Dr. Maria Cronley on College Education
Dr. Maria Cronley, Provost of Austin Peay State University, talks with Spencer and Annalee about higher education in America. She discusses the university's efforts to provide flexibility for students, particularly military-affiliated students. Dr. Cronley emphasizes the value of a college education, warns of the upcoming enrollment decline in US institutions, and aims for a better-educated Tennessee.
About Dr. Maria Cronley
Dr. Maria Cronley has been a senior administrator in higher education since 2013. Dr. Cronley earned her BSBA in marketing from Bowling Green State University and her Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Cincinnati. She is currently the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs for Austin Peay State University. Previously, she spent decades working in corporate marketing and is a nationally recognized expert on consumer judgment and decision making.
Maria has more than 30 articles in journals and books. She is a HERS Fellow and graduate of Harvard’s Institute for Education Management.
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Spencer 00:06
Dr. Cronley, welcome to signature required today.
Maria Cronley 00:09
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Spencer 00:12
You are senior vice president of academic affairs and provost at Austin. Peay, that's right. We have a million questions for you today, all sorts of different things that are going on in higher education, things that are going on at Austin. Peay, you're in the middle of all of it. Before we go to that though, I'd love to get the 92nd overview of your story and how you made it to your position at Austin. Peay,
Maria Cronley 00:37
well, again, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to have this conversation today, and I'll do my very best to answer all your questions, and hopefully we'll have a stimulating conversation. So 90 seconds, that could be hard, but in general, my background is marketing, so I'm a marketing professor at heart. I spent about nine years working in marketing, and like so many senior executives in higher ed i did not anticipate ever being in in in higher ed administration, but I spent about nine years in industry, then as about 13 years as a professor, and then around 2012 I ended up moving into higher ed administration, and I've been a provost for eight years, and just excited to be here and excited to have this conversation.
Spencer 01:23
You did a great job. I think you nailed that in under 90 seconds. So we're in great shape here. I would love to just start off with those that are not familiar with Austin Peay, which will be some of our audience, that school is unique. And I would love to know, without biasing you, what are two or three things for someone hearing about Austin Peay for the first time, that you would want them to know about the institution?
Maria Cronley 01:50
Sure. Well, I feel incredibly lucky and blessed to get to work at Austin Peay as the provost and senior vice president there, because I think we're an incredibly diverse institution, and we provide some really unique opportunities for the student in our state. So one thing that a lot of people might know is that Fort Campbell army base is located in Clarksville, Tennessee, and that is the home of Austin Peay State University. And we are a regional four year public institution, and we're really proud to be partners with the army base and Fort Campbell. So we actually have an active campus right on the military base, and we try to structure programs and services to serve our military affiliated students. About 28% of our students are military affiliated, and so that that's a huge part of our institutional mission. And I think something that really makes us unique in the state. The second thing that I'm really makes me happy to go to work every day is the other kinds of students that we serve, and that is about 60% of our students are either first generation and or Pell eligible students, which means that when we help a student walk across the stage at Austin Peay getting their degree, we are changing not only the trajectory of their life, but potentially changing the whole trajectory of many generations of a family. And so for me, I've in the past, I've always worked at more I will, I will say elite and elite private, private schools. And I've, I've been lucky to work at those kinds of schools, but the kinds of students that we serve at those kinds of student schools are very different than than we have at Austin Peay. And so providing those opportunities and helping open the door for both our military affiliated and our first gen and Pell eligible students, as well as our other students in the community in and around Clarksville. Makes me feel really lucky to get to be there. I'd say the third thing that makes us unique is that we're one of only two universities in the state that offer associate degrees. Now, many of our community college partners offered our offer associate degrees, of course, and then of course, we have the strong TCAT system that are offering technical degrees. But we're one of only the we're one of only a couple four year institutions. And so what's really cool about Austin B is that a student can come there intending to get a bachelor's degree, and they can earn their associate's degree along the way. So we're really proud that a student can do stackable credentials. So I have a person in my office who he earned his associate's degree, his bachelor's degree, his master's degree, and now he's working on his doctorate degree, all at Austin Peay. So a true, you know, a true legacy story, I guess, in terms of the ability to kind of stack those degrees and engage in lifelong learning.
Annalee Cate 04:46
That's amazing. Yeah, I'm curious. Dr Connelly, as you think about the composition of the student base there at Austin, Peay, I can imagine, obviously, with Fort Campbell, the military base, you've got students coming from all over that are coming in from the military base for the. The other 60% 70% of students, how many of those are in state students versus with obviously, all the changes we're seeing in Nashville and Tennessee are coming in from out of state well,
Maria Cronley 05:10
So we are considered a regional in state institution and and we are seeing an increase in our out of state students. However, we have traditionally served students within, really 100 mile range of Clarksville. We love to go outside of that range, but the vast majority of our students are still Tennessean students, and so now we will draw some from Kentucky, of course, because we're close to the border of Kentucky. In case our listeners don't know where Clarksville is, it's really up near the Kentucky border. And so we'll see, of course, some students coming from Kentucky. And then we draw students from all across the country, but the vast majority of our students are Tennesseans.
Annalee Cate 05:51
And then, with your background from having worked in private institutions as well, and now being at Austin Peay, when you really think about the intentional things that you're having to do as provost for the university to help transition those students that do come from military backgrounds or first generation college students. What are some of those really intentional things that you're having to do programming wise, to help them successfully transition into their next chapter? Sure.
Maria Cronley 06:15
Well, of course, the way we offer classes is really important, and so I think we're lucky. We were a little bit ahead of the game in terms of online education. So for a long time, we've offered several degrees that are completely online, and we also have parts of programs that you can complete quite a bit online or in a hybrid format. And nationally, that is a trend. So you're seeing more online and hybrid, because that's what sort of the market wants. But we've always done that. We also have many degrees that we run in what we call parts of term. So we offer degrees where, instead of the traditional semester long, you can do classes in eight week what I call sprints, so eight week terms. So we have several programs that have sort of that flexible format, and so those. So the way we offer classes is one unique thing. We also try to be really conscious of the way we advise students. We provide a lot of information and support around financial aid and VA benefits and then military support. So we probably, we, we have the largest military Student Support Center in the state where, where our military affiliated students can come and find their tribe, right? They can access services for the university, but also interact with other veterans, with others military affiliated family members, with other soldiers, and they feel comfortable. And so we try to make sure we're very cognizant about those services in terms of our all of our students, though, we're we're we're trying to put more and more resources and emphasis on student success, because we really realize the importance of trying to keep the students that we already have and helping them persist to that four year degree and be successful.
