Dr. Rosslyn Knight: What Does It Mean to Belong in Higher Education?

0:00But one of the things I noticed from pretty much, probably 85% of the students that I talked to, at some point in their academic career, someone told them that they weren't capable. They weren't able. And one student who he had been said, she was in a math class in college. She was struggling and she went to talk to the faculty member and the faculty member said, well, maybe college isn't for you. And I mean, she was, she was, Terry, when she said it, and I mean, it was several years ago, that was still, right? It's still had an impact on her. That hurts my heart, Patrick. And I think that message who should have access, who deserves to do here, who should have a place here. I think we're kind of coming back to those types of messages to certain communities. And unfortunately, it's communities of college. Dr. Roslyn Knight and I first met a student's at Vanderbilt University. Like many friendships formed in college in those days, life eventually pulled us in different

1:03directions. During that time, Roslyn built a remarkable career in education, including leadership roles and the Mericopa County Community College District, one of the largest community college systems in the United States. Roslyn has had a life-long commitment to helping students who have often been told they do not belong in higher education, discover that they do. This is At the podium and I'm Patrick Q.E. Today, I'm reconnecting with Dr. Roslyn Knight and we are talking about education, opportunity, the real cost of college and the role institutions play in shaping who gets access to the future. But before we begin, make sure to like, subscribe and comment below to help support my channel. Roslyn, welcome to At the podium. Thank you so much, Patrick. It's great to be here at At the podium. I'm so excited to

2:05reconnect with you and to talk about what I love education. Thank you so much. It was amazing to have a conversation with you a few weeks ago. Maybe we probably haven't spoken in 30 years, which no one can have found them that now because that's not how the world works. But back then, we got our diplomas and we'll be scattered to the Yip to the Winds. So I'm glad that we are here today. Yeah, absolutely. So before we get into it, just to the level set, I want to know how did you become aware of Bandit Bill? Because you were in either California or Phoenix. How did you even hear about the Southern California girl? I thought out about Bandit Bill after I did my SAT. And I got information from lots of different colleges and Bandit Bill was one of the colleges that sent me information. But kind of started looking through what they sent. I was like, oh, they have my major. I wanted to make my early childhood education. A lot of institutions didn't have that at the time. So I really focused on institutions that had my major. So I went through

3:11when I saw PeeBody and read a little bit more about it. And I was like, hey, this is why not? This is a place that I should try. I apply mostly outside of California because I really wanted to kind of have the real college experience and being really away from home. So not only did they end up accept me, I was also given a Dean's scholarship. So that scholarship paid for 75% of my expenses for the whole four years that I was going to be at Bandit Bill. And what was really interesting, even the other institutions I applied at were a lot less than Bandit Bill. The additional funding actually made Bandit Bill less than most of the other schools that I applied to. But I think of the combination of two, like having a place that had what I wanted to maybe ran, but then also having the financial support. So looking at that, I had two siblings and my family was like, well, it's kind of way all the options. And my parents were like, well, we know where were you going

4:11and I think, but you did make the choice and they should have like, well, yeah, I'm going to go to the college where I'm going to be a Dean's scholar, right? That's actually really good. I know for four years, I'm going to be set, right? That's always something to think about, especially when you go to a more expensive college right now in Bandit Bill. Yeah, so Bandit Bill actually really came through. I'm glad I went. I had a great experience. Certainly the south was a different experience for me as a Southern California girl. So there was a little bit of a culture shot, but I had great friends like you that, you know, that helped me through some of those challenges. You always knew you wanted to be a teacher, you just said. I did. So my mom had a family home daycare that she started when I was 10 or 11. She started her family home daycare. And so as I got into high school, one of my jobs in my came home was to teach the children Spanish. So they didn't colors numbers, like simple, simple things. But that experience was like, really I hope you

5:12need to need just the joy that comes out of seeing something click, seeing a child struggle little challenge, and then they get it. And I was like, this is amazing. I get an amazing feeling, you know, to feel like you're in partying, you know, you're knowledge to someone else. And they were so excited, right? But they knew, you know, words in Spanish, right? They were, they were Spanish speakers. And so for me, it was, it just really solidified for me. Yeah, this is definitely where I want to be. Now, I go back to when I was in sixth grade. And the San Eagle City Schools, I don't know if they still do it. We did a career assessment. And so you answered all these questions about, you know, what you were interested in, what you liked. And then we got this report, I think about two weeks after we finished it. And it gave you like your top three professions based on how you answer the questions. So mine were preschool teacher, nursery school teacher, and interior designer. I'm pretty like, I'm at that. But when I look back on that, I was like, wow, I guess even before, you know, I started doing the things with my mom and the daycare and, you know, working with kids, that was already something I think that was,

