you might find repugnant because the rules have to be
0:19:40 the same for both or we lose credibility.
0:19:46 I know that back in 2016, which predates your presidency by quite a few years, there was
0:19:51 a movement by Fordham students to start a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine,
0:19:55 which is a national organization, and that was at the center of many of the campus protests
0:19:57 last year, and that was denied.
0:20:03 I believe there was a court case around that, and the court upheld the Fordham decision
0:20:04 if I’ve got that correct.
0:20:05 Yes.
0:20:10 And I also know that according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Fire,
0:20:15 which looks at free speech on campuses, Fordham ranks in the bottom 10 for colleges or universities
0:20:17 across the country.
0:20:21 So how do you as a president try to create a balance where you’re not limiting free speech,
0:20:30 but also not turning your campus into a hotbed where it can’t accomplish the central purpose?
0:20:34 First of all, those fire rankings, we don’t really understand how they come to them.
0:20:37 It is always tricky, right?
0:20:42 At Fordham, we famously, it got litigated, suspended a student who after a verbal argument
0:20:47 with fellow students went and bought an assault rifle and then posted that on social media.
0:20:51 If he had shot up the campus, we would have been reamed if we had not done anything.
0:20:57 It was so obvious a warning, but by suspending him, we got really attacked by some free speech
0:21:01 purist groups saying, “How dare you, it’s just because you’re against guns,” right?
0:21:07 So those are the kinds of lines we have to navigate every day, and what I find really
0:21:14 a shame right now is those who push for more speech on campus have suddenly flip-flopped
0:21:15 on a lot of those issues, right?
0:21:19 Now they’re yelling at us because we don’t suppress speech more.
0:21:23 This would have been a moment to really stand up and say, “We find some of these protests
0:21:28 to be anathema and disturbing, but this is what it looks like to put up with speech that
0:21:29 you disagree with.”
0:21:34 But instead, we’re just being called hypocrites because we don’t suppress it, and they’re
0:21:37 being hypocrites and accusing us of hypocrisy.
0:21:42 So it’s very head spinning because what remains is the question of are you for this freedom
0:21:43 or are you not?
0:21:50 Do you have any evidence that discernment, as we discussed earlier, can help fight polarization
0:21:54 or these kind of standoffs in the moment?
0:22:00 I know from our faculty that every day in the classroom, they try to not just teach knowledge
0:22:06 but the skills of discernment, of what it means to have reflective practices where we’re
0:22:10 going to really think about what we learned and stop and take time.
0:22:15 This is something that, as a law professor as part of our ethos, I need for you to articulate
0:22:19 the other side of the argument, not because we’re morally relativists, but because you
0:22:24 can’t know the strength of your belief until you’re willing to think about the other side.
0:22:28 And as a lawyer, your job is to argue the best case for whoever you end up representing,
0:22:32 which I guess is a way to train and seeing the other side, yeah?
0:22:33 Right.
0:22:37 I mean, legal education has a leg up in this because we’ve always done this work.
0:22:43 And I think our faculty do a brilliant job of navigating how to take the temperature down
0:22:48 when people disagree, how to say, “Okay, you are attacking the other student who you disagree
0:22:49 with.
0:22:50 You’re attacking them personally.
0:22:51 You’re assuming they have bad intentions.
0:22:53 You’re not listening to them.”
0:22:55 Are you sure this is the job you want?
0:22:56 I mean, it’s a hard job.
0:23:02 It is a very hard job, but I do love it because it matters, and sometimes things are hard
0:23:03 because they’re important.
0:23:09 So one way universities are important, or at least supposed to be, is as an institution
0:23:11 that can build social trust.
0:23:16 Researchers who study this argue that universities and the military and even sports teams are
0:23:21 places that do this well because in each case, you’ve got a bunch of individuals from different
0:23:27 backgrounds coming together with a common goal, or at least as part of a community.
0:23:32 And I’m really curious how you think about, I mean, this is an absurd and large question,
0:23:39 but how you think about the rights and role of the individual in a community or a society
0:23:42 today with Fordham as the microcosm of that.
0:23:46 Well, universities are one of the places of great hope.
0:23:51 We do bring people together, and that’s not just the obvious demographics.
0:23:53 It’s also rural and urban.
0:23:55 It’s different backgrounds economically.
0:23:59 It’s just different upbringings, and we’ve leaned into that from a progressive point
0:24:04 hard, but also that they find commonality, that they have so much more in common when
0:24:05 they least expect it.
0:24:14 I think that our job is to express both and to treat diversity as we used to be allowed
0:24:17 to do before the Supreme Court banned it, but about that quality of community and what
0:24:18 it means.
0:24:21 And so the court has continued to allow that in the military academies because they understand
0:24:24 exactly how valuable it is there.
0:24:30 They’ve now forbidden us from overtly considering that in admissions, but regardless, we have
0:24:37 the opportunity in our communities to really encourage, nudge, persuade students to know
0:24:39 each other to lean into that.
0:24:45 For example, Greek life can be wonderful, but it can also divide.
0:24:46 So we don’t have that here.
0:24:51 We try to find ways to get students to bond that aren’t the obvious finding people from
0:24:55 exactly your tribe, but really reaching out across that.
0:24:56 But it is …
0:24:57 What’s it, for instance, of that?
0:25:03 Of kind of making student organizations really more about interest than about identity or
0:25:07 self-selection and exclusivity.
0:25:11 One of the most important places we teach is in the residence halls, right, of how we
0:25:16 use peer mentoring because we have RAs who are just a little bit older than the students
0:25:21 that they’re mentoring and thus have credibility that we don’t, and of how they’re on the front
0:25:26 lines of navigating that profound loneliness that modern society has created.
0:25:32 Social media sort of buries them in connection that is empty, especially after COVID when
0:25:35 they were literally isolated.
0:25:39 They have to learn the skills of how to really be with each other, and we’re now having
0:25:46 to teach that in ways that we didn’t 10, 20 years ago.
0:25:51 After the break, Tanya Tetlow on university finances and pricing.
0:25:55 We’re stuck in a really stupid pricing model.
0:25:56 I’m Stephen Dubner.
0:25:57 This is Freakonomics Radio.
0:25:57 We’ll be right back.
0:26:13 Tell me a little bit about the finances of Fordham, maybe operating budget, and I’m just
0:26:16 curious to know how things are looking.
0:26:17 It’s going well.
0:26:22 We’re not in the kind of crisis that most of higher ed is in right now financially,
0:26:25 but it’s still a squeeze every year.
0:26:29 We’re hitting the ceiling of what American families can afford to pay.
0:26:35 In a world where we very much want to have normal and fair and generous pay increases
0:26:39 for all of our employees, we’re basically a service industry.
0:26:44 Most of our budget goes to our people, and so those pressures are hard because we’re
0:26:47 pretty tuition dependent to pay for that.
0:26:49 Our budget’s about 700 million.
0:26:51 Most of that is for the people we hire.
0:26:56 It’s very labor-intensive work to teach and serve, and then maintain a campus.
0:26:58 What’s your endowment for Fordham?
0:27:00 It is just about a billion.
0:27:04 Okay, so that sounds like a lot of money to the average person, except Harvard’s is 50
0:27:05 billion.
0:27:06 Exactly.
0:27:11 It’s hard fought for a school that mostly taught first generation students for so many
0:27:13 decades, almost two centuries.
0:27:19 It’s sort of like a museum endowment, that that interest on that is what supports us.
0:27:23 In our case, it very specifically supports primarily scholarships.
0:27:26 For us, it’s maybe 5% of our budget.
0:27:31 It’s not like an Ivy League that’s no longer dependent on tuition because they get so much
0:27:33 revenue from their endowment.
0:27:37 What would you do if you had a 50 billion endowment at Fordham?
0:27:41 We’d be able to fully meet need for all of our students first and foremost, which would
0:27:43 be a joy.
0:27:47 We’d invest in everything that we want to do in our ambitions.
0:27:48 What would that be?
0:27:52 It would be research, but it really matters to keep that in balance with the quality of
0:27:54 our teaching.
0:28:00 Research prowess that also means those faculty are in the classroom every day teaching students.
0:28:06 We are so strong in the humanities and law and business, and to really be relevant and
0:28:11 at the table, we need to connect with what’s going on in AI, with how to wake people up
0:28:17 about climate change and find answers to the threats to democracy all over the world.
0:28:19 Which is just absurdly expensive.
0:28:22 Fordham is in the $60,000 a year range tuition.