Spencer 08:00
I'm wrapping my head still around about 28% of the base having military background in your student body, and I just wonder for you as provost and senior vice president, coming in eight years ago and coming into this very unique student body, knowing that part of your significant role is to set the culture. What were your concerns coming in, versus eight years later about how you work with this really unique student body that maybe you hadn't had a lot of background in that level of military presence, right,
Maria Cronley 08:42
right? Well, when I joined Austin Peay, and actually been at Austin Peay four years, I've I've been Provost, a provost for eight years, but I joined Austin Peay in 2021 of the things I knew would be crucial as we thought about crafting degrees and programs around our military affiliated students and and their families too, is remembering that we have to maintain that flexibility. So ironically, I started my degree as a professor in a at a University in Dayton, Ohio called Wright, Wright State, and we were adjacent to the Wright Patt Air Force Base. And so I actually started my career as a professor serving mostly military students. And I was actually teaching class during 911 and so I went from teaching a class where I had a whole class of military officers to within 48 hours, every single one of them was deployed and so and overseas. And so it was really important during that time that we help those students complete those courses even while they were deployed. And so we still have those needs. So right now, we need to be able to respond when a brigade over at the base will get deployed or need to be sent out for training. And so we really pride ourselves on being flexible. So we've actually, you know, we. I to make sure that we work with each and every student so that they can shift their program online, or they can delay and pause and then come back and finish quickly. We've even customized certain lengths of courses and redesigned courses specifically for, for example, a brigade that was deploying, and so we try to make sure that we we have that flexibility built built into the system.
Annalee Cate 10:28
That's fascinating. Do you feel like with obviously joining Austin Peay in 2020, you know, with with covid and everything, do you feel like you guys were actually at an advantage to be able to pivot and adapt to the massive shock to the education system just because of the positioning with the military flexibility.
Maria Cronley 10:44
I absolutely do. I think we were ahead of the game in terms of online education, and we were we did pivot pretty easily. Of course, it was still a huge shock, right? It was still a huge, huge thing, because the majority of our students were still on campus, especially our traditional nonmilitary students, but, but I think we had a strong infrastructure in place around distance education, and so we because of those military things. And really, since covid, you know, one of the things that I also think about, you would ask me about, how do we really try to cater to our military affiliated students is also in the programs that we're designing? So for example, you know, we're the only university in the state that offers an aviation science program in rotor wing. So if you want to learn to fly helicopters, you need to come to Austin, Peay. You can learn to fly fly planes at some other school, right? But if you want to fly a helicopter, and we developed a program, and I use that as an example, because we developed that program because we had a lot of veteran students and a lot of military affiliated students who were really interested as they exited the military in that kind of career. One of our most popular new majors is National Security Studies, and so we're trying to develop programming around this really crucial need that we have to develop experts in sort of international security, not just Homeland Security and Criminal Justice. We've had that for a long time, but looking more to national security as it spans outside and to our international beyond our international borders,
Spencer 12:18
That’s a perfect bet. And this is what I love about Austin Peay is it resonates closely with an entrepreneur. What I hear in your answers is that you are creating programs with flexibility that adds value and serves, ultimately, your customer in the place where they are, and that's so rare in higher education right now, from an outsider's perspective, what I see in higher education is a you're going to fit in this box and play by our rules, and if you're not there, go somewhere else. There's almost a I'm going to look down my nose at you. Element in some areas of higher education, and I think Austin Peay sets itself so far apart from that. So if you can just take a step back for a second and think about Austin Peay and the landscape of higher education, what do you see from a 40,000 foot view that has let you succeed so much versus your peers that seem to be trying to find their way amongst higher education, and what that really is today?
Maria Cronley 13:34
Well, I think you're giving us a lot of credit. I appreciate that, and I am proud of the fact that I do think we try to create opportunities for all of the students that walk through our doors. And so we do pride ourselves we are still a selective institution, but we try to be very open access. And I think we are more open access than are some of the other four year institutions in the state. I also think that being our size, right, we're about 10,000 students, helps to keep us nimble. So while we want to continue to grow, we also want to make sure that we stay small enough so that we can continue to give students sort of that personal touch and a lot of opportunities. So we're trying to, we always are trying to find that balance between being the right size being big enough so there's lots of opportunities for students to learn, do research, engage in internships, do entrepreneurial things, but also small enough that they still feel like a person and not a number. And I think some institutions do fail to keep that in mind as they just strive to grow right? Our big flagship institution, while I have a lot of respect for it. It's just this behemoth, right? And it's just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and so for us, I think, to say what has been the source of our success is staying true to our mission. Our mission has always been. We want to be a highly accessible institution for those students looking for that four year degree. Three, we want to help them earn that credential along the way, in the associate's degree, to help them do what they want. We want to try to give them the education they need in a flexible way. You know, as as I look at the 40,000 feet of higher education, you know, one of the things that I think we're all struggling with in the in the area of higher education, and it's happening in Tennessee too, is to help students understand the value of the degree that they're going to earn, whether it's at Austin, Peay or some other institution. What, what you know gets me up in the morning is really the fact that not only am I helping our unique set of students cross that stage and have opportunity, but I'm helping the state and our whole economy with the really important task of helping us have an educated populace. And so I just I'm so sick and tired of hearing the public rhetoric around how higher education isn't valuable anymore, and that you don't need a college degree. Well, I will say this, if I'm going to drive over a bridge, I would like a college educated engineer to have designed that bridge. And as I get older and need you know physician care, I would like a college educated physician, right? So we do need, we do need a well educated populace. And so I think one of the things that I try to keep in mind at Austin Peay and keep our team thinking about is, how do we deliver on that academic promise, on the on the promises that we make to our students that come to us and deliver on the value of that degree. Because having a degree, I can talk about for a long time about how valuable it is to have a college degree, not just in the state of Tennessee, but everywhere.
