Nuno Fernandes (American Public University System) on The Digital Evolution of Education

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, podcast host Shauna Cox was joined by Nuno Fernandes to discuss how institutions can leverage modern technology and strategies to enhance access, affordability and the student experience in the evolving digital age

Transcript

Welcome to Illumination by Modern Campus, the leading podcast focused on transformation and change in the higher education space. On today’s episode, we speak with Nuno Fernandes, who is President of the American Public University System. Nuno and podcast host Shauna Cox discuss how institutions can leverage modern technology and strategies to enhance access, affordability and the student experience in the evolving digital age.

Shauna Cox (00:02):Nuno, welcome to the Illumination podcast. I'm so glad you could join me today.

Nuno Fernandes (00:06):Thank you, Shauna. It's my pleasure.

Shauna Cox (00:08):Absolutely. So we're here to chat about improving access and affordability, especially in a digital age of higher ed. And I want to kick off our conversation by asking first what defines a modern learner today? There can be such a range of definitions, and then how have their needs evolved compared to say, the traditional student?

Nuno Fernandes (00:30):Yeah, well again, thank you for having me today. I think a modern learner today is no different than what the modern learner was 30 years ago or 50 years ago in the sense that the model learner wants to be attuned with the latest technology, wants to be a user of the latest technology, wants to learn inside the classroom, things that will be useful for ease or her career and wants to have an education that has a good return on investments once they graduate. Of course, the specific needs today or the specific expectations today are different than what they were 50 years ago or 30 years ago, but the concept is the same. And I think universities historically and colleges, it has been a challenge because we are always behind. We are always a bit behind the latest and the most modern technology and the most modern content. And now I think that is more visible than before just because things move much faster. So before, if you think just 10 or even 15, 20 years ago, you would've, let's say windows and things like that and then every year they would release a new version that would be some updates from the prior version, but it was essentially the same. And now there are new things that are appearing and coming up almost every day or every week, certainly every month.

(02:05):And I think for the universities, it's very hard for us to stay attuned with the latest at all times. And I think that's a challenge for the industry. So the modern student will have expectations to find inside the university the same level of sophistication that they have in their phones and the technology they use on a daily basis, and they will expect that from the universities. And I think that's the biggest challenge that we face. And also from a cost perspective, it's a big challenge as well as the cost of education in the United States is certainly the most expensive in the world, and there's been growing significantly over the last decades. I think in the last 20 years, the cost increased about 300% and it is just becoming too expensive. And I think that many universities really have to rethink their model to be able to offer lower tuition to the students because I think for the first time, this generation is starting to questioning the value of education just because the return on investment is not so clear when you end up with that with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Shauna Cox (03:29):

Absolutely. You mentioned a big component of this is technology. The other component is institutions are battling with the challenges. So I kind of want to put those two together and expand on it and ask what are those significant challenges institutions are facing? I know you mentioned cost and things like that. When leveraging technology to better serve those modern learners with their increasing expectations and how can they kind of at least start to overcome those obstacles?

Nuno Fernandes (04:00):So every university has a certain set of costs, and they're kind of similar for most universities. The first one is payroll, the salaries that you have to pay on the staff side. Then you have faculty, the cost of faculty, then you have the technology cost, and then you have the marketing costs. And those are essentially the four costs that are significant for every university. Then of course if you are traditional university of the infrastructure cost, which is also significant, but in general you have the staff, the faculty, the marketing and technology. And I believe that the costs have increased so significantly as I said, that they have to be paid by someone and they have to be transferred somewhere. Adam Smith said there's no free lunches, so someone has to pay. And what happened over the last 30 years in the United States is that when you look at the evolution of, for example, admin staff inside the universities, admin staff grew almost 200% while the number of students grew something like 13%. So the staff is growing significant higher rates than the number of students that you have to serve. And that generates a cost that has to be transferred to someone and that someone is usually either the student or the taxpayers or the student through the taxpayers to the student

Shauna Cox (05:37):Or everyone.