0:28:23 Is that right?
0:28:24 Yeah.
0:28:31 Talk about how you deal with financial aid, whether it’s need-based and also merit aid.
0:28:37 We are need-blind in admissions, but we are not one of the handful of schools wealthy
0:28:39 enough to fully meet need.
0:28:41 That is our biggest priority.
0:28:45 The biggest part of our budget is making ourselves affordable.
0:28:50 We’re starting to try to shift more of our money from merit aid to financial need.
0:28:53 The advantage of merit aid is you attract top students.
0:28:56 You make them feel more special because of the scholarship.
0:29:01 The disadvantage is, of course, some of those students who are the top students also have
0:29:03 need, but some of them don’t.
0:29:07 You’re spending money that you’d rather spend on those who can’t afford to be there.
0:29:11 But we’re stuck in higher ed in a really stupid pricing model.
0:29:16 The part that we know about is the price discrimination where we charge the wealthy what they can afford
0:29:19 to pay and thus supplement those who can’t.
0:29:24 But the part that I think is hidden is that the market really drives sticker price being
0:29:28 high because sticker price signals quality.
0:29:32 The elite schools tend to have more of the barbell, the very wealthy and those really
0:29:33 struggling.
0:29:38 Most of us have far more of the middle class who often, frankly, get squeezed out of the
0:29:39 elite schools.
0:29:44 When schools like ours reduce our sticker price to what we tend to actually charge on
0:29:50 average, those schools have tended to fail because the consumer is suspicious that that
0:29:53 school is not as good because it does not charge as much.
0:29:57 So what is your actual average price at, let’s say, an incoming freshman will pay this year
0:30:02 with a sticker price of around $60,000, what will the actual average be?
0:30:03 $30,000.
0:30:04 Wow.
0:30:07 There have been accusations that colleges and universities have colluded in the past.
0:30:09 Sometimes they’ve been busted for it.
0:30:12 There are others who argue that they should collude more.
0:30:16 And I would think that this would be a case where collusion would be good to fight this
0:30:17 very problem that you’re talking about.
0:30:19 Has there been any progress toward that?
0:30:24 So there’s a world where we would all say, okay, let’s all lower our prices to what we
0:30:30 really charge because that sticker price is so disheartening and so scary to those without
0:30:33 the sophistication to understand it’s not real.
0:30:34 But we’re not allowed to do that.
0:30:36 We can’t collude on price.
0:30:40 So this is where the market is, you know, it sounds silly except that when you go to
0:30:48 buy, you know, a jacket and there’s one jacket that’s $100, that’s 50% off and one jacket
0:30:52 that’s $50, even if they’re the same jacket, you’re going to go for the first one, right?
0:30:55 This is human psychology, this is how we all behave.
0:30:59 And if you get the 50% off because you are special, because you earned the scholarship,
0:31:01 it makes you feel even better about it.
0:31:05 And so it is very hard for us to break out of the system.
0:31:09 Let’s talk a little bit about growing the size of student populations.
0:31:14 Historically, the college population in the US rose and rose and rose and rose and rose,
0:31:18 but then it hit what looked to be a bit of a ceiling and it’s come back down a little
0:31:19 bit.
0:31:23 There are some schools, however, who just don’t like to grow.
0:31:26 There’s research by these two economists, Peter Blair and Kent Smetters, that finds
0:31:31 that elite colleges have mostly capped their enrollment numbers since the 1980s.
0:31:36 Their argument is that those caps have to do with mostly universities wanting to maintain
0:31:39 their prestige, protect their reputations.
0:31:43 And they argue in a kind of quiet voice that this is a shame, the idea being that if these
0:31:48 universities are so good and so elite at educating people, they should educate more people just
0:31:52 like any firm that’s successful wants more customers, not the same number.
0:31:58 So let’s just start with that, your thoughts on the notion that elite schools keep their
0:32:05 populations about the same, why they do that and why you’re not thinking like that.
0:32:10 When you look at when elite schools stopped growing, it was exactly the same time US news
0:32:12 introduced the rankings.
0:32:18 And those rankings until very recently encouraged a major category of selectivity.
0:32:22 They created these profound incentives for all of us, but the elites who battle with
0:32:28 each other for top dog to reject as many students as possible, that’s how you were measured.
0:32:34 The elites get status and prestige and very specifically rankings by virtue of how low
0:32:35 that acceptance rate is.
0:32:41 My favorite satirical headline once was Stanford achieved 0% admission rate.
0:32:44 It was a joke, but it was something very real.
0:32:45 Just barely.
0:32:46 Yep.
0:32:47 Yes, exactly.
0:32:53 After we’ve landed, the idea that the solution to this is to get a few thousand more students
0:32:57 into those elite schools, I think begs the question of why they are the answer.
0:33:03 Because what the rankings also did is it took a higher ed system of glorious complexity
0:33:08 and variety, about 4,000 nonprofit schools, and it put us in line order when really we’re
0:33:10 in clumps of ties.
0:33:15 And it was never true that you could only get a good education at a handful of schools.
0:33:19 I think to buy into that, to say that that should be the focus really ignores the fact
0:33:23 that there are probably 100 universities in this country that provide the same kind of
0:33:25 academic excellence.
0:33:31 And we need to remind ourselves of that, because the more we just play into the rankings game
0:33:35 of chasing status, the more alumni get status from giving to those universities.
0:33:40 We’ve really ratcheted up the cleaving between the haves and have nots, and that gets worse
0:33:41 and worse.
0:33:46 So Fordham, I believe, has increased enrollment by about 10% over the past 10 years.
0:33:48 Does that sound about right?
0:33:49 I think so, yeah.
0:33:50 So talk to me about that.
0:33:55 When you’re trying to grow, especially in a city like New York, what are the big challenges?
0:33:57 Are there enough good professors?
0:33:58 What does it mean for facilities?
0:34:01 Are there enough students that you want and so on?
0:34:07 The biggest challenge is students, because right now we have a demographic downturn in
0:34:14 the number of 18-year-olds generally, and that will peak 18 years after the 2008 recession
0:34:15 started.
0:34:19 People dramatically had fewer children, but we also have a drop in the percentage of
0:34:23 Americans going to college, and that has been rather dramatic.
0:34:30 It’s a mix of COVID and then most recently of the FAFSA form debacle.
0:34:35 So you may have seen in the news, but the Department of Ed stumbled for all sorts of
0:34:38 reasons to redo the FAFSA form.
0:34:45 In case you haven’t seen the FAFSA debacle in the news, FAFSA stands for Free Application
0:34:46 for Federal Student Aid.
0:34:49 It is administered by the federal government.
0:34:54 This past admission season, there were technical problems that meant FAFSA came online three
0:35:02 months late and then sent inaccurate financial aid offers to around a million applicants.
0:35:07 What it means is that for most schools, they’re looking at a decline in their populations
0:35:11 and in community colleges, especially a quite dramatic one.
0:35:18 So for any school other than the very, very elites to grow is not possible right now.
0:35:22 What I worry about is that for most of higher ed, they’re just not going to be able to
0:35:25 make it anymore, and the country will suffer so much from that.
0:35:31 We understand still as a society that K through 12 is a right, is not seen as some kind of
0:35:36 commie experiment, but somehow higher ed is not seen as a right anymore.
0:35:41 After World War II was the last time the economy really shuttered to a halt because we weren’t
0:35:43 building weapons anymore.
0:35:48 And Congress made the brilliant decision to invest in all those millions of veterans
0:35:53 coming home from the war who would not have jobs to say, “We will pay for your education.”
0:35:59 And it fueled so many Nobel Prizes and Pulitzers and the rise of the middle class in the ’50s
0:36:01 and global economic dominance in the world.
0:36:06 It was such a smart thing to do, and yet now we’re doing the opposite.
0:36:10 The Pell Grants, which when they were unveiled in the ’70s were enough to cover tuition room
0:36:14 and board for most schools, now are a pittance.
0:36:18 And states are disinvesting from their public institutions.
0:36:19 China’s not doing that.
0:36:24 The public’s perception of academia has fallen a lot.
0:36:28 It began on the right, but now the left is catching up.
0:36:32 There are many perceptions out there, one of which is that college campuses can be hostile
0:36:34 to young men.
0:36:38 Fordham is now majority female, I was surprised to see.
0:36:42 There’s another perception that colleges are hostile to anyone who leans even a little
0:36:46 bit conservative in any dimension, students and faculty.