Annalee Cate 16:52
It’s fascinating. So full disclosure one, I was a first generation college student, so my family went through that, and I remember at that chapter that that feeling of, there was really no question about whether going to college was a valuable decision. There was no question about going to college. It was just, where are you going and how are we paying for it, right? You know, my so my husband and I have an 18 year old that's headed to college here in the fall, and so we, we were having a different conversation when, when it came to that college conversation of, okay, what are you wanting to study? Are we sure that college is the right path? And we ultimately decided yes, and I'm with you that I want that. But it does seem like the rhetoric has changed so significantly right now. And I'm curious, you know, from your vantage point, how much of that do you think is the economic landscape changing, and a question of that ROI versus, is it a cultural or, I might even actually say, in your expertise, a marketing problem with what we're what we're dealing with, right?
Maria Cronley 17:51
I would say it's probably both Okay, right? So of course, the cost of higher ed has become more expensive, and that is a significant concern. I do think that sometimes the press likes because it's a good story, it's a good marketing story to talk about the cost of higher education, and it is, and it is a true and a true and real problem. And we need to continue to find ways to help our students finance their education in a responsible way. And again, we have to deliver on those educational promises. So we have to help our students not just start college, but finish college. And so that's really, really important. So in terms of, let me, let me say a couple things. First of all, it is expensive to go to college. Part of the reason the cost of college has continued to rise is is there is more and more compliance, both at the federal and state level, that we have to make sure that we're following, right? So there's a lot, there's a lot of compliance issues, and I'm all industries are facing this, right? So that has helped raise sort of the cost of higher education. The other is, is that in many institutions, we see that students are sort of demanding more and more in terms of, frankly, call it Country Club, kind of experiences at colleges and universities that often can drive up the cost of education. But you know, for most students, most students nationally, come out with debt of around $30,000 at Austin Peay, a student graduating comes out with debt around our average is about $20,000 and over 40% of our students graduate with absolutely no debt whatsoever. And so we're still, we still believe that we're delivering an affordable and valuable education. So again, I think you're right. The the rhetoric today, or the conversation today is, is, should I go to college? I think that used to be less of a conversation, right than when, when our generation was going to college, but I don't think every student should go to college. College. I don't think everyone needs a four year degree. I truly believe that, of course, we need people with skill, with skilled technical abilities and things like that. I've always believed that, but for those students that do want to have a professional career, they do need a college education. And the thing that I do know is that research has shown that over the life of a person's career, someone with a bachelor's degree will earn $1.4 million more than someone with a high school education. The median income of us of a person who has a bachelor's degree in this country is 83% higher than someone with a high school degree. Yeah, right. So those are real economic numbers, right? And if you look beyond the numbers, research shows us that people with a degree, a bachelor's degree or higher or some sort of degree, they're less likely, over the course of their lifetime to have anxiety, they're less likely to have depression, heart disease, diabetes. And the research shows that people with degrees live 8.5 years longer than someone with a high school degree. That's true often because they're in professions that are safer and have fewer physical hazards or physical strength, right? So, so those are real, tangible ways in which there is value in having a degree, having a credential. Now, that credential could be a technical credential. We certainly need skilled carpenters and plumbers and electricians, for sure. But again, there are many, many professions that just require a more advanced degree. In fact, a recent study of Tennessee business people said that 70% of them said that they need a more skilled, trained, more skilled and trained professional workforce. And so again, I'm kind of like, I'm out there trying to help our students see the value of a higher ed, higher education, and that's a marketing problem, right? So we have to keep finding ways that we communicate that value.
Spencer 21:58
I like the marketing too, as it relates to helicopter pilots, that eight and a half years probably is much superior at Austin Peay to say, if we trained you how to do this right, you're gonna add 20 years to your expected lifestyle, versus if you get out there and displeasing it. Let me ask with specificity, one number that you gave that really stood out to me, that you said 40% of your students graduate debt free, but I don't know if it was the average or the median. Was at $20,000 of debt. Can you just help me and our listeners understand how you would arrive at those two? Because that's a big separation between graduating with $20,000 versus being debt free. What are the levers that are there? So that way, someone that's maybe considering college could understand, am I more likely to end up in the debt free category, or am I more likely to end up in the $20,000 category? Sure.
Maria Cronley 22:54
Well, some of those numbers are are determined by the amount of federal financial aid that you'll receive as a student. So obviously, if you're a student who's coming in, potentially as a first gen student or as a Pell eligible student, it's more likely to start off with that you're more eligible for some of our federal financial aid programs and and I will say 90 almost 98 I think it's about 98% of Austin Peay, students get some sort of financial aid. So it could be federal financial aid, it could be state aid, it could be from some other source. However, some students do find, depending on what they're studying, that they just can't with the financial aid they're receiving, either from state or federal sources or even academic scholarships that they can't quite close that gap. They may choose an area of study that is maybe a little bit more complicated. So for example, you may be studying something in AV like aviation science. Okay, I'm not going to I'm not going to sugarcoat it here. It's expensive to become a helicopter pilot. You have to pay for flight time, right? So some degrees do tend to be more expensive than others, right? And so you have to bear those costs. And then sometimes families just choose that they want to maybe live in a nicer apartment, or they may have choose a different way, a different kind of meal plan and things like that. So it is going to vary by the student. And so students do find year over year, sometimes that they have to take some loan out, loans out to help them sort of meet that gap or bridge that gap to get to the end. So but if you think about $20,000 over four years, that's a pretty still a pretty affordable solution, given what the benefits are over your lifetime. Now that said, I think we do, we should, and we do need to continue to find ways to fund higher education so that students can have access, so that all students can have access. I will say that the state of Tennessee, I think, has done a very good job in its two main it has many ways and areas where students can get. State funding. But I think the two main levers that they pull in the Tennessee Promise and the Hope Scholarship, are two really good funding sources for students in the state of Tennessee. And I think we are our students are lucky because not all states have that level of funding, and so I think we're lucky in that regard. I also will say that most of the institutions Austin Peay, included, have really upped and ramped up the amount of scholarships that they offer. So we make over $10,000 10,000 sorry, ten million a year in scholar in achievement scholarship offers. So any student coming out of high school, for example, at Austin Peay, who comes out of high school with a 3.0 GPA, they're going to get an academic scholarship, and as long as they maintain academic good standing and their grades, they're going to continue to get that Achievement Scholarship throughout college. So So I that's not just Austin Peay all. I think all of our state institutions are doing a much better job of giving more and more achievement scholarships, but we have to continue to find those.