Nuno Fernandes (05:38):Yeah. So the opportunity now that we have is as an industry is really to utilize technology to do more for less, which is really what technology should be doing is to do more for less. And what I mean by this is that technology allows us to produce, allows you to produce a closer relationship with your students to be able to support them 24 7, to support them in different languages, to support them anywhere they are around the country or around the world. And that's very difficult to do with real people, if not impossible. And with technology that is possible. So that is an opportunity now I think for the first time that we can reshape and rethink our services to offer better services for a lower cost. So I can give you two examples. One example is a PUS American Public University system. So last year we launched an app for mental health support and it's free of charge. And all our students can have mental health support if they wish to do that. That app works in 25 languages, 24 7. So you can have mental health support anytime you want, wherever you are around the world in any language, but not any but 25 languages.

(07:04):And it doesn't mean that you have to use it, but if you want to use it, you can. And imagine the number of people that we would've to hire to offer that same service with people, I don't know, but probably hundreds to be able to do that. So technology allows you to do more for less. That's one example. To do more with more quality, with better services for less cost. Another example that is outside education, where I think for the ones listening to us to better understand what I'm trying to say is not many years ago we used to go on Friday night to Blockbuster to get a DVD, and then you'd pay like $15 and then you buy the pop and all that. And it was kind of a nice experience. And then you'd come back home and you'd have 24 hours to watch the movie, then you'd have to return it. If not, you'd pay a late fee. So the whole thing would cost like 25, $30, right, with the popcorn and the parking and all that. So to watch a movie, you'd pay $30 15 years ago, and today you pay whatever the subscription is to Netflix, let's say around $10 per month, and you can watch unlimited movies and series.

(08:17):So is Netflix a better service than Blockbuster? Yes, because you can do for a lower price, you can have access to a lot more movies and a lot more series. So that's what I mean that you can do more with less with technology because Netflix reinvented the model and they created a model that has tremendous scale and that is able to provide almost unlimited movies and series for a very low price compared to the traditional model. And I think in education, something like that will occur over time.

Shauna Cox (08:50):

Absolutely. And I love that analogy so much. I think it really puts you in that position of thinking about the doing more with less. So we talked about some of the impactful ways that technology reaches to students and things like that. What are some of the most impactful ways that technology can specifically expand access, expand to education for the modern learners? Now I'm thinking about Netflix. Yeah,

Nuno Fernandes (09:18):Yeah. No, no. Yeah, it's a good question. So if you are able to lower your delivery cost, and if you are able to lower your tuition, you will certainly expand the reach of your university because you're going to give access to more people that today might be left out of the system just simply because that cannot economically afford to study. But also I think more separate from the cost side, which is important. I think from a quality perspective and from an instructional perspective, I think technology will be very impactful. One of the challenges that education has, and I've been saying this for years, I have not been able to solve the problem. We're working on that. But that is that the same program applies to everyone and every person is different. So let's say I'm sitting inside the classroom, it's Nuno and Shauna and Shauna is great at biology and I'm, we're both studying biology and you already studied into the past, you have, you like it, you have knowledge that I don't have. So why should you study the exact same that I'm studying? Why should you move faster in that particular discipline in that particular course, if you already have the knowledge and I don't, or why should you be learning more advanced things than I am? Because you already know the basics. And I don't.

(10:51):That's the problem of most programs today, that they are exactly the same regardless of what and what your experience is and what your background is and what your culture is and how you think behave. And every person is different. Some people might like to learn by listening. Some people might like to learn by reading, some people might like to learn by watching videos. And all of those things are respectable and they are okay. Each person is different. But nevertheless, when you enroll in a program, the program is the same for everyone. So I believe technology will allow to personalize the content and to personalize the programs to fit the expectations, the personality, and to maximize the learning experience of each student.