0:36:51 There’s the perception that it’s too expensive, it’s too exclusive, it’s not useful enough
0:36:52 in the real world.
0:36:56 So how are you reckoning with that general perception of decline?
0:37:02 Well, it’s hard because there’s great political benefit to tearing down trust in institutions.
0:37:06 It’s easy to do, it resonates with people who are understandably cynical.
0:37:10 And once you’ve done it, it’s done, and it’s very hard to rebuild.
0:37:14 All of higher ed has become majority female, and that’s a much deeper topic to grapple
0:37:17 with than when I worry about as well.
0:37:21 You worry because there are all those men who are not getting involved in that kind
0:37:22 of system?
0:37:23 Exactly.
0:37:28 I think men are opting out of the opportunities that they need in an increasingly knowledge
0:37:33 based economy, and we will all suffer as a result of that, and so I worry about that.
0:37:37 So the return on investment is sort of laughable because when you look at the data, it is so
0:37:42 clear the financial return on investment, which just proves that you can make things
0:37:43 up and they stick.
0:37:49 And I would say that part of what I find really offensive are politicians saying that it’s
0:37:53 not worth it to go to college, none of whom say that to their own children.
0:37:55 None of whom didn’t go to college either.
0:37:56 Exactly.
0:37:57 And law school on top of that.
0:37:59 And graduate school.
0:38:05 So we become a political football of late in ways that make us really vulnerable, but
0:38:11 what’s so sad about that is the countries against whom the US competes, none of them are disinvesting
0:38:13 from education right now.
0:38:20 We are shooting ourselves in the foot in profound ways when we decide for political points,
0:38:25 we will take away one of the great higher education systems in the world that’s been
0:38:27 the envy of the world for so long.
0:38:32 We’re going to keep pulling back from it, pulling funds, pulling credibility and trust,
0:38:36 all for scoring political points in a temporary way.
0:38:41 If we’re going to talk about the attacks on institutions generally, let’s not ignore
0:38:44 the one that you’re associated with, which is the Catholic Church.
0:38:49 That’s a case where it mostly revolved around the priest sex scandals that have been revealed
0:38:53 and the coverups really of the past 30 or 40 years.
0:38:58 I haven’t seen numbers lately on the perception of the Catholic Church as an institution,
0:39:03 but I’m guessing it’s fallen very similarly to the way the reputation of colleges and
0:39:04 universities have.
0:39:12 The trust in religious institutions generally plummeted a while back, and then of course
0:39:16 trust in the Catholic Church, given the scandals, deservedly plummeted.
0:39:21 What I know from having spent much of my career fighting against sexual abuse is that that
0:39:28 denial, those coverups, the level of abuse still exists in all other institutions that
0:39:33 have trusting relationships over children, and my worry is we’re not learning the painful
0:39:35 lessons the Church learned.
0:39:37 What other institutions do you mean?
0:39:44 We’re seeing scandals emerge from Boy Scouts, from other religious institutions, but also
0:39:49 the vast majority of child sex abuse happens within families.
0:39:53 What I used to do every day was to go into court and beg judges to care about that, and
0:39:57 they found it so depressing that they just decided it was made up most of the time.
0:40:03 That’s a whole other episode, but the reality is, again, these problems weren’t unique to
0:40:04 the Church.
0:40:08 The Church really messed it up, and my hope is that everyone else will stop being in
0:40:11 denial about where we still have a crisis.
0:40:15 Do you have much of a relationship with the Cardinal of the Archdiocese of New York?
0:40:16 Yes.
0:40:21 Cardinal Dolan and I get together at least once a year, if not more often.
0:40:28 It’s not that Catholic universities report to the Church, nor do we get funding from
0:40:33 them, but we exist in relationship, and I’m lucky in that it’s a very friendly and cordial
0:40:34 relationship.
0:40:40 Do you think it makes sense that academic institutions like Fordham have such big tax
0:40:44 advantages in a city like New York?
0:40:49 If you look at the biggest landowners in New York, two of them are universities, Columbia
0:40:56 and NYU, and then the Catholic Church is another big one, and they’re all tax exempt, and you
0:40:59 at Fordham are kind of at the sweet spot of those two.
0:41:04 Does that make sense to you in a 21st century tax environment?
0:41:06 Here’s why it does.
0:41:13 When you are taxing a for-profit entity, you are creating a business expense, you’re taking
0:41:17 off a profit margin to fund city institutions.
0:41:23 The idea, in general, is that if you are a nonprofit civic organization doing good for
0:41:26 the world, we’d rather you spend your money doing that.
0:41:31 We are huge economic engines for cities, Senator Moynihan had a great quote that if you want
0:41:36 a great city, build a university and wait 200 years.
0:41:40 If you were to design what will make an economy flourish, it would not just be the infrastructure
0:41:44 taxes pay for, it would be great universities.
0:41:50 If we were looking ahead to Fordham, let’s say 20 or maybe even 50 years from now, in
0:41:54 what significant ways would you like it to be very different than it is today?
0:41:57 You can keep all the good stuff, but what would you like to change?
0:42:04 I think when I look ahead, deep down, that what I would like us to do is to not chase
0:42:05 status.
0:42:10 It’s just to do good for the world, and that has become ever more crucial because the problems
0:42:17 of the world just seem so urgent and full of despair, and so that we look back on our
0:42:20 careers here at Fordham and know that we mattered.
0:42:25 Not about silliness, it doesn’t matter, but we have hundreds of thousands of living alumni,
0:42:28 and they matter every day in ways we’ll never see.
0:42:35 Did we have a profound impact on the kind of ethics and empathy and work that they do
0:42:36 every day?
0:42:43 I’d like to thank Tanya Tetlow, president of Fordham University for a conversation that
0:42:47 was much meatier than many conversations I hear these days with people in positions
0:42:54 of authority, so I appreciate her forthrightness and her courage in saying how she really
0:42:57 sees things, or at least what I think is how she really sees things.
0:43:02 Maybe I’ve been the target of a massive con job, but I don’t think so.
0:43:06 One reason I wanted you to hear this conversation today is because next week we are going to
0:43:11 start playing for you an updated version of one of the most important series we’ve ever
0:43:17 made about the economics of higher education, the supply and the demand, the controversies
0:43:22 and the hypocrisies, the answers and the questions.
0:43:25 Why are more women going to college than men?
0:43:29 What happens when black and Hispanic students lose admissions advantages?
0:43:32 How does the marketplace for higher education operate?
0:43:37 I tell you something, it’s a darn good question.
0:43:38 That’s next time on the show.
0:43:43 Until then, take care of yourself, and if you can, someone else too.
0:43:46 Free Economics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio.
0:43:52 You can find our entire archive on any podcast app, also at freeconomics.com, where we publish
0:43:54 transcripts and show notes.
0:43:58 This episode was produced by Zach Lipinski with help from Dalvin Abouajie.
0:44:03 Our staff also includes Alina Cullman, Augusta Chapman, Eleanor Osborne, Elsa Hernandez,
0:44:08 Gabriel Roth, Greg Rippen, Jasmine Klinger, Jeremy Johnston, John Schnars, Julie Canford,
0:44:13 Lyric Bowditch, Morgan Levy, Neil Caruth, Rebecca Lee Douglas, Sara Lilly and Theo Jacobs.
0:44:16 Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune” by The Hitchhikers.
0:44:19 Our composer is Luis Guerra.
0:44:25 As always, thanks for listening.
0:44:42 We have always—sorry, I can’t think of the word.
0:44:45 (gentle music)
0:44:47 you
0:00:14 I’ve heard you say that some people use it for chasing status, was your phrase, while
0:00:20 others use it to prepare themselves to improve not just themselves and their families, but
0:00:21 society.
0:00:23 So, what do you see as the mission?
0:00:29 Well, part of the ethos of Jesuit institutions from the beginning is that we want our students
0:00:34 to learn and get all the tools they need to flourish, and we want to give them opportunity.
0:00:38 But we also want them to have all of that, not just for them, but for the world.
0:00:43 That we have this enormous force multiplier of sending them out with the desire to matter
0:00:45 and the skills to really do that.
0:00:51 And they will choose how, but we really need for them to understand that the saccharine
0:00:57 high of just getting the job that pays the most or seeking status for themselves, that’s
0:01:01 not what will make them happy, and that is not the point of their lives.
0:01:05 And so, they can do that and still be happy, but what really drives you is knowing, looking
0:01:08 back on your deathbed at your life.