Spencer 26:05
I've got one more financial question, and then I'll kick it to Anna Lee to bring us to a different topic. But this is just my heart language. These are the things that I just as a business guy and an entrepreneur, I just really appreciate the wealth of knowledge that you have on this. So let me ask one other related financial question that I've always just wanted to understand. So across our broader political landscape, there's a ton of conversation about student loan forgiveness, and I don't understand mechanically, what's happening there. So like, if I issue an invoice to somebody in my business and the federal government says, Hey, don't worry about paying that invoice. It's forgiven. I am out of business because all of a sudden I'm not getting my invoice paid. I can't imagine mechanically it's that way in higher education. So I'm not asking you to say good, bad on loan forgiveness, but what I am asking is, does that even relate to Austin Peay, or is that like Spencer? That's just not even something that would impact the university.
Maria Cronley 27:09
Well, so it does impact and it doesn't impact. So I will say it's been a very interesting time in higher ed in the sense that prior to covid, we were talking about sort of the cost of higher ed and the value of higher ed and the return on investment, and those were important conversations, and then covid happened, right? And during covid, they really suspended right students having to pay back their loans, that really wasn't part of the conversation before covid. Yes, we were having conversations about, is higher education too expensive? How can we become more efficient and effective? Helps with student success? All important conversations, those are sort of the university conversations. Once covid happened, though, and the federal political landscape shifted to you don't need to pay back your loans during this time. That made a lot of sense during the pandemic, right? People were out of work or they and they really didn't have the financial means potentially. Now that covid is over, though, right, the federal government has had conversations a little bit back and forth about whether they would reinstate students having to pay back those federal financial aid loans. Now, from an Austin Peay perspective, whether or not students are required to pay back those loans, it really doesn't affect us because we are those students are graduated and gone, and that's kind of a conversation with the people that the federal aid that they received, right? So that's kind of a conversation between them and the federal government. However, we do have students that have come back to us and have said, Hey, what do I do? Do I have to pay these back? And we have students that are starting to get these bills, and they do contact us with lots of questions. And so what we're trying to do is make sure we're armed with answers. So our financial aid team, while it doesn't directly impact maybe our incoming students or our current students, we do try to work with our former students who are struggling with, Hey, am I supposed to be repaying these and how much do I have to pay and I can't afford to pay that, and trying to help them at least navigate that educational landscape and trying to give them good advice on how to how they have to pay back those, those loans. I will admit, as someone that you know went to college a long time ago and and had children that had to pay back college debt, I think we're at the point now where all of my children have repaid their college debt. It is a strange conversation and a strange thought process for me to contemplate the idea that that we would just forgive that debt. I wasn't really brought up that way, and I don't and even my own kids weren't really brought up that way. They repaid their. Dead and and, and they kind of moved on. So it's an interesting conversation that's happening on the national landscape. It's a it's kind of off to the side for for school, for universities, but it certainly is an interesting conversation, and I do think it speaks to sort of where do we go from here now that that cat is out of the bag. It will likely become a continuing political question, I would guess so.
Annalee Cate 30:27
I'll shift a little bit still on this general subject, but as we think about the education landscape in Tennessee specifically, obviously, the last five years have brought all kinds of new conversations to a head around the ROIs of higher education and online versus on campus education and those things. I'm curious, what are the long standing battles we're fighting to educate Tennessee, despite these new hot topics that are happening, what's the legacy issue?
Maria Cronley 30:57
That's a great question. The biggest thing is, I want to get, I want to get people to go to college. Okay, one of the biggest things we, we have fought in Tennessee, and it's a long-term problem, is the college going rate. So prior to covid, the national college going rate was around 66% and now in the US, it's, it's kind of, it went way down during covid, and it's starting to rebound just a tiny bit. It's around 63% in the state of Tennessee, we're below that. Okay, so, and I would need to double check all of my numbers, but around 2015 for 1415 we were about 58% okay, so we were well below the national college rate going rate. It was at that time in 2015 the state implemented what's called the the promise act, right where they put in Tennessee Promise, which is the last dollar scholarships that all students in the state of Tennessee can use to get an associates or a technical degree or a certificate, and that was really behind the drive, what was called drive to 55 right? The goal at that time, in 2015 was by that year 2025 to get 55% of the population educated with some sort of certificate, degree or educational credential in higher ed. We're right now. We're at about 47% I don't think we're gonna make it to 55 by 2025 however, I do covid was a big setback. Covid was a big setback, but overall, I think the initiative took us in the right direction and was successful. Okay? The problem is, is we're still lagging nationally. So we during covid. We after the drive to after the drive to 55 started. We did increase our college going rate pretty, pretty well. I think we got up to about 63 64% the problem is, is then covid hit and we started to drop like a stone, and we went down all the way down to 52% right after covid, we have rebounded. I think we're about 53.8% now in terms of college going, and so we're still behind the national average. And again, it's really it's good for the state and it's good for the country to have an educated populace. I mean, the research just shows that. And so in the state, that's one of the things I know the state really cares about, is, how do we get more people credentialed, either with a four year degree or an associate's degree or technical degree or in a certificate, whatever that is. We need credentialed, well educated people in the state to fuel all of the great businesses, industries and professions that are moving into the state every single day. And so the college going rate is something that I watch very closely. We're watching in the state really closely. Unfortunately, there's a national phenomenon that's going to impact us starting in 2025 and that's the enrollment cliff. You may have heard about the enrollment cliff. It got a lot of popular press in the last few years, and the enrollment cliff is during the Great Recession of 2008 the people, the population shrunk. We had people having the birth rate cratered, basically. And so those students that are 18 years old and eligible to call College, who were born in 2008 are coming to maturity in 2018 unfortunately, the pie has shrunk about 15%.