6:16that was in me because I was, that was sixth grade. And I wasn't really thinking about, you know, what I wanted to do. Actually, I wanted to be a floutist because I was, I was playing to flute. And so I wanted to be a famous floutist and travel the world. That was kind of where I was at that point. So even looking back and seeing that even early on, like education and teaching was kind of already in my DNA, right? In my spirit early on. Who were the teachers in that time, when you were sort of thinking about, you, that you wanted to teach, who inspired you, or who haven't impact on you? Let's see, there was a couple. I would say the first one was my seventh grade language arts teacher, her name was Miss Lake. And she introduced me to Pony Morrison. She gave me the book, the Bluestie to read when I was in seventh grade. And what was interesting about that, I was, while my school they had kind of like the college track and the non-college track, right? And so, and like, which arts I had initially didn't put in the non-college track class. So my mom,

7:19of course, made a phone call. And I was moved to the honors language arts class. No, I was the teacher. I was the only black girl in the class. And that was in itself, it was a challenge, right? I was about my hair, where I wore my hair the way I did, you know, my skin color was weird, but that's why I talked the way I did. And she really noticed that she was from New York, and she was African-American, Italian, she had a lot of different ethnicities. She gave me the Bluestie to read. And for me, I was like, all right, it was just this connection to that character and kind of what she was experiencing in the parallels to when I was experiencing how I was feeling about being a black girl, right, in a white environment. I always appreciated that about her, noticing that, seeing that, and saying, let me help you. You're my way to help you, as you coat through this and what will probably continue, and you'll probably other times in your

8:19life where you're the only one, right? So this lake was certainly phenomenal. In fact, the lessons that we read, lots of different books, I've always loved to read E and C and C, and she introduced us to great authors and great books. So that too was also, you know, very important to me. And then I think in high school, to AP history and AP literature. And the teachers, Ms. King and Ms. V. Har, they planned together. So kind of whatever we were studying in the history class, we were also reading the literature of that time period, right? So they really coordinated that kind of what we were doing. And it was really nice to see how that collaboration teachers and how things are related and connected, right? And really helping us to see outside of the content, yeah, who would have been in 18 such and such, or here's the literature, you know, who's in Lebron tear, whatever, but really seeing that those connections be on, just the individual content, right? And then making those connections to our world.

9:20For me, I think it was really profound as I look at my teaching career and thinking about, you know, how I've always wanted to have students see the value of education. It's not just this subject area and this piece of information that you're getting right now, but what does that mean for you, your family, your community, the world? Yeah. What's interesting about both of those stories to me is I wonder today if students even get to read the blue with dye in schools, given what's happening with education right now, or the majority of schools are allowed to teach like that now. Were you in a magnet or a charter school or a public school? That was in a public school, it was a performing art school. I went there fifth grade through 12th grade. Oh, because you played the flu school. The same school as planned. I started playing the flu fourth grade and I said a different school than that teacher had told my parents about about this school. So I was just folks that I got together and said, we really know we could want to create a school that's about performing art. So we had dance, we had musical theater, like, you know, all the art and all that school district said,

10:24okay, go for it, we'll help you, you know, get it set up and support it, but it was a public school, right? It was easy to open, open to everyone, but it really was a community, right? That people that I really grew up with, right? You have spent much of your professional life focused on developmental education. And for people who don't know what that term means and I didn't know what that term meant. So I had to look it up. What exactly is development mental education and why does it matter? Well, developmental education is really really about providing support to students who have some, have some apps in their learning, right? There's students who come to community colleges, that may have some apps in their math skills or in their reading or English skills. So when development education first started, it was really about intervening for students, kind of getting them where they needed to go and helping them move into being ready, prepared, successful, and college level courses. Along the way, it's, it has unfortunately been negative for some students because the courses in most institutions,