0:01:10 How did I matter?
0:01:17 I’d like to introduce our guest for today, Tanya Tetlow, president of Fordham University.
0:01:22 Fordham is a well-regarded private university in New York City, founded in 1841 and run
0:01:27 for most of its history by the Jesuits, the Roman Catholic religious order that dates
0:01:29 to the 16th century.
0:01:34 Tetlow is the first female president of Fordham, as well as the first layperson.
0:01:38 There’s a very daunting hall of portraits outside of my office, you know, all of these
0:01:41 priests going back to 1841.
0:01:48 Tetlow’s own father was, in fact, a priest, but while getting his psychology PhD at Fordham,
0:01:52 he met his would-be wife, another graduate student, so he left the priesthood.
0:01:58 Tanya was born in New York not long before the family moved to New Orleans, so Fordham
0:01:59 is in her genes.
0:02:04 A good way to recruit me is they can tell me, “You exist because of us.”
0:02:09 Fordham did recruit her, and she returned as president in 2022.
0:02:14 Before that, Tetlow was president of Loyola University in New Orleans, another Jesuit
0:02:19 school, one of 27 in the U.S. and about 130 globally.
0:02:25 The Jesuits have always been big on educating as well as evangelizing.
0:02:31 Tetlow is a lawyer by training and taught law for a while at Tulane, and before that,
0:02:34 she was a federal prosecutor in New Orleans.
0:02:39 What does it say about the state of higher education that Fordham chose as its president
0:02:43 not only a non-priest, but a former prosecutor?
0:02:49 We spent our time, all of us in these jobs, playing defense and navigating crises.
0:02:57 Everything from the protest movements to efforts from those who work here to make sure that
0:03:03 they’re paid well and fairly and how to balance that against remaining affordable to students,
0:03:05 and bridging that gap just gets harder and harder.
0:03:11 Today on Freakonomics Radio, another conversation in our ongoing look at what college is really
0:03:13 for.
0:03:18 With higher ed under attack from multiple angles, Tetlow sees an urgency in turning
0:03:20 things around.
0:03:25 The countries against whom the U.S. competes, none of them are disinvesting from education
0:03:26 right now.
0:03:30 We talk about the difference between religious and secular universities.
0:03:34 I don’t have to be afraid to talk about values in my out loud voice.
0:03:41 And we talk about why, despite all the trouble and controversy, the enterprise is worth defending.
0:03:59 If you want a great city, build a university and wait 200 years.
0:04:05 This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything with
0:04:15 your host, Steven Dubner.
0:04:20 Kamala Harris, before serving as vice president and U.S. senator, was a prosecutor, the district
0:04:24 attorney for San Francisco and the California Attorney General.
0:04:30 Now that she’s running for president, Harris is leaning into her experience as a prosecutor.
0:04:37 So in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds.
0:04:47 So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s tight.
0:04:51 As a fellow former prosecutor, I really admire that background in her.
0:04:57 Can you imagine ways in which that background can be useful as perhaps president of the
0:04:58 United States?
0:05:06 Well, in a funny way, you have such ultimate power as a prosecutor over your one single
0:05:07 case.
0:05:13 I found that really good preparation for having power in other settings.
0:05:18 What did you learn from being a prosecutor that helps you in your role as a college president?
0:05:21 It’s the only kind of lawyer where your ethical duty is not to represent a client, but to
0:05:23 do justice.
0:05:24 That is what you’re charged with.
0:05:30 And so I spent as much time talking to witnesses or defendants who are cooperating about how
0:05:34 they ended up there and what their lives were like and really learning who they were as
0:05:40 people in ways that I don’t know is typical of people in that job, but I really loved.
0:05:43 Tell me maybe your most memorable case.
0:05:53 I had a case where a high school teacher helped an old buddy who was in prison collect some
0:05:54 packages.
0:05:56 That isn’t going to end well.
0:05:57 No.
0:06:02 And it was just one of the most fascinating cases about human beings and how we delude
0:06:03 ourselves.
0:06:07 A high school teacher whose old buddy from high school, the popular kid who would never
0:06:14 talk to him in high school, finally reached out from prison to see if they could be friends.
0:06:19 And he out of so many high school drama kind of psychology decided, “Oh, sure, I will accept
0:06:23 these packages coming in the mail without knowing what they are,” and got dragged into
0:06:25 this whole drug scheme.
0:06:28 So the teacher who got dragged into it cooperated.
0:06:31 No one else would have been brave enough to do it because he was up against the major
0:06:32 kingpins.
0:06:34 He’s your witness then?
0:06:35 He’s my witness.
0:06:39 And we were going against the person who was running a heroin scheme from jail.
0:06:45 But it took a long time to just get him to admit his real emotions rather than have bravado
0:06:47 on the stand.
0:06:51 And finally, after berating him and prep, got him to admit, “I was afraid.”
0:06:53 I mean, I don’t blame him.
0:06:54 Did you in that case?
0:06:55 Yes.
0:07:02 So when I think of the Jesuit tradition, I think of inquiry and intellectualism.
0:07:07 And I think especially of the concept of discernment, which I gather is very important within the
0:07:08 tradition.
0:07:13 And it strikes me that discernment is fairly absent these days, at least in the public
0:07:14 square.
0:07:19 One reason I wanted to speak with you today, because I figured you could teach me and all
0:07:24 of us a little bit about how to get in touch with that, maybe apply it.
0:07:30 So I’d like you to define discernment as you see it and describe how you try to spread
0:07:34 that as a president of a Jesuit university.
0:07:40 It is basically the opposite of social media in shorthand.
0:07:48 So discernment means to take time to consider a big decision and not to jump to conclusions.
0:07:50 It means being open and curious.
0:07:55 It means assuming good intentions of the person you’re disagreeing with, which we are all
0:07:57 very bad at right now.
0:08:03 And it means being self-aware enough of your own biases and filters that you realize what
0:08:06 will prevent you from seeing the truth.
0:08:12 And right now, I think we’re all feeling the pressure to teach those skills to our students,
0:08:17 especially this fall as we approach the election and all the turmoil that society’s going
0:08:18 through.
0:08:22 How do we double down on teaching those skills when they have become so counter-cultural?
0:08:28 Yeah, but I would imagine that you are recruiting for students who already buy into the notion
0:08:30 of discernment, no?
0:08:31 It’s chicken and egg, right?
0:08:37 The students who are attracted to us tend to have this sense of purpose.
0:08:41 And I will say the two Jesuit institutions I’ve led have student communities who don’t
0:08:46 lean into self-righteousness in quite the same way that young people are tempted by
0:08:47 right now.
0:08:52 What do you think would happen if you could play some version of Freaky Friday and bring
0:09:01 the entire educational architecture of Fordham to a place like Harvard or Penn for a week
0:09:07 and apply all the layers of discernment in education there?
0:09:10 How would that go over with those student bodies, do you think?
0:09:16 Well, there is a freedom I find in being in a religious institution where I don’t have
0:09:21 to be afraid to talk about values in my out loud voice in quite the same way that in a
0:09:27 secular institution, we were just so afraid of offending by having any reference to religion
0:09:28 at all.
0:09:34 Can you give an example of some kind of conversation you might have liked to have at Tulane where
0:09:38 you felt it wouldn’t be accepted?
0:09:44 When we would talk about diversity there, we were left to some of the more tepid values
0:09:46 of hospitality and welcome.
0:09:52 And when I talk about it at a Jesuit institution, I’m able to really lean into the fact that
0:09:59 our faith believes profoundly in the equality and human dignity of every single person,
0:10:04 that we believe that we owe people more when they need more.
0:10:09 Pope Francis, who’s the first Jesuit pope, has said that some universities I know in
0:10:14 America are too liberal and he accused them of training technicians and specialists instead
0:10:15 of whole people.
0:10:17 I’m curious for your take on that.
0:10:23 Well, it’s interesting because this parallel attack in this country on the value of liberal
0:10:30 arts and for us as Catholic institutions, we cling to our core curriculums fiercely.
0:10:33 In this country, it’s not really a liberal problem.
0:10:39 It’s more from the other side, this mocking of English majors as if much of the powerhouse
0:10:41 of this country didn’t major in English, right?
0:10:48 And when we talk to employers, they’re desperate for us to teach those kind of emotional intelligence,
0:10:53 communication, critical thinking skills that you learn in philosophy and English and all
0:10:57 of those kinds of courses because that’s really hard to teach on the job.