Nuno Fernandes (11:43):Essentially what I'm saying is if you have a university with 20,000 students, you will have 20,000 programs that are slightly different. You might have two students inside an MBA, but every student is learning something a bit different. So another example would be, let's say we had an exam about the second world bar and I failed and you didn't. Okay, you can continue, but I should learn the things that where I fail. If I failed the exam, then I should learn more until I ensure that I learned what I was supposed to be learning, but you didn't. So you can continue. I am stuck there until I learn. And today the programs do not allow for that. Certainly some faculty members, they do that, but they do that manually. But technology will allow to do that at scale. And again, to use the same example I was using of Netflix, if you go to my Netflix and if I go to your Netflix, I'm sure that they're different because you might like some things that I don't like or you might have watched some things that I didn't watch. So whatever they're recommending to you is different than what they're recommending to me. There might be some things that are similar that are the same, but certainly is not the exact same recommendation for you and for

Nuno Fernandes (13:03):And that's because they try to provide recommendations that they believe match what we want to see. And I think in education, that personalization of education is the next evolution and it's very hard to do, but I think that it'll happen.

Shauna Cox (13:22):Absolutely. I love it. And I truly do appreciate the continuation of the Netflix reference because recommendations aside, they also provide close captioning audio descriptions. There's different, as you mentioned, how learners can access their education. And that's in our everyday life now. So students are going to start expecting that type of variation and options when it comes to their education. And I want to expand on the programs themselves. We touched on it a little bit there, and I just want to ask, how do you see the evolving needs of industry workforce influencing programs and skills that institutions should prioritize? And then what role does technology play in bridging that gap?

Nuno Fernandes (14:11):Yeah, that's a fantastic question because we started to talk about how fast the world is moving and how fast things are changing. And especially when you go to more tech enabled or edgy programs. Let's say you're studying cybersecurity or you're studying computer science, or you're studying something related to ai, or even if you're studying medicine or if you're studying marketing, the way technology will impact your future job is beyond our imagination today. So it's impossible for you to learn today what you're going to need in five or 10 years just because you're going to be dealing with things that probably are not even invented today.

Shauna Cox (15:00):Exactly.

Nuno Fernandes (15:00):I think being a doctor today, and if you look at being a doctor today and being a doctor 100 years ago are two completely different things. And being a doctor today and being a doctor in 10 years, it is probably going to be something completely different as well. So how do you teach the students? How do you prepare the students for the reality that does not exist? And again, by the way, I started saying that that was a problem 30 years ago, 50 years ago that was a problem as well. But the difference is that today it's a lot more obvious.

(15:34):It happens a lot faster. And I think that the solution for that is, of course, you need to have a solid academic program and you need to have good faculty. You need to have good content, absolutely. But you also need to teach your students the competencies that will make them successful in this new job market. And I have an idea, we have an idea inside a POS of what those competencies are, and I'm going to be sharing that with you because I think it's going to answer your question. So number one is AI literacy. And what that means is that you should learn about how to use the AI tools that are available. You should be able to learn during your academic journey how to use AI tools that will maximize your impact, that will maximize your productivity, that will make you better. Because if you don't, then you're just going to have a disadvantage. And I know that a lot of universities and colleges disagree with me, and that's fine, but I believe that not preparing the students within these AI revolution that we're leaving is just not smart. It's not good for them. It's not in their best interest to do that.

(16:47):And I always go back to a photo that I saw many years ago, and it was somewhere in 1982 in South Carolina, and there was a group of North Carolina, South Carolina, it was still almost like black and white photo. And there was a group of professors protesting outside the school because they didn't want the students to use calculators inside the classroom.

(17:11):So that didn't go very well for them, did it because But why would you not want them to use the calculators? Because if a calculator exists, then sure, you should learn how to use it and you should learn to be more productive and more efficient. And I think with AI is exactly the same. Of course, we have to keep academic integrity and we have to make sure that if a student uses ai, then E or she has to refer that AI was used. But we believe that AI literacy is one of the competencies that will be needed within the next 10 to 20 years. The second competency is critical thinking, the to look at a problem and think critically about it and to understand things that probably you will not be able to see today because they don't exist yet. So the ability to comprehend and to be creative and to be curious is very important.