11:32students don't get credit for it, though they've made, you know, they're paying for those classes, but they're not college credit. So for many students, if they're in those classes for several semesters, they're on kind of this longer pathway to get to the college level class, which sometimes is demotivating for students and still require many students who kind of started in that pathway. They were not finishing college, not coming back, reading, and when students read, it's very hard, many times you're going to come back and for me, my work in that has really been thinking about, so how do we still provide those supports, given the opportunity to be in that college level class with the support that they need? I think about my time in K-12, like we did intervention, right, we had, we knew there were students that at gaps and they're learning, right, so that was a part of what you did, you know, within your classroom. So development's education was kind of, I think, the way that higher ed was trying to look at that at least community colleges, how they were trying to look at it, the intent was great, but I think some of the implementation

12:37really struggled to do what it needed to do for a student. So my question for you then, based upon what you're saying is, I don't know, this is complicated because not all schools are created equal, not all school districts and not all resources are equally allocated, and then we have the complications of private schools, vouchers and all of that. So that's probably a whole other podcast, but who is responsible for bridging those gaps? And if the gap can be bridged, what are we telling those students? It's a responsibility at K-12 and higher ed. One of the things that has been the conversation in higher ed probably for the last 10 years, maybe more, is really about how do we engage with a K-12 more? We need to start having a conversation about college before nice grade. It really needs to start, I think in my own experience, it just started six grade, right, and six grade, you need to start talking to students about college and their career and, you know, what they want to do, you know, with their life and how they're going to be a contributing member

13:39to our society, right? So I really think it's a combination, right? Higher ed in K-12, need to do a better job of creating pathways. I mean, and that's happening in some spots. There are colleges that are doing enrollment and recruitment activities, you know, with fifth graders and sixth graders, they've got college students going to the school right now and they're introducing students to college, and I think it's really a shared responsibility, an opportunity for K-12 teachers and college faculty to talk about this pathway, like what is, you know, math look like from sixth grade through 12th grade to college, right? How are we making sure that students have that foundation? So when they come to college, they are well prepared, and if not, how can we help? Because as you said, I think it does in a message that you're not capable, you're not competent, you don't belong in college. When I did my dissertation research, there's lots of research about, you know, what hasn't worked in students who haven't done well. So I wanted to see what students who have been successful. What was it? What was it about them? The institution. But one of the things I noticed from

14:45pretty much almost, probably 85% of the students that I talked to, at some point in their academic career, someone told them that they weren't capable. They weren't able. And one student who even said she was in a math class in college, she was struggling and she wanted to talk to the faculty member and the faculty member said, well, maybe college isn't for you. That hurts my heart Patrick. And I think that message is slowly coming back around, right? To who should have access? Who deserves to do here? Who should have a place here? I think we're kind of coming back to those types of messages to certain communities and unfortunately it's communities of color, right? When you look at voucher programs, okay? Well, those programs that are taking away from the opportunity for public schools to have the resources that they need to have great teachers, to have the materials, to be exposing students to AI and all the technology and all the things that

15:46other people have used those two that are going to make them much more competitive, right? Much more prepared for the future. And rural schools, I would imagine, suffer similar gaps. They do rural schools, tribal schools. So there's so many communities that are challenged, right? By the resources and having the resources, whether they're human resources or financial resources. Are we? And I'm ignorant about certain things because my educational journey is a bit probably different than a lot of people's educational journey where I spent the significant part of my foundational years was spent in private school. And it was a black private school. It was and it was run by people who had come out of the black civil rights movement. So it was a very different kind of education. And then when I entered the public school system, I did not do well because there's a system you'd have to follow in a public school that you don't necessarily follow in a private school in a different kind of way. And we were able financially

16:51to afford to move to a very good school district. And that's where I spent 10 years, basically. I say that because my question is, I don't know another way of being educated, that how I was educated. And because I don't work in the space, I don't have a visibility into it. But what I feel, and I don't know if my feelings are accurate, and you will tell me if they're accurate, is that we have moved away from a time when we were in school. I felt like we were all in school together and that there was a focus on how do we get everyone across the line? Because there was a real currency placed on, you've got to go to college. And I feel like the conversations I hear now are not about, what are we doing that's going to help from a civic perspective that as many people are as educated as they can be and desire to be to a certain level of functionality. And I think there's impact because there are people who cannot function at a