0:11:01 They can teach technical skills on the job and frankly, the technical skills we teach
0:11:06 are often defunct by the time the kids graduate, right?
0:11:09 Those change too much.
0:11:13 So Fordham is a Catholic university, but the share of students who describe themselves
0:11:15 as Catholic surprised me.
0:11:17 Can you talk about that?
0:11:19 It’s about 40%.
0:11:25 We became religiously pluralist in a way that’s kind of a hidden story of American higher
0:11:26 ed.
0:11:32 Catholic students were not always welcome in the first half of the 20th century and before
0:11:36 at elite institutions, which we sometimes forget were founded as Protestant institutions
0:11:42 and had attitudes towards really immigrants, Irish Italians, others coming in off the ships
0:11:47 and not wanting them there in the same way they created quotas and caps for Jewish students.
0:11:52 And so Catholic schools, when they were founded, were full of Catholics who did not have other
0:11:56 options and we welcome Jewish students who often did not have other options.
0:12:01 When those doors opened, we had some of the same dilemmas of women’s colleges and HBCUs
0:12:03 of what do we do?
0:12:07 And so we very much welcome students from all face and it changed who we are.
0:12:10 We became very ecumenical.
0:12:14 But now far more of our student body is just secular.
0:12:17 They were raised with no religious tradition whatsoever.
0:12:23 When I look at the student population at Fordham, I see that it’s got about 40% of what are
0:12:31 called underrepresented populations, 17% Hispanic, Latino, 13% Asian, 5.5% Black.
0:12:35 It strikes me that you’re significantly more diverse than a lot of the very liberal schools
0:12:38 that talk about diversity a lot.
0:12:40 How does that happen?
0:12:44 Well, partly success begets success.
0:12:48 To come to a school that is already diverse means you have strength in numbers, where
0:12:51 you won’t be alone.
0:12:55 And I think it really helps to be in New York, a place that is already so diverse.
0:12:59 We get to recruit in our backyard, we get to attract people to a city that has everyone
0:13:02 in the world here.
0:13:09 I’m curious how the Jesuit tradition and Catholicism generally intersect with the politics of
0:13:10 this moment.
0:13:17 Many of my Catholic friends and family members are really torn because they don’t like Donald
0:13:21 Trump as a person or a candidate for a variety of reasons.
0:13:23 But they do really like the fact that he’s created a Supreme Court that has put much
0:13:25 stricter limits on abortion.
0:13:28 And I’m curious how that plays out at Fordham.
0:13:33 Well, Catholic doctrine does not neatly fit in either political party, because in many
0:13:39 ways it’s the opposite of libertarianism, which also doesn’t neatly fit in either party.
0:13:46 So Catholic teaching would be somewhat more conservative, restrictive on social issues,
0:13:50 but far more progressive on economic issues than the Republican Party.
0:13:55 Catholic social teaching to many more conservative Catholics seems incredibly radical, but it
0:13:58 is, in fact, the doctrine we’ve had for a very long time in the church, and it’s pretty
0:14:01 clearly what’s in the Gospels.
0:14:04 Give an example of that for those who don’t know.
0:14:08 The Catholic Church believes profoundly in caring for the poor as a priority, caring
0:14:14 about the right to organize labor, racial justice, all of those kinds of issues that
0:14:21 don’t neatly fit with a Republican Party that does care about restricting abortion and
0:14:22 other things.
0:14:28 In American society, we’ve always had a balance that was critical between individual rights
0:14:32 and a sense of community and responsibility.
0:14:35 That balance is really out of whack right now.
0:14:40 We’ve leaned so heavily into individual rights, which are crucial, but if they’re unmoored
0:14:45 from the idea of community, of what we owe each other, they’re really quite dangerous.
0:14:48 If we’re all in it for ourselves, who are we?
0:14:53 And so what Catholic teachings really offer is a reminder that we do have to care about
0:14:58 community, that we have not just rights, but responsibilities.
0:15:02 After the break, the friction between rights and responsibilities and how it played out
0:15:04 at Fordham this past spring.
0:15:07 You don’t point bullhorns at the library during study session.
0:15:08 I’m Stephen Dubner.
0:15:09 You’re listening to Free Economics Radio.
0:15:10 We will be right back.
0:15:25 As President of Fordham University, Tanya Tetlow oversees roughly 17,000 students and
0:15:26 750 faculty.
0:15:31 The biggest majors are in finance, psychology, and government.
0:15:35 Fordham also has several prestigious graduate programs in business and law, education and
0:15:39 social work, and even some theology still.
0:15:44 The school is split between two main campuses, both in New York City, one in the Rose Hill
0:15:48 section of the Bronx, the other at Lincoln Center in Manhattan.
0:15:51 Those two campuses are about nine miles apart.
0:15:56 If you walked from one Fordham campus to the other, you would pass right through Columbia
0:15:58 University.
0:16:04 This past spring, as pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up encampments at many schools, Columbia
0:16:09 had some of the most intense protests, which led to more than a hundred arrests.
0:16:11 So what was happening at Fordham?
0:16:13 I asked Tetlow to describe it.
0:16:21 We have students who are from Palestine who are very worried about parents and grandparents
0:16:22 they can’t get in touch with.
0:16:28 They’re going through all the stages of grief and trauma, and they’ve been extraordinary.
0:16:33 And I’ve also felt, you know, if yelling at me will make you feel better for even half
0:16:34 a minute, go for it.
0:16:38 It is my honor because they are feeling so powerless.
0:16:45 We also have members of our community who are Jewish and Israeli and who lost family
0:16:47 members on October 7th.
0:16:54 And so it made me realize how close New York is to the Middle East and of how profound that
0:16:57 pain is for part of our community.
0:17:03 And so what was really impressive this year is student activists did prayer vigils and
0:17:08 they did teachings and they talked and they listened and they engage with complexity and
0:17:14 they really tried to do the work of expressing outrage at that which they are outraged by,
0:17:21 but without just yelling at the nearest authority figure or trying to disrupt the right of their
0:17:28 fellow students to learn, that got ratcheted up when the clearing out of Hamilton Hall at
0:17:29 Columbia happened.
0:17:30 By the police, we should say.
0:17:31 By the police.
0:17:32 Yeah.
0:17:38 By the next morning, students who told us later were really upset by that came and started
0:17:42 a little encampment in a classroom building in our Manhattan campus.
0:17:48 We persuaded most of them to leave, but we did end up having the police arrest on minor
0:17:52 misdemeanors, about 15 mostly students.
0:17:59 So that was painful because, you know, how do you navigate the rights of our 17,000 students
0:18:05 to learn on the CASPA finals with the rights of those dozen students to express themselves
0:18:06 and to protest.
0:18:07 And it was really hard.
0:18:08 And what happened then?
0:18:11 Did it deescalate after those arrests?
0:18:12 Yes.
0:18:18 I’ve read that when you were a kid, your father, who was a psychologist and professor and also
0:18:23 counseled prisoners, that he had a sign on his desk that said, “Question authority, but
0:18:26 politely and with respect.”
0:18:35 How do you feel that slogan relates to, let’s say, the campus politics around this particular
0:18:36 issue at Fordham?
0:18:41 Was authority questioned politely with respect and fruitfully or not really?
0:18:44 I think for the most part it was.
0:18:50 We met with student activists and they have been profound and persuasive and respectful
0:18:53 and thus very effective, right?
0:18:57 Going to people and saying, “I think that you’re an evil, awful person and I’m going
0:18:59 to scream at you until you agree with me.”
0:19:00 Doesn’t work.
0:19:01 It feels good.
0:19:04 It’s venting, but it is not the same as activism.
0:19:09 We have always authorized any request to protest on our campus at Student Spring Us.
0:19:11 We’re at 100% with that.
0:19:14 But what we navigate with them is, you know, you don’t point bullhorns at the library during
0:19:15 study session.
0:19:21 You find ways to make your ability to express yourself, not have to disrupt the education
0:19:22 of your fellow students.
0:19:26 And so when we think about those restrictions, we need to think about them, both for protest
0:19:28 we agree with and those we don’t.
0:19:34 You can’t just imagine that the protesters are expressing a cause that you believe in.
0:19:37 You also have to imagine one that you might find repugnant because the rules have to be
0:19:40 the same for both or we lose credibility.
0:19:46 I know that back in 2016, which predates your presidency by quite a few years, there was
0:19:51 a movement by Fordham students to start a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine,
0:19:55 which is a national organization, and that was at the center of many of the campus protests
0:19:57 last year, and that was denied.