Spencer 34:33
Wow. So birth rate has had that big of an impact. It did.
Maria Cronley 34:38
It had that big and so if you look at the demographic pie or the market, because I'm a marketer, right? The marketing pie just the number of college going students who are eligible to college, who are eligible to go to college, who are 18, that pie is is going to start to shrink in 2025 by 15%.
Spencer 34:55
Wow, that's interesting. I guess it's like 2008 the great financial crisis. Us as a dad to four kids, these things are freaking expensive, right? So now that I am financially in a tough place, I'm just gonna have fewer kids, maybe the additional kid that we're gonna have. And so it's been that's what we're calling the enrollment cliff that is really showing its head in 2025.
Maria Cronley 35:18
Yep, if you see it actually mapped on a graph, it looks like a Crip cliff. Now, we've seen college going rates overall, going down, slowly going down since 2012 but in 2025 you're gonna see it's been sort of like this. You're gonna see it go like this. Wow. Now, of course, the cliff will be have different impacts in different places. It'll depend on the type of school you are, and it'll depend on the region of the country. So in Tennessee, we're pretty fortunate. A lot of people are moving to Tennessee, the state, by and large, is growing. We'll see will be impacted to negative about 6% so we'll see our our market of eligible 18 year old college going students, that market will shrink by about 6% for us, starting in 2025 and 2026 and that'll have and that'll continue all the way till 2029 till we'll start to see it uptick again other states, though, especially if you think a little farther north than us and across the Midwest, that number is going to be a lot worse, yeah, just in the state of Kentucky, they're gonna be impacted negative 12% Wow.
Spencer 36:25
And probably, as you go further north, I mean, there's multiple tougher economic people leaving, I mean, all sorts of different things.
Maria Cronley 36:32
Yeah, Illinois will probably be one of the most impacted states in the entire country. They're, they're predicted to have their market shrink by 30% Wow. And as a business person, you know what a shrinking market of 30% could really do to your bottom dating and so not only are we worried about convincing students that there's value in higher ed, they need to go to college. We need to have a populated an educated populace, but we also have just the pie getting smaller all over and so as someone who wants to make sure we survive, because we think Austin Peay is awesome, and we want it to continue and to thrive. You know, we're, we're really trying to find ways to make sure that, that we will be one of the institutions standing at the end. I think what they're saying is that obviously institutions, small, private institutions, will be very much impacted, of course, because there's not a lot of margin, there's not a lot of operating margin there institutions like Austin, Peay will be affected. We're sort of that mid sized, regional, the large flagship institutions like our neighbor, utk, they probably will be less affected. And then, of course, the super elites, the Harvards, the Stanfords, the princetons of the world, they won't be impacted. And in fact, they'll probably experience some some growth even through this time. But So really being Yeah, they'll absorb the fallout. And we've already started, started to see some of the small, private regional institutions starting to close. Yeah, we're about, there's 900 fewer universities in this country than there were 10 years ago. So we're already starting to see some of those institutions kind of close their doors.
Spencer 38:19
Can you help me think about you talked about Tennessee and the types of policies unique to Tennessee versus some other states. So Governor Lee has an interesting story in that Lee heating and cooling. He likes to tell the story publicly that firsthand, he sees the lack of tradesmen and tradeswomen that are able to turn a wrench and know what they're doing, construct a bridge in a way that we're all feeling safe to drive over it. Can you help me understand from your vantage point, for a state like Tennessee that is making substantial investments in trade schools, is that something that you see as complimentary to Austin Peay, something that helps the state as a whole. I just wonder what that is like from your perspective.
Maria Cronley 39:10
Sure, absolutely so yes, I think we absolutely need those technical professions, and we absolutely need to make sure that as a state, we're offering more access to those so I think, you know, Governor Lee's philosophy of let's build our TCAT system is a good strategy. It's the right strategy. And in fact, I think that we institutions like Austin Peay, we try to find ways to partner with those institutions, and we've been really successful. So in fact, we recently, in recent popular press, have been sort of lauded for one of the initiatives we've done, which is partnering with the community colleges, the high schools, the TCATS and Austin Peay in the Clarksville region in an initiative called greater together, and that is where we bring all those entities. Together, and we talk about, how do we, especially our partnership with the TCATS and with Nashville State Community College partner, how do we actually serve the students in our region? I just, we just want all of our students to find their path right, to find the thing that works for them. And so if that's a technical degree, great, I want the student to go get a technical degree, if that's a four year degree, of course, I want them to do that, and I want them to do it at Austin Peay, if they need to start their path at a community college. Great start at the community college, and then we'll try to help transition. So I think we the strategy to continue to grow our TCAT system and to invest in that is good. I think it would be, I would like to see the rest of the state do more initiatives like the greater together initiative that we have in Clarksville with our TCAT and community college partners to make sure that we're just serving that community and the region in the best way possible. Again, as I said, not every student should get that cookie cutter four year degree. We got to find ways to get students what they want, to help set them up for long term success, whatever that is, I will say this. I think that community colleges are facing an existential crisis. I think they have struggled, especially since covid, to find their footing and find their path despite, despite Tennessee Promise, which essentially, in the state of Tennessee, which is such a great program, you can get an associate's degree for free in the state of Tennessee, with Tennessee Promise, you can go to any community college, and you can get that credential free of cost, because, which is an amazing thing that most states don't offer their students, we still see that enrollments in community colleges are really, really struggling. So I do think at the community college level, you know, I do think they're facing somewhat of an existential crisis, and they're trying to find ways and programs to get the students to come. I think what happens is, is that students there. I don't know if it's there's a stigma associated or not with going to a community college. It is a great path. It's a great way to start. It's a low cost way to start, but I think that, I think that some of the Community College has been, have been a little slower to be nimble, to responding to the kinds, to the way students want to be educated. And so I think that they just have to figure out what is the brand value proposition that they deliver to the market, and then help deliver and communicate that effectively to the market. And I think my community college college colleagues would probably agree, agree with that assessment. I mean, even as a four year institution, we we continue to struggle with making sure we understand what our niche and our brand value proposition is every day. But I think in the state that that is an issue, it's but again, as far as the technical college goes, I think it's a great solution for the state of Tennessee, and I think it has helped with our drive to 55.