17:52certain level that impacts our society. It impacts the social discourse, it impacts the understanding is my observation right or wrong. I do think we're at a different place, even my own in the education I went to the public school my entire life. And then being a public school teacher and seeing just I think the change. And one of the things that has been for me very disappointing is the whole book banning champion and seeing the types of novels and literature that has been banned for children to read for teenagers out of lessons to read because many of those books are really important for them to understanding themselves, understanding our history right. So I look at even some of the things that are happening in our society that are about education closing down museums. It is your offended by what it represents, you're offended by the story that it's telling. For me, all those things are a part of education. And when you start trying to

18:54change our history, change what people are learning that changes our education environment, like I said, changes our society, it changes how we engage with each other, it changes our engagement and involvement. We have redistributing and new voter rules like all those all those things they seem separate, but they are related to how we engage as citizens. Our educational rights, our voting rights, think about the things that have been taken away from people. Think about black people were even allowed to learn how to read essays. They were chilled to think that shows how powerful education is, how powerful reading is. We weren't allowed to vote. You think about the things that people weren't allowed to do at some point or what wasn't allowed or restricted. You realize the power in those things. Education is power. But if we're telling people that you don't deserve to learn about this or you shouldn't learn about this or no, this is not really what happened. We're going to water this down. We're going to make it so we're not

19:56offended and we're not heard and feel guilty about what happened, right? About the facts. I think those things really do have an impact on what you're talking about, that civic engagement and that involvement and having people understand what has happened through our history. You can think about what history part of it is understanding what happened. You see what was there. You also think about you want to learn from it. Take lessons from it and do better, right? But I think a lot of the conversation, even the conversation about the value of college. There is research that says over your lifetime, you will have more earnings with a bachelor's degree than you were with a high school diploma. We know that. So minimally, a bachelor's degree is going to help in cycles of poverty, then help increase social mobility, then increase economic input and also output, right? So that's important that people have the opportunity to make a livable wage, but also a wage that's going to

21:00increase the success of their family. And education is that that's what's going to do that. And no one can take that away from me. I think that's one thing you have that no one can ever take away from me. As you describe it, it seems very clear. Why would we not want to have as many successful people in a civic sense as we can? Because what if we could eradicate poverty? What if we could have better civic engagement? What if we did have a more thoughtful political discourse in this country? What if we had a more thoughtful social discourse in this country? Religious discourse in this country? And now that you have to go to school to be thoughtful, that's not the life I'm drawing. But I think when we see what accrues to the overall culture when people have engagement, why is there so much friction in your mind still over that? Yeah, I think it goes back

22:00to me think about the fact that people weren't allowed to go to school. Black people weren't allowed to go to many institutions. So even as institutions started, most institutions in the United States were started to educate white men from the upper class. I think that's still the end of current education. Education is for certain people. We still have that mindset about who can go to certain schools. I think about the case against Harvard and the Asian American students. And I remember reading a few articles and some of the statements that were made and the I would add and get to go there because this person took my place. And I thought about that and was like, why would that be your place? Why wouldn't that black or Hispanic or native student have a place there? And I mean, about while the entitlement, the entitlement to think that only you could have a place at Harvard, only you could have a place at MIT that other people wouldn't earn that place, deserve that place to be in that institution. So I think it's still those

23:02back to, Slated maybe over civilized but rare, those things, those earned the current are still there. We know it. We see it every single day. We see it on social media when President and Mrs. Obama are portrayed as eights. I like it's still this undercurrent of this respect, of this regard for people of color. And so I think we'll will continue to see that if we don't do something different. The case you were referring to is students for clear admissions versus Harvard. And that Supreme Court ruling it effectively ended the consideration of race in most college admissions decisions. And so I don't know if we have any reporting or any sort of research shed on if we're seeing declining numbers of enrollment in universities by people of color, by black people, Latin people. They did, I think, Article came out that they have seen a declining enrollment of black and Hispanic students at Harvard since that since that decision.

24:06I think about that decision and I think about what I believe the universities were attempting to do. Right. And I don't write the wrong. They were trying to write around. They were trying to write around. But also I feel like when you are thinking about a class of people, the research shows that the more diverse the population, the better everyone does in that industry. Everybody rises. Everybody rises. And also feel like we in our society curate everything. We curate our fringe circles. We curate our professional football teams just because you're the top player at your school. Does it mean that you're going to be playing in the professional leagues or plenty of great players who never make that transition? We curate everything because everything just can't be about the numbers because life isn't about the numbers. To your early point, it's like we're about the numbers. We wouldn't have systemic racism. We wouldn't have things that help people back because no one benefits when that happens to one person.