(18:08):So critical thinking is the second one. And the third one I would say that is entrepreneurship and growth mindset. And by entrepreneurship I don't mean necessarily that you have to go and create your own company. I mean, there's nothing wrong if you do that. I mean, that's fantastic, but I'm saying you could also be entrepreneurial in a corporate environment. An entrepreneurial means being able to take responsibility, being able to lead, being able to be in charge, being able to be inventive, to be creative, to be curious. So again, AI literacy, critical thinking, entrepreneurship and growth mindset. I think these three competencies will be incredibly important in the next two decades. There's a fourth one that we're still debating, which I like, but it's harder to teach inside the classroom, which is some sort of financial knowledge. And that goes financial knowledge to your own personal life, how to manage your finances, and also financial knowledge on basic knowledge about how to read the finances of an enterprise or p and l, a balance sheet, that kind of thing. But that's harder to do in a academic environment if you're not studying something really to that. So for sure, the first three ones, we are working hard on preparing our students to have those competencies.

Shauna Cox (19:29):Absolutely. I love it. I think the fourth one is important, but I can understand where it can be a little tricky to sit in stone. Now, I know you mentioned preparing for reality that we don't know exists. So I'm going to try to focus this maybe in the next year or so. What are some trends that you expect to see when it comes to this digital transformation that's happening in higher ed?

Nuno Fernandes (19:57):Yeah, I think the biggest transformation will be that we will see technology being highly involved and highly visible in fields of knowledge that typically were not touched by technology. And what I mean by that is, for example, until very recently and maybe even today, if you wanted to be a lawyer, probably you would not be very tech savvy or very tech curious. I mean, it could be if your personality was like that, but you wouldn't need that. That was not what would drive your success. You would not need technology to be a very great lawyer. You would need other skills.

(20:40):But now with ai, technology will be part of our lawyer works because now AI will be able to read contracts and to produce contracts and to tell you things that may not be in your best interest inside some legal document or to look for clauses in a contract that might be beneficial or not beneficial. So there are today already tools out there where you can submit a contract and the tool will provide you commentary on how to improve that contract to make it better for you, for your company, for your enterprise. So this is a very good example on how technology will kind of permeate and enter in an environment that usually was not needed. It usually would not need to be tech savvy to be a good lawyer, but you will need to in the future. And the same with doctors, and the same with marketing today. It's impossible to be a good marketer without being good at understanding technology.

Nuno Fernandes (21:54):I think the biggest difference is going to be that technology is going to be part of almost every career moving forward as opposed to in the past when it was just part of some careers that were by design, technology driven.

Shauna Cox (22:10):Absolutely. It's kind of spreading into everyone's everyday life, whether people like it or not. I think it drives a lot of efficiency and I love the use of technology, but I don't think everyone might be on board right away.

Nuno Fernandes (22:24):No, it's going to take time, but it can't be stopped. That's the thing that back in the days, not a lot of enterprises and a lot of organizations, companies, even universities, they didn't like the internet. They thought, well, this is not going to work. And nobody thought maybe even 15 years ago that you could buy a refrigerator online or an air conditioning or a computer. You would've to go to the shop and touch and see and talk to the salesperson and you'd go to different locations to try to get a better price and things like that. Nobody ever thought, I mean, I don't know nobody, but most people never thought that it would be possible to sell clothes. I mean clothes, you cannot buy clothes online because you have to go to the shop and try the clothes on and see if they fit and shoes, and today everything. You can buy cars online today, literally

Nuno Fernandes (23:28):Can buy a house online, you can buy everything online. And it just became part of our daily lives and nobody questions it anymore. I always say kind of joking, but not nobody goes, if you start a call, we're having this conversation now via the internet, right, because we're having an online conversation, but nobody says, I'm going to log into the internet now to have a meeting. You just say, I'm going to have a meeting. It just becomes part of your life. Nobody says, I'm going to go on the internet to do some shopping. No, you're just going to say, I'm going to do some shopping online. It's just part of your life. And I think with AI and these emerging technologies, it's going to be exactly the same. It's just going to become part of your life and suddenly one day you wake up and you don't even notice, and it's just there.

Shauna Cox (24:16):Absolutely. Well, no, no, those are all the questions that we have for you. I really appreciate you taking the time. It was great chatting.

Nuno Fernandes (24:24):Of course, honor. My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.