Annalee Cate 43:14
I'm curious. So we've had some experience with this, but some of that conversation, because when we had that same conversation in our house, right? That it's like, okay, what are the different options? What are the types of schools that you can go to? How do we make those decisions? And a lot of it ended on, you know, What path are you planning to pursue? And I actually think the emergence of all the conversation around trade schools has maybe hurt community college too, because it's, it's kind of, are you going a technical path, then let's go ahead and go to a trade school, start working, you know, do an apprenticeship if you're wanting to go, you know, like so our son was headed towards engineering, which, again, I definitely wanted him to get a degree before building that bridge, we're all going to drive across too, right? So it was all right then let's, you know, push towards a four year institution and pursue that degree. So I can see that that gap in the market. I'm curious how much, and I don't know enough about the landscape in Tennessee, between kind of dual enrollment programs from high school, transitioning them into the associates, and then, like you're talking about with the greater together, transitioning that two year associate into a four year through, you know, through an institution. How good are we at that in Tennessee, would you say, you know.
Maria Cronley 44:23
I think that dual enrollment, by and large, is a good thing, and I think that many states are going that dual enrollment route we've seen. So as an institution, we engage in dual enrollment. We probably educate, I know, we educate over 1000 high school students a semester, every semester, and we're one of the larger four year institutions doing dual enrollment in the state. But all of all of us are doing it. The numbers don't lie. They have dual enrollment by and large is is successful. The. Matriculation rate, in other words, the rate of students that go to college from high school, if they've been involved in dual enrollment. For I know for us, I don't know what it is across the state. I know for Austin Peay, it's about 40% that's really good. That's a really good rate of students going to college. So the numbers don't lie. Those students are going to college. But you have to remember that the students that are taking dual enrollment courses are already high achieving students, or they wouldn't be able to get into those college level classes in high school. And so I think that some of those students probably would have gone on to college and been successful no matter what. But I do think dual enrollment, by and large, does help lower the cost of higher ed, and it allows students to explore classes and areas. So by and large, I'm a big fan of dual enrollment. From an administrator's perspective, it's not always easy to administrate, right? I mean, so, but that's just inconvenience for me. So, so, because we're dealing with a different population than we're used to, right? We're going outside of our traditional market. But by and large, the numbers don't lie. Dual enrollment is good for the state, it's good for higher ed and it's good for our good for our students. So I lost the thread of your question, but, but do we feel like those students? Then many of the dual enrollment students will go on for associate's degrees and then on for bachelor's degrees, I think what you see is a lot of dual enrollment students, because these are high achieving students. They're more likely to matriculate into four year programs or even to a technical program, less likely probably to find their way into a community college. And so I just think the state needs to do some thinking about what do we want to do with our community colleges? Should we? Should we convert more of them into technical schools? Should we allow more of the four year institutions to offer associate's degrees like Austin Peay does certainly been successful for us, but again, that's partly because of our unique military related mission. So many of our military affiliated students need to be able to get that associate's degree. It's a path to promotion in the military. So for us, it's been really good. It may not work for all for all institutions, but I think the state should do some thinking about that. And I do think that having strong points of entry to credentials, whether they be associates degrees, technical degrees, bachelor's degrees or even micro credentials, are is really important for the state to continue to build. Because right now, the where we lose students at Austin Peay is I don't lose students to utk or even to that school with blue color south of Nashville, which I won't say out loud, which is, yeah, I won't talk about them. They are the school that won't be named today. Even, even, you know, we don't lose students to other universities. We lose students to getting a job for $20 an hour at Lowe's or buckies or wherever. Yeah, right. And again, it goes all the way back to that earlier conversation about, I want students to just make decisions with their eyes open about the value of higher ed.
Spencer 48:16
I have a couple playful questions that are just ones that you're such a wealth of knowledge related to all things academia and education that I just don't have the opportunity to ask these questions sometimes. So I've got two that are meant to be a little bit playful, but also just help me understand. So I'll give them both to you. They're a doubleheader. So number one, I'm really interested in your thoughts about tenure. So in my business world, the concept that somebody could do a job and then be guaranteed that they are unfireable, they're invincible for life. I mean, I get it for the Supreme Court of the United States, but outside of that, help me understand what's going on with tenure, and your thoughts on that. I don't know whether Austin Peay is, is in that world or not. So that's that's one, and then secondly, as a total departure, but still just one. I'm super interested in. I drive up and down the road and you see the huge Powerball lottery signs that sometimes are in excess of a billion dollars. Can you help me understand, when that was first advertised, it was be to the benefit of education, what has been your reflection on whether that has indeed been an enormous impact, or whether it was like we were sold one thing, but we actually see about 18 pennies from that. So can you take those two questions?
Maria Cronley 49:41
Oh, sure, absolutely. Let me take the last one first, because it's actually the easier question to answer. So I'm personally pretty skeptical of programs right around lottery right not just in the state of Tennessee, but everywhere. I'm one of those people that is wondering the same as you like, what is the true value? Yeah, but I will say that, from what I have read and seen in terms of evidence, that the Tennessee HOPE Scholarship, and that is the that is the lottery scholarship, right? The money that comes from the State Lottery has been a very successful program for Tennessee. So I think last year, if I'm remembering my numbers, close to 150,000 students received the Hope Scholarship. Yeah, and it and they gave out, like, something like over $400 million huge students. It's a huge number. Many of our students received the Hope Scholarship. I like that. It's Academic Achievement Scholarship. So, so it's not just need based, but it's actually an Achievement Scholarship. So you have to have a GPA, and you have to maintain that. So I'm appreciative of that. And by by and large, I think it's another great funding source, source for our State students to be able to to go to college. And so I think it's been a very successful a successful program. I also appreciate that over the last few years, they keep raising it. So sometimes you see these scholarship programs where the state never grows, grows it right? It's like the same amount forever, and then the buying power just gets less and less and less. The state's actually smartly increased the value of the scholarship over the years. So I think that has been really helpful. I've done it with integrity. I've done it with integrity. I actually think and this, and again, this is me outside. I know I have no insider knowledge about the Hope Scholarship, but just from what I can see in terms of our own students that get the Hope Scholarship, it's been a good program. Okay, cool, that's great.