25:07This is about something else. It's not logical and it's not reasonable. It seems to be about who we are at core as human beings because every society does this. Every society says you're in, you're out. We build institutions to keep you out, to keep us separate. And I don't know how you solve that. I think that's part of the human condition and trouble that we work through. But I do feel like to what you said earlier, that education gives us the next best shot at coming to workable solutions. Yeah. I guess for me, the whole race and admissions, I guess, I don't know if I get offended or the fact that people think that that was done just to get those people in. They didn't have to have the GPA or the high school activities or the

26:07classes. That was one part of admissions. That wasn't the only thing at Harvard or any school was looking at. I think about say, we were what? 2% by people at the end of the vote, right? We're a small number. But we knew we were able to come out of the crowd. Yeah. That made a bit of a part of why we got in. But at a 4.2 GPA, I was student, while you president, I was on the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council. I was in junior honors society. There were things that I was doing that didn't make me a good fit for Vanderbilt. Outside of the fact that I was an African-American senior. So for me, I always think that, you know, when you start talking about race in certain areas, like that then becomes a focus. Well, you only got in because of this. Like when I tell people that I went to Harvard, it's interesting their responses that I get. It's either, oh, you went to Harvard? This is the leap that this dark skin black girl could have gone to Harvard. Or it's a, oh,

27:09wow, you went to Harvard, right? Those are the two responses that I get. It's very interesting. So it's, yeah. I wanted to go back because I do think it's not all doom and gloom part of the work that you've been doing in the community college space is to help bridge some of those gaps. And honestly, over half of all undergraduates in the US will go to a community college school. And rarely is the community college school invited to the table when some of these decisions are being made. Why? Why is that gap there? I think the perceptions of sometimes that community college is, unfortunately, right? It's in their original exception where college junior colleges and some places they still are because it was seen as the continuation of high school. Again, community colleges were started as a way to separate poor white men from rich white men. There was a belief that these poor white men, no, they're not ready for the university. We're going to create like a 13th 14th grade. They're going to kind of continue this

28:12kind of high school. And then, right? So that was their original creation of the community colleges. They have evolved, of course, to be open access, open to everyone helping especially more adults that have some college and their degree. We're hoping to finish that degree. We're helping folks who especially during COVID, people who want to get up still because a lot of people came back to school during COVID. So there, like you said, there's, there's so we're lining, there's hope, you know, there are things that are happening. As if the things are coming federally, there's a new workforce, Pell Grant. So people who are in short-term workforce programs will be eligible for Pell Grant, which free money, don't pay it back, it's not alone, it's a grant, right? I can help folks finish a cybersecurity certificate or a welding certificate, health care certificate with no debt and then get into a job. So there are some things that are they're coming that I can go help with that. So everyone will see them as really important to our educational sphere. So

29:15it's coming, it's coming. When we're looking across the country right now, we are seeing a declining college enrollment among men, particularly men of color. Why do you think that trend is happening? I think the messaging, I mean, I think the messaging to men of color, you know, about college and what it means to go to college, right? And you think, well, you know, that's community, you know, when you go to college, do they work? And again, that message about belonging, do you belong in college as a male color? Are you capable? Are you competent? I think about the experience of my brother and other, you know, black women that I know, their school experiences were not always positive. My brother had a teacher who told my parents he needed to be in special education. My mom told me that I'm like, you march right up to that district office and you haven't pulled out of that class and you tell them what she said to you because she's not even to close to say that to you. That comes after testing and I write conversations like she's not supposed to say that to you, because she had an issue with my brother because he didn't respond

30:15to her the way she thought he should, but she also wasn't respectful to him, right, in the classroom. So I think about, you know, those messages that men in men of color are given throughout their school career, that you're not smart and ask, you know, your behavior problem. So why would you continue in that arena that hasn't been positive, that hasn't maybe been successful for you, though you maybe smarter than anybody else, right, like my brother, he's an amazing IT person now. Like, I wish I go back to that, go back to that teacher until look how he turned out. Look how you were so wrong, but I think those kinds of experiences that unfortunately men of color experience that are much higher weight than others provide a story. I want to go back to the Supreme Court ruling, and I want to play a little bit of devil's advocate. I know we talk about merit based. It's an interesting term. Yeah, I feel like, well,