0:20:03 I believe there was a court case around that, and the court upheld the Fordham decision
0:20:04 if I’ve got that correct.
0:20:05 Yes.
0:20:10 And I also know that according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Fire,
0:20:15 which looks at free speech on campuses, Fordham ranks in the bottom 10 for colleges or universities
0:20:17 across the country.
0:20:21 So how do you as a president try to create a balance where you’re not limiting free speech,
0:20:30 but also not turning your campus into a hotbed where it can’t accomplish the central purpose?
0:20:34 First of all, those fire rankings, we don’t really understand how they come to them.
0:20:37 It is always tricky, right?
0:20:42 At Fordham, we famously, it got litigated, suspended a student who after a verbal argument
0:20:47 with fellow students went and bought an assault rifle and then posted that on social media.
0:20:51 If he had shot up the campus, we would have been reamed if we had not done anything.
0:20:57 It was so obvious a warning, but by suspending him, we got really attacked by some free speech
0:21:01 purist groups saying, “How dare you, it’s just because you’re against guns,” right?
0:21:07 So those are the kinds of lines we have to navigate every day, and what I find really
0:21:14 a shame right now is those who push for more speech on campus have suddenly flip-flopped
0:21:15 on a lot of those issues, right?
0:21:19 Now they’re yelling at us because we don’t suppress speech more.
0:21:23 This would have been a moment to really stand up and say, “We find some of these protests
0:21:28 to be anathema and disturbing, but this is what it looks like to put up with speech that
0:21:29 you disagree with.”
0:21:34 But instead, we’re just being called hypocrites because we don’t suppress it, and they’re
0:21:37 being hypocrites and accusing us of hypocrisy.
0:21:42 So it’s very head spinning because what remains is the question of are you for this freedom
0:21:43 or are you not?
0:21:50 Do you have any evidence that discernment, as we discussed earlier, can help fight polarization
0:21:54 or these kind of standoffs in the moment?
0:22:00 I know from our faculty that every day in the classroom, they try to not just teach knowledge
0:22:06 but the skills of discernment, of what it means to have reflective practices where we’re
0:22:10 going to really think about what we learned and stop and take time.
0:22:15 This is something that, as a law professor as part of our ethos, I need for you to articulate
0:22:19 the other side of the argument, not because we’re morally relativists, but because you
0:22:24 can’t know the strength of your belief until you’re willing to think about the other side.
0:22:28 And as a lawyer, your job is to argue the best case for whoever you end up representing,
0:22:32 which I guess is a way to train and seeing the other side, yeah?
0:22:33 Right.
0:22:37 I mean, legal education has a leg up in this because we’ve always done this work.
0:22:43 And I think our faculty do a brilliant job of navigating how to take the temperature down
0:22:48 when people disagree, how to say, “Okay, you are attacking the other student who you disagree
0:22:49 with.
0:22:50 You’re attacking them personally.
0:22:51 You’re assuming they have bad intentions.
0:22:53 You’re not listening to them.”
0:22:55 Are you sure this is the job you want?
0:22:56 I mean, it’s a hard job.
0:23:02 It is a very hard job, but I do love it because it matters, and sometimes things are hard
0:23:03 because they’re important.
0:23:09 So one way universities are important, or at least supposed to be, is as an institution
0:23:11 that can build social trust.
0:23:16 Researchers who study this argue that universities and the military and even sports teams are
0:23:21 places that do this well because in each case, you’ve got a bunch of individuals from different
0:23:27 backgrounds coming together with a common goal, or at least as part of a community.
0:23:32 And I’m really curious how you think about, I mean, this is an absurd and large question,
0:23:39 but how you think about the rights and role of the individual in a community or a society
0:23:42 today with Fordham as the microcosm of that.
0:23:46 Well, universities are one of the places of great hope.
0:23:51 We do bring people together, and that’s not just the obvious demographics.
0:23:53 It’s also rural and urban.
0:23:55 It’s different backgrounds economically.
0:23:59 It’s just different upbringings, and we’ve leaned into that from a progressive point
0:24:04 hard, but also that they find commonality, that they have so much more in common when
0:24:05 they least expect it.
0:24:14 I think that our job is to express both and to treat diversity as we used to be allowed
0:24:17 to do before the Supreme Court banned it, but about that quality of community and what
0:24:18 it means.
0:24:21 And so the court has continued to allow that in the military academies because they understand
0:24:24 exactly how valuable it is there.
0:24:30 They’ve now forbidden us from overtly considering that in admissions, but regardless, we have
0:24:37 the opportunity in our communities to really encourage, nudge, persuade students to know
0:24:39 each other to lean into that.
0:24:45 For example, Greek life can be wonderful, but it can also divide.
0:24:46 So we don’t have that here.
0:24:51 We try to find ways to get students to bond that aren’t the obvious finding people from
0:24:55 exactly your tribe, but really reaching out across that.
0:24:56 But it is …
0:24:57 What’s it, for instance, of that?
0:25:03 Of kind of making student organizations really more about interest than about identity or
0:25:07 self-selection and exclusivity.
0:25:11 One of the most important places we teach is in the residence halls, right, of how we
0:25:16 use peer mentoring because we have RAs who are just a little bit older than the students
0:25:21 that they’re mentoring and thus have credibility that we don’t, and of how they’re on the front
0:25:26 lines of navigating that profound loneliness that modern society has created.
0:25:32 Social media sort of buries them in connection that is empty, especially after COVID when
0:25:35 they were literally isolated.
0:25:39 They have to learn the skills of how to really be with each other, and we’re now having
0:25:46 to teach that in ways that we didn’t 10, 20 years ago.
0:25:51 After the break, Tanya Tetlow on university finances and pricing.
0:25:55 We’re stuck in a really stupid pricing model.
0:25:56 I’m Stephen Dubner.
0:25:57 This is Freakonomics Radio.
0:25:57 We’ll be right back.
0:26:13 Tell me a little bit about the finances of Fordham, maybe operating budget, and I’m just
0:26:16 curious to know how things are looking.
0:26:17 It’s going well.
0:26:22 We’re not in the kind of crisis that most of higher ed is in right now financially,
0:26:25 but it’s still a squeeze every year.
0:26:29 We’re hitting the ceiling of what American families can afford to pay.
0:26:35 In a world where we very much want to have normal and fair and generous pay increases
0:26:39 for all of our employees, we’re basically a service industry.
0:26:44 Most of our budget goes to our people, and so those pressures are hard because we’re
0:26:47 pretty tuition dependent to pay for that.
0:26:49 Our budget’s about 700 million.
0:26:51 Most of that is for the people we hire.
0:26:56 It’s very labor-intensive work to teach and serve, and then maintain a campus.
0:26:58 What’s your endowment for Fordham?
0:27:00 It is just about a billion.
0:27:04 Okay, so that sounds like a lot of money to the average person, except Harvard’s is 50
0:27:05 billion.
0:27:06 Exactly.
0:27:11 It’s hard fought for a school that mostly taught first generation students for so many
0:27:13 decades, almost two centuries.
0:27:19 It’s sort of like a museum endowment, that that interest on that is what supports us.
0:27:23 In our case, it very specifically supports primarily scholarships.
0:27:26 For us, it’s maybe 5% of our budget.
0:27:31 It’s not like an Ivy League that’s no longer dependent on tuition because they get so much
0:27:33 revenue from their endowment.
0:27:37 What would you do if you had a 50 billion endowment at Fordham?
0:27:41 We’d be able to fully meet need for all of our students first and foremost, which would
0:27:43 be a joy.
0:27:47 We’d invest in everything that we want to do in our ambitions.
0:27:48 What would that be?
0:27:52 It would be research, but it really matters to keep that in balance with the quality of
0:27:54 our teaching.
0:28:00 Research prowess that also means those faculty are in the classroom every day teaching students.
0:28:06 We are so strong in the humanities and law and business, and to really be relevant and
0:28:11 at the table, we need to connect with what’s going on in AI, with how to wake people up
0:28:17 about climate change and find answers to the threats to democracy all over the world.
0:28:19 Which is just absurdly expensive.
0:28:22 Fordham is in the $60,000 a year range tuition.
0:28:23 Is that right?
0:28:24 Yeah.
0:28:31 Talk about how you deal with financial aid, whether it’s need-based and also merit aid.
0:28:37 We are need-blind in admissions, but we are not one of the handful of schools wealthy
0:28:39 enough to fully meet need.