Spencer 51:36
All right, now let's tackle tenure, just as much clarity and ease, right,
Maria Cronley 51:41
with just as much tenure and clarity. So first of all, I think you need to understand what is tenure. So within higher ed as it exists today, tenure is this, i is, is a type of faculty that we have. Not all faculty receive tenure. Not all schools offer tenure to its faculty, but most four year higher ed institutions that have been around for a while, they do have a body of their faculty who are tenured or on what we call tenure track, so they're up to become tenured. I was one of those faculty members throughout my academic career. I started as assistant professor, and I would, when I was promoted to an Associate Professor, I received tenure, and then when I then I was promoted to a full professor, and again, my tenure continued. Now, does tenure mean you can't fire someone? No, you can for, for, for what we would for cause, for gross misconduct, right? We wouldn't allow any faculty member, if they have tenure or not, to do inappropriate, you know, to steal money, to engage in harassment of students or discrimination, or any of those things that regular employees can never do in any as any in any institution. So of course, yes, we you can fire someone who has tenure for kinds of acts for cause, right, as any employer can do, however, and we can also, most universities also have policies in place that if, for example, a program was completely eliminated, you you could let go of those tenured faculty. So for example, a school might, and I don't want to say a particular program, because anyone else can be watching, oh my gosh, they're going to get rid of she's going to get rid of my program. That's not the case. But let's say there's a program where that doesn't have very many students, it's low enrolled. The University decides this isn't a marketable degree anymore, we're going to eliminate it, and we have X number of tenured faculty, those faculty would either be reassigned or probably laid off, just like any other employee.
Spencer 53:47
So weaving, how about that?
Maria Cronley 53:53
We don't have teachers out there so but what you can fire someone for when they're tenured is tenure is designed to protect what we call academic freedom, and that is the ability for a faculty member to put forth cutting edge, controversial, maybe very unpopular, kinds of scholarly ideas and beliefs and to and to teach hard concepts in The classroom, not as a way to be contrary or be negative in some way, but in fact, to help again, have hard conversations, help our students think critically, sometimes grappling with uncomfortable concepts and ideas or putting forth cutting edge or controversial research or scholarly ideas. That's the whole notion of tenure. So if you remember all the way back, right? Galileo, right? Galileo, who said that the sun was not the center, or that the sun was the center of the universe, not the earth, and that the Earth rotated around the sun. And if you remember, the powers that be at the time, didn't like that, didn't love it. They didn't love that idea, and they put Galileo in jail. Right? And, and, and that is, believe it or not, the seeds of academic tenure. And that's the idea that tenure is supposed to predict protect people who are doing intellect, intellectual and scholarly work, to protect them while they're doing that work from their superiors or the public or the government or the church or whoever it is, from persecuting them or from inhibiting them in some oops, inhibiting them in some ways, from doing that research. So that's really the foundation and basis of tenure. So it's helpful to understand why we have this crazy animal called tenure, yeah, and then, and then, to understand why it still exists. So we still have that today. More than 50% of faculty across the country are still tenured or 10 tenure track. That's across the country, and I'm at Austin Peay too. More than 50% of our faculty are tenured or on tenure track. Wow.
55:52
Okay, that's much higher.
Maria Cronley 55:54
Yeah, it is higher. It is high, and it's high across the state, I would guess we're not we're probably very typical of I haven't looked at what the other schools do or have, but it is still very common in institutions like Austin Peay, I will say that number is going down as institutions start to rethink philosophically, do we need tenure and tenure track faculty? I think it's something that higher ed needs to have a conversation about, maybe, maybe the idea notion of tenure is obsolete. I don't know. I will be long retired and not no longer working in higher ed when that, when that philosophical question is resolved. But I but I mean, I do still think, while it's far fewer than it used to be. I still do think sometimes you see threats to academic freedom, right and and entities that don't want to have to see certain types of research done, or don't want to see certain kinds of conversations happen in the classroom, and so because of that, you know, we still do have academic tenure. Again, it may be something that's becoming obsolete, and I would like us not to need it anymore, right? That would be fantastic. I will say, for a faculty member who is on a tenure track, I don't want to discount that it's not an easy thing to get and it's not an easy road. So for example, at Austin Peay, faculty members who are hired into a position that is tenure eligible. They have to work for six years in what we call a probationary way, and they have to build their area, they have to build their area of scholarship to an excellent level. They have to be excellent teachers, and they have to engage in service, so either service to the institution or service to their discipline or service to the community. And so they have to fulfill sort of those three rungs of the stool, so to speak. And they do that for a number of years. And then once they go up for tenure and promotion, if they attain it, then they do achieve this magical tenure, right? And it does become more difficult to fire them, but if they don't receive tenure, I don't think most of the most people understand that, if you go to an institution and you don't receive tenure, that's an up and out decision, which means you're fired. Yeah, so you have to leave the institution if you don't get tenure. Wow.
Spencer 58:16
So that's a trigger. So you're going all in, you're pushing all your tips under the table, either you're taking me or I'm out the door,
Maria Cronley 58:22
That's right? And so it's a commitment both on the part of the the individual, okay, and it's a commitment on the part of the institution. So really, in some ways, is almost like a marriage, right? So we spend a lot of time on the institutional side evaluating this person and saying, do we want this person here for a long time and make it difficult to fire them, and for the other person too, the expectation is I'm going to do all this work to get tenure at your institution. I'm going to give you a commitment that's a so it's a significant kind of marriage. So there's pluses and minuses to tenure. I think we'll keep having this debate on whether it's an obsolete concept.