31:17it's interesting we look at what's happening nationally. Yeah, so how people are being chosen to lead very important parts of Africa from this. Yeah, so is there a rational argument that one can make that says, you know what, we should look at race. We shouldn't look at gender in admissions to universities. You can look at other things, but those two things are off the table. Is there a world in which that has merit? Being in America, that's right. I think race and gender continue to be continue to be challenges and continue to be barriers for many people. As an African American female, I'm at the bottom of the barrel in this country. So I mean, was it Malcolm X said the most just respected person in the United States as a black woman, right? It still holds true in 2026. I know what I experienced. I believe the store, you know, I'm out in public. It's so for me,

32:24I think a lot of people with it left behind. A lot of people would not have opportunity if racing gender were completely out. The interesting thing about that is, let's say that you've got into Vanderbilt and Harvard because you were a black woman. Let's just say that was the determinant. The determinant factor was, oh, Rosslyn is a black woman. We only have 2%. We need one more to get that 2%. You still have to do the work when you get there. You don't get to life. There's no pass. No, it's not. And there was it. And there wasn't a pass. Like every semester had a fat of a 3.0 to keep that $1.00. And we know plenty of people who didn't finish at Vanderbilt. They were asked to leave black and white. To me, it just belies the reality of what it is. I don't know if you're ever going to convince me that there's a merit to the merit based

33:27only admissions argument. It also made me think because I feel like, when history teaches us this, we learn from history that when all these doors started closing, Dred Scott, Pessie versus Ferguson, the black community and our comrades and allies began to get motivated and work in different kinds of ways to accomplish the goals that led to Brown v. Bored and all of the sole rights acts that were passed in the 1960s and the Johnson administration. So I'm wondering, I know we're in a time right now when people can't see past just the insanity in which we are currently living and just in just the complete cynicism and lack of any intellectual rigor that we're living through right now. But I'm wondering if these decisions like the Supreme Court decision and like some of the gutting that's happened of the voting rights acts will cause institutions, will cause us to think differently about the opportunities that exist to sort of not let that be

34:27the final word. We have a legacy as well in this country of taking discriminatory, regressive rulings and still finding a way. Is that how we should be thinking about these things? But these are the opportunities now that have been presented to us to overcome. I think one of the things that I think that may be different about where we are now is that I think institutions are being weaponized through fundiving institutions lose funding for the type of research that go to it right because it says LGTQ or it says equity to see institutions being sued and the lack male for millions of dollars to view things a certain way. I think that little twist in how things are being done, I think it presents a very different prospect for many institutions. And

35:27when you fight back, then open yourself up to more intense, certainly more intense sanctions, more intense black mineral, that I think has been the difference, right? Like even in the past, for those things happened, we were able to find other ways, right? But now you're hitting institutions especially in a really hard place which is funding, which is resources. We can't have this program anymore because this program was focused on low income students of color where we can't have that because we can't have anything that says minority starting. We can't have a Hispanic serving. So those things have been taken away that have been there that have helped institutions to be able to provide equity and access because you're hitting us where it really hurts in our budgets. I think that's the difference between another path and where we are now. But we still have to fight. Absolutely. We still have to fight. We have to fight in a smarter way.

36:29We have to fight in maybe a more collaborative way, right? How do we partner with folks right to fight? And I think some institutions are fighting that. I believe Harvard is now admitting students if you have what your family income is under $200,000, then you can come with no cost. Harvard's doing that. I believe I've been Princeton. Several of the IIs have kind of come over with this new emissions, right? This new emissions standards based on your family income. Not based on anything else, but based on family income. But we know who primarily is going to be you know, in the income brackets. What are some other revenue streams? There are a lot of foundations that are stepping in. You have the McKinsey Scots that are using their resources to support HBCUs to support tribal colleges to support community colleges. But it certainly is a different type of right now. I think. Yeah. I want to talk about the declining enrollment in universities,

37:29but also on a tie of that conversation partially to the financial conversation. If I were talking to my 17 year old self again, I would be like, you really need to think about if you're going to go to Vanderbilt and pay and have your family pay, assume some of the debt that you had to assume in order to go there. And what I find difficult about the conversation is that we as a country, and again, the statistics all say the same thing. Your life can be appreciably better if you get a college degree. But on top of that, we have said, well, you need to go to these seven IDIT schools. You need to go to these seven sister schools. You've got to go to this particular private school. And we're putting students at a very young age in an owner situation where they're going to have debt the rest of their lives. And you cannot discharge your student-owned debt even if you declare bankruptcy. So you're in it. Do you think that we should be asking young people to make one of the