0:28:41 That is our biggest priority.
0:28:45 The biggest part of our budget is making ourselves affordable.
0:28:50 We’re starting to try to shift more of our money from merit aid to financial need.
0:28:53 The advantage of merit aid is you attract top students.
0:28:56 You make them feel more special because of the scholarship.
0:29:01 The disadvantage is, of course, some of those students who are the top students also have
0:29:03 need, but some of them don’t.
0:29:07 You’re spending money that you’d rather spend on those who can’t afford to be there.
0:29:11 But we’re stuck in higher ed in a really stupid pricing model.
0:29:16 The part that we know about is the price discrimination where we charge the wealthy what they can afford
0:29:19 to pay and thus supplement those who can’t.
0:29:24 But the part that I think is hidden is that the market really drives sticker price being
0:29:28 high because sticker price signals quality.
0:29:32 The elite schools tend to have more of the barbell, the very wealthy and those really
0:29:33 struggling.
0:29:38 Most of us have far more of the middle class who often, frankly, get squeezed out of the
0:29:39 elite schools.
0:29:44 When schools like ours reduce our sticker price to what we tend to actually charge on
0:29:50 average, those schools have tended to fail because the consumer is suspicious that that
0:29:53 school is not as good because it does not charge as much.
0:29:57 So what is your actual average price at, let’s say, an incoming freshman will pay this year
0:30:02 with a sticker price of around $60,000, what will the actual average be?
0:30:03 $30,000.
0:30:04 Wow.
0:30:07 There have been accusations that colleges and universities have colluded in the past.
0:30:09 Sometimes they’ve been busted for it.
0:30:12 There are others who argue that they should collude more.
0:30:16 And I would think that this would be a case where collusion would be good to fight this
0:30:17 very problem that you’re talking about.
0:30:19 Has there been any progress toward that?
0:30:24 So there’s a world where we would all say, okay, let’s all lower our prices to what we
0:30:30 really charge because that sticker price is so disheartening and so scary to those without
0:30:33 the sophistication to understand it’s not real.
0:30:34 But we’re not allowed to do that.
0:30:36 We can’t collude on price.
0:30:40 So this is where the market is, you know, it sounds silly except that when you go to
0:30:48 buy, you know, a jacket and there’s one jacket that’s $100, that’s 50% off and one jacket
0:30:52 that’s $50, even if they’re the same jacket, you’re going to go for the first one, right?
0:30:55 This is human psychology, this is how we all behave.
0:30:59 And if you get the 50% off because you are special, because you earned the scholarship,
0:31:01 it makes you feel even better about it.
0:31:05 And so it is very hard for us to break out of the system.
0:31:09 Let’s talk a little bit about growing the size of student populations.
0:31:14 Historically, the college population in the US rose and rose and rose and rose and rose,
0:31:18 but then it hit what looked to be a bit of a ceiling and it’s come back down a little
0:31:19 bit.
0:31:23 There are some schools, however, who just don’t like to grow.
0:31:26 There’s research by these two economists, Peter Blair and Kent Smetters, that finds
0:31:31 that elite colleges have mostly capped their enrollment numbers since the 1980s.
0:31:36 Their argument is that those caps have to do with mostly universities wanting to maintain
0:31:39 their prestige, protect their reputations.
0:31:43 And they argue in a kind of quiet voice that this is a shame, the idea being that if these
0:31:48 universities are so good and so elite at educating people, they should educate more people just
0:31:52 like any firm that’s successful wants more customers, not the same number.
0:31:58 So let’s just start with that, your thoughts on the notion that elite schools keep their
0:32:05 populations about the same, why they do that and why you’re not thinking like that.
0:32:10 When you look at when elite schools stopped growing, it was exactly the same time US news
0:32:12 introduced the rankings.
0:32:18 And those rankings until very recently encouraged a major category of selectivity.
0:32:22 They created these profound incentives for all of us, but the elites who battle with
0:32:28 each other for top dog to reject as many students as possible, that’s how you were measured.
0:32:34 The elites get status and prestige and very specifically rankings by virtue of how low
0:32:35 that acceptance rate is.
0:32:41 My favorite satirical headline once was Stanford achieved 0% admission rate.
0:32:44 It was a joke, but it was something very real.
0:32:45 Just barely.
0:32:46 Yep.
0:32:47 Yes, exactly.
0:32:53 After we’ve landed, the idea that the solution to this is to get a few thousand more students
0:32:57 into those elite schools, I think begs the question of why they are the answer.
0:33:03 Because what the rankings also did is it took a higher ed system of glorious complexity
0:33:08 and variety, about 4,000 nonprofit schools, and it put us in line order when really we’re
0:33:10 in clumps of ties.
0:33:15 And it was never true that you could only get a good education at a handful of schools.
0:33:19 I think to buy into that, to say that that should be the focus really ignores the fact
0:33:23 that there are probably 100 universities in this country that provide the same kind of
0:33:25 academic excellence.
0:33:31 And we need to remind ourselves of that, because the more we just play into the rankings game
0:33:35 of chasing status, the more alumni get status from giving to those universities.
0:33:40 We’ve really ratcheted up the cleaving between the haves and have nots, and that gets worse
0:33:41 and worse.
0:33:46 So Fordham, I believe, has increased enrollment by about 10% over the past 10 years.
0:33:48 Does that sound about right?
0:33:49 I think so, yeah.
0:33:50 So talk to me about that.
0:33:55 When you’re trying to grow, especially in a city like New York, what are the big challenges?
0:33:57 Are there enough good professors?
0:33:58 What does it mean for facilities?
0:34:01 Are there enough students that you want and so on?
0:34:07 The biggest challenge is students, because right now we have a demographic downturn in
0:34:14 the number of 18-year-olds generally, and that will peak 18 years after the 2008 recession
0:34:15 started.
0:34:19 People dramatically had fewer children, but we also have a drop in the percentage of
0:34:23 Americans going to college, and that has been rather dramatic.
0:34:30 It’s a mix of COVID and then most recently of the FAFSA form debacle.
0:34:35 So you may have seen in the news, but the Department of Ed stumbled for all sorts of
0:34:38 reasons to redo the FAFSA form.
0:34:45 In case you haven’t seen the FAFSA debacle in the news, FAFSA stands for Free Application
0:34:46 for Federal Student Aid.
0:34:49 It is administered by the federal government.
0:34:54 This past admission season, there were technical problems that meant FAFSA came online three
0:35:02 months late and then sent inaccurate financial aid offers to around a million applicants.
0:35:07 What it means is that for most schools, they’re looking at a decline in their populations
0:35:11 and in community colleges, especially a quite dramatic one.
0:35:18 So for any school other than the very, very elites to grow is not possible right now.
0:35:22 What I worry about is that for most of higher ed, they’re just not going to be able to
0:35:25 make it anymore, and the country will suffer so much from that.
0:35:31 We understand still as a society that K through 12 is a right, is not seen as some kind of
0:35:36 commie experiment, but somehow higher ed is not seen as a right anymore.
0:35:41 After World War II was the last time the economy really shuttered to a halt because we weren’t
0:35:43 building weapons anymore.
0:35:48 And Congress made the brilliant decision to invest in all those millions of veterans
0:35:53 coming home from the war who would not have jobs to say, “We will pay for your education.”
0:35:59 And it fueled so many Nobel Prizes and Pulitzers and the rise of the middle class in the ’50s
0:36:01 and global economic dominance in the world.
0:36:06 It was such a smart thing to do, and yet now we’re doing the opposite.
0:36:10 The Pell Grants, which when they were unveiled in the ’70s were enough to cover tuition room
0:36:14 and board for most schools, now are a pittance.
0:36:18 And states are disinvesting from their public institutions.
0:36:19 China’s not doing that.
0:36:24 The public’s perception of academia has fallen a lot.
0:36:28 It began on the right, but now the left is catching up.
0:36:32 There are many perceptions out there, one of which is that college campuses can be hostile
0:36:34 to young men.
0:36:38 Fordham is now majority female, I was surprised to see.
0:36:42 There’s another perception that colleges are hostile to anyone who leans even a little
0:36:46 bit conservative in any dimension, students and faculty.
0:36:51 There’s the perception that it’s too expensive, it’s too exclusive, it’s not useful enough
0:36:52 in the real world.
0:36:56 So how are you reckoning with that general perception of decline?
0:37:02 Well, it’s hard because there’s great political benefit to tearing down trust in institutions.