Spencer 58:59
Yeah, that's that's a really helpful context, because, like sitting in my shoes before this conversation, if you would just say Spencer in general, what do you think about tenure? I'm gonna have an overwhelmingly negative impression of it, right? And you can kind of get that from my for my question, but I do the most helpful thing I heard in that too, was what you concluded with is that there is a commitment that at this point in time, if I'm not tenured, I'm fired, which I had the impression that it was I'm just gonna kind of sit in the institution and through my own inertia, eventually find my way into tenure, in which case I'm set, and that's a really different set of, like you said, a marriage that is present. So thank you for talking about tenure and being able to give a good educational basis. I think you're right to say, philosophically, there's a lot to discuss about, how do we. Still have accountability, and how do we protect the right for academic freedom without it being a mission to advance my own agenda with a kind of heater shield from being able to be fired? So anyway, a lot to go through in that absolutely. Maybe Emily and I will each ask one more question, sure, and then we'll kind of bring it to a close.
Annalee Cate 1:00:24
I've got kind of a playful one too, I think. But I love to ask this question to educators. My brother actually was a high school biology teacher for four years, and then it contributed to the cliff and has decided no kids as a result. I think of that experience the cliff participant, yeah. So my question is, after a career in education, you know, parenting right now also a hot topic and all those different things that are at play. So how has your career in education impacted, you know, things that you've done as a parent. Your philosophies on parenting? Do you have thoughts that you just wish every Tennessee parent out there would hear based on what you see from, you know, helping raise their children in that final, final chapter, right?
Maria Cronley 1:01:04
Oh, that's a great question and a hard question, yes? Well, you know, I feel incredibly lucky and blessed that I got to go to college. My dad worked in a steel mill. My mom was a registered nurse, and like your parents, there was never a conversation. It was, where are you going to college, not if you were going to college. And so when my kids, as I raise my kids, I try to always instill in them that I don't care what you do, but make sure that you give yourself the best chance to be successful. So as I think, as as a parent, I always said to my children, you know, you you may never even use the credential that you get. You may go, end up going and doing something totally different. I'm not exactly using my marketing degree. I am, but I'm not, not all not, not in the purest sense of when I got my bachelor's degree in marketing. You may may do something different, and you're gonna have lots of careers over the life of your of your working journey, but Arm yourself the best that you can get that piece of paper, whatever that piece of paper is, whether it's an associate's degree, a technical degree, or whatever. So that piece of paper will open the door, even if that's not what you want to do in the long term. So I think that's probably what was instilled from my parents in terms of the value of education. That's what I've tried to instill in my children. And then the other thing is, you know, I've watched lots of college students. I've taught lots of college students who, frankly, were in college, maybe studying something they really didn't want to do, yeah, that's because mom and dad might have said, Hey, you're not going to get a good job with that physics degree or with that philosophy degree or whatever. I never said that to my children. I always said you should self educate yourself on if you pursue this kind of degree, these are the job opportunities versus this kind of job or degree. But I always encourage my kids to find what you love, first, whatever that is, and then pursue it passionately, because guess what, if you do that, you'll probably be successful and you can always change. Yeah, so I never thought when I was getting that bachelor's degree. I always wanted to work in advertising and marketing communications, and I got to do that for a few years. I never thought that I would become a professor. It just so happened, when I was doing my graduate work as a working professional, I got to teach a class, and all of a sudden, the spark for teaching caught on, and then I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up and I got to become a college professor. So I just tried to always instill in my kids. Just pursue with passion whatever you want to do, and success will find you. Yeah. So that's great. Thank you.
Spencer 1:04:00
My concluding question for you. So when you look at the landscape of the United States as a whole, about 74% of teachers are females. When you look at someone that holds a provost position, it's less than 50% that are females. You have enough less than 30% background. See, you're getting it right on the stats. So for less than 30% your background as a leader, as a trailblazer. We haven't talked a ton about it in the podcast today, but for anyone that looks you up, they'll notice that immediately. So in speaking to our audience, particularly our female audience, thinking about leadership in academia, what would be your message from your journey that you might impress upon them?
Maria Cronley 1:04:53
Oh, thanks for asking that question. Thank you. Thank you. So this is a personal passion of mine, and that is finding ways to. Mentor women and in higher education and mentor women in general, who, who, who need, who need good role models. So part of the reason I stayed in higher ed administration, I'm a professor at heart. I love to teach. I love to do scholarship. And I was probably three or four years into my journey as a higher ed administrator, when I kind of got to that point where it was like you have to make a decision, you either need to go forward, or you need to go or you can go, we call it going back to faculty. I hate that. It almost sounds very derogatory, but transitioning back over to being a faculty member, but at that time, what really helped me make that decision was looking around and not seeing a lot of women in higher ed administration, yet, when 60% of our female students and over 60% of female of professors are female, right? So higher ed is dominated by women, but you don't see a lot of women in top, top leadership, right, less than 30% in the presidencies and and seen in senior levels more provosts, luckily, but, but not as many presidents, and we're still placing the wage gap that so many professions are facing. So a big part of the decision for me to actually stay in higher ed administration was because, as I was rising, I felt like, you know, I have a responsibility to model female leadership, not only to administrators and faculty coming up behind me, but to my own daughters and to students coming up and so that they can see that women, women can be leaders. And so for me, it's been a great part of my career, being able to mentor women, help be a sponsor to them, and an ally to them. And one thing I have found is that women aren't very good at supporting other women. I'm just going to say that it's been a personal observation. I think women need to do a better job of rising, helping their fellow women to rise. I think over the last few decades, I think women have felt that there's limited seats at the table. So sometimes women think, you know, if there's only going to get to be one woman in the room, it's I want it to be me. I think that's changing, yeah, but I want to, I'm trying to model female leadership in a way that I'm helping grow as many other female leaders as I can, and helping support be an ally to a sponsor for as many rising women leaders as I can.
Spencer 1:07:33
So well as a dad to three daughters, I really appreciate that message. Good and thank you for being a standard bearer here in Tennessee, leading over Austin Peay, and all the ways that you are making a significant influence there, you have clearly such a command on the numbers and the direction and the vision for where Austin Peay is going. So I really, really appreciate the time that you spent with us here today and helping us answer some questions and learn some things, everything from we've covered basket weaving to the lottery to helicopter piloting, so we got it all. So thank you for being with us today.
Maria Cronley 1:08:10
Well, I just so appreciate the invitation and getting the opportunity to have a fun conversation with the both of you and and I wish you all the continued success of this podcast in your endeavor, and I hope we gave some people some good information today,
Spencer 1:08:25
I'm confident we did great. Thank you.