38:32most consequential financial decisions of their life without really explaining and then grasping the reality of what that means? I don't think that we do a good job of that. I've had in those conversations, talking to students about financial planning, and doing financial literacy, really trying to help students understand the cost of college. It's not just tuition and books. You know, to eat every day. So there's like all the other costs of college that I don't think we talk about enough. Everybody thinks, oh, tuition fees, books. Yeah, those are kind of those, I guess, outward. You know, we know about those costs, but I don't think we've done a good job or talking about that to students and really helping them think about and understand what happens when they finish a degree. And even thinking about the career that you're using and understanding what's going to be available when you choose that career. But they really understand that path that they're on and understanding the financial implications of that plan.

39:34You know, the top of having students use a major, but that's what they want to do. That's what they like. But you also have to think about, okay, is there a career and a livable wage career? Because I think that's a really important part of it. Not just getting a job, but having what they call good jobs. Not a job that's going to continue the cycle of poverty or continue to have your family being a little income, especially when you have students that are our first generation. Like many of our students are the first person in their family to go to college. Like my dad, just always go talk to the dean. He talked to the dean every time I talk about it issue. He talked to the dean. Like, I don't like that. He's like, go talk to the dean, right? But some of our students don't, they don't necessarily have right. Someone who's going to have those conversations with them about who to talk to. How do you get the resources right? Because they don't, they may not have those people in their lives. So really having an honest and thoughtful and knowledgeable conversation with them as well about what's next, right? What does that pass by? Look

40:34like and what's going to be next for you. Does it worry you the amount of debt that students are taking on in university? Absolutely. Especially when you think about economy, right? So share economy right now and job prospects and you know, how are they going to earn their ways that they're going to be able to sustain their family and be able to pay back the debt that they have? We're having sort of a heavy conversation, but there's a lot of good and the work that you do and that's happening in education. What do you positive and see that makes you excited about the future of the community college space and about higher education overall? I think what I'm excited about is we're seeing, especially in community colleges, are adults that are returning. We see a lot of adults that session our cyber program, they were doing something else and now at 35, they want to be in cybersecurity. Certainly, there's a great livable wage jobs that in that area, right? So I think for me, for me, that is really a greater powerful little bit of parents, those are

41:40grandparents that are now providing model and example for those children that are coming behind them. If you go back, what would you say to that, Yonor Oslin graduating from Vandy? First, study more. Yeah. Does somebody say it was a college of friends like Patrick? No, no satco on Thursday. Yeah. Yeah. But I think one thing I always said to myself in it's that, and people say to that, you're an ass and you're going to be fine. You're going to, you're going to do the things that you want to do. You're going to be able to make your dreams my first semester. I was, I've been on probation after my first semester, right? So I really had to get it together because you know, the parents are right over what are you waiting on to? This stuff to you. Keep the scholarship and stay there. You're going to come home and say, oh gosh, I'm not coming home. I was kind of late and much more. So that first semester was, was

42:44really kind of, was shocking for me that I was my good student in a straight A. So it was really you know, and it just meant to say, okay, let's get, let's get back on it. You got this, you can do it. You got it. You got it. This season of the show, I'm exploring this idea of what it means to return home, whatever that means. That's a very broad term. And I wonder if you do what does that mean for you at this point in your life, this idea of a return to home? Well, one of the things I think for me would be going back to California as a place where I grew up didn't have a lot of great memories. Professionally, I think, and I may want to be a community college president. I think that was a mean to probably bring your whole circle because you have such an opportunity to impact the community's needs type and that role that would probably be my return to home, right? Thinking about how do I continue to support access, opportunity, resources, you know, for students and

43:47their families. Osslin night. Thank you so much for your time. Absolutely. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. I love this conversation. I love this conversation. I love reconnecting with you again. Absolutely. I'm very, very happy. Thank you, Patrick. Thank you so much, Roslyn. And to those of you who are watching or listening, remember, we all have a voice. We all believe a legacy. And the journey home is how we learn to embody both. Bye, everyone. Thank you, Roslyn.