0:37:06 It’s easy to do, it resonates with people who are understandably cynical.
0:37:10 And once you’ve done it, it’s done, and it’s very hard to rebuild.
0:37:14 All of higher ed has become majority female, and that’s a much deeper topic to grapple
0:37:17 with than when I worry about as well.
0:37:21 You worry because there are all those men who are not getting involved in that kind
0:37:22 of system?
0:37:23 Exactly.
0:37:28 I think men are opting out of the opportunities that they need in an increasingly knowledge
0:37:33 based economy, and we will all suffer as a result of that, and so I worry about that.
0:37:37 So the return on investment is sort of laughable because when you look at the data, it is so
0:37:42 clear the financial return on investment, which just proves that you can make things
0:37:43 up and they stick.
0:37:49 And I would say that part of what I find really offensive are politicians saying that it’s
0:37:53 not worth it to go to college, none of whom say that to their own children.
0:37:55 None of whom didn’t go to college either.
0:37:56 Exactly.
0:37:57 And law school on top of that.
0:37:59 And graduate school.
0:38:05 So we become a political football of late in ways that make us really vulnerable, but
0:38:11 what’s so sad about that is the countries against whom the US competes, none of them are disinvesting
0:38:13 from education right now.
0:38:20 We are shooting ourselves in the foot in profound ways when we decide for political points,
0:38:25 we will take away one of the great higher education systems in the world that’s been
0:38:27 the envy of the world for so long.
0:38:32 We’re going to keep pulling back from it, pulling funds, pulling credibility and trust,
0:38:36 all for scoring political points in a temporary way.
0:38:41 If we’re going to talk about the attacks on institutions generally, let’s not ignore
0:38:44 the one that you’re associated with, which is the Catholic Church.
0:38:49 That’s a case where it mostly revolved around the priest sex scandals that have been revealed
0:38:53 and the coverups really of the past 30 or 40 years.
0:38:58 I haven’t seen numbers lately on the perception of the Catholic Church as an institution,
0:39:03 but I’m guessing it’s fallen very similarly to the way the reputation of colleges and
0:39:04 universities have.
0:39:12 The trust in religious institutions generally plummeted a while back, and then of course
0:39:16 trust in the Catholic Church, given the scandals, deservedly plummeted.
0:39:21 What I know from having spent much of my career fighting against sexual abuse is that that
0:39:28 denial, those coverups, the level of abuse still exists in all other institutions that
0:39:33 have trusting relationships over children, and my worry is we’re not learning the painful
0:39:35 lessons the Church learned.
0:39:37 What other institutions do you mean?
0:39:44 We’re seeing scandals emerge from Boy Scouts, from other religious institutions, but also
0:39:49 the vast majority of child sex abuse happens within families.
0:39:53 What I used to do every day was to go into court and beg judges to care about that, and
0:39:57 they found it so depressing that they just decided it was made up most of the time.
0:40:03 That’s a whole other episode, but the reality is, again, these problems weren’t unique to
0:40:04 the Church.
0:40:08 The Church really messed it up, and my hope is that everyone else will stop being in
0:40:11 denial about where we still have a crisis.
0:40:15 Do you have much of a relationship with the Cardinal of the Archdiocese of New York?
0:40:16 Yes.
0:40:21 Cardinal Dolan and I get together at least once a year, if not more often.
0:40:28 It’s not that Catholic universities report to the Church, nor do we get funding from
0:40:33 them, but we exist in relationship, and I’m lucky in that it’s a very friendly and cordial
0:40:34 relationship.
0:40:40 Do you think it makes sense that academic institutions like Fordham have such big tax
0:40:44 advantages in a city like New York?
0:40:49 If you look at the biggest landowners in New York, two of them are universities, Columbia
0:40:56 and NYU, and then the Catholic Church is another big one, and they’re all tax exempt, and you
0:40:59 at Fordham are kind of at the sweet spot of those two.
0:41:04 Does that make sense to you in a 21st century tax environment?
0:41:06 Here’s why it does.
0:41:13 When you are taxing a for-profit entity, you are creating a business expense, you’re taking
0:41:17 off a profit margin to fund city institutions.
0:41:23 The idea, in general, is that if you are a nonprofit civic organization doing good for
0:41:26 the world, we’d rather you spend your money doing that.
0:41:31 We are huge economic engines for cities, Senator Moynihan had a great quote that if you want
0:41:36 a great city, build a university and wait 200 years.
0:41:40 If you were to design what will make an economy flourish, it would not just be the infrastructure
0:41:44 taxes pay for, it would be great universities.
0:41:50 If we were looking ahead to Fordham, let’s say 20 or maybe even 50 years from now, in
0:41:54 what significant ways would you like it to be very different than it is today?
0:41:57 You can keep all the good stuff, but what would you like to change?
0:42:04 I think when I look ahead, deep down, that what I would like us to do is to not chase
0:42:05 status.
0:42:10 It’s just to do good for the world, and that has become ever more crucial because the problems
0:42:17 of the world just seem so urgent and full of despair, and so that we look back on our
0:42:20 careers here at Fordham and know that we mattered.
0:42:25 Not about silliness, it doesn’t matter, but we have hundreds of thousands of living alumni,
0:42:28 and they matter every day in ways we’ll never see.
0:42:35 Did we have a profound impact on the kind of ethics and empathy and work that they do
0:42:36 every day?
0:42:43 I’d like to thank Tanya Tetlow, president of Fordham University for a conversation that
0:42:47 was much meatier than many conversations I hear these days with people in positions
0:42:54 of authority, so I appreciate her forthrightness and her courage in saying how she really
0:42:57 sees things, or at least what I think is how she really sees things.
0:43:02 Maybe I’ve been the target of a massive con job, but I don’t think so.
0:43:06 One reason I wanted you to hear this conversation today is because next week we are going to
0:43:11 start playing for you an updated version of one of the most important series we’ve ever
0:43:17 made about the economics of higher education, the supply and the demand, the controversies
0:43:22 and the hypocrisies, the answers and the questions.
0:43:25 Why are more women going to college than men?
0:43:29 What happens when black and Hispanic students lose admissions advantages?
0:43:32 How does the marketplace for higher education operate?
0:43:37 I tell you something, it’s a darn good question.
0:43:38 That’s next time on the show.
0:43:43 Until then, take care of yourself, and if you can, someone else too.
0:43:46 Free Economics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio.
0:43:52 You can find our entire archive on any podcast app, also at freeconomics.com, where we publish
0:43:54 transcripts and show notes.
0:43:58 This episode was produced by Zach Lipinski with help from Dalvin Abouajie.
0:44:03 Our staff also includes Alina Cullman, Augusta Chapman, Eleanor Osborne, Elsa Hernandez,
0:44:08 Gabriel Roth, Greg Rippen, Jasmine Klinger, Jeremy Johnston, John Schnars, Julie Canford,
0:44:13 Lyric Bowditch, Morgan Levy, Neil Caruth, Rebecca Lee Douglas, Sara Lilly and Theo Jacobs.
0:44:16 Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune” by The Hitchhikers.
0:44:19 Our composer is Luis Guerra.
0:44:25 As always, thanks for listening.
0:44:42 We have always—sorry, I can’t think of the word.
0:44:45 (gentle music)
0:44:47 you
Tania Tetlow, a former federal prosecutor and now the president of Fordham University, thinks the modern campus could use a dose of old-fashioned values.
- SOURCE:
- Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham University.
- RESOURCES:
- “Not a Priest, Not a Man, but Ready to Run Fordham,” by David Waldstein (The New York Times, 2024).
- “Tech Glitch Upends Financial Aid for About a Million Students,” by Oyin Adedoyin and Melissa Korn (The Wall Street Journal, 2024).
- “Where Protesters on U.S. Campuses Have Been Arrested or Detained,” by The New York Times (The New York Times, 2024).
- “15 Arrested as NYPD Clears Protester Encampment at Fordham’s Lincoln Center Campus,” (NBC News, 2024).
- “Inside the Week That Shook Columbia University,” by Nicholas Fandos and Sharon Otterman (The New York Times, 2024).
- “Address of his Holiness Pope Francis to the Members of the Blanquerna — Universitat Ramón Llull Foundation, Barcelona,” by Pope Francis (The Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 2024).
- “Why Don’t Elite Colleges Expand Supply?” by Peter Q. Blair and Kent Smetters (NBER Working Paper, 2021).
- EXTRAS:
- “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School,” series by Freakonomics Radio (2022).