In this episode of the FutureU podcast, hosts Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn sit down with Penn State’s new president, Neeli Bendapudi, to talk about her journey to becoming college president and the mentors that helped her along the way. They also discuss public financing of higher education—specifically Penn State’s higher than average state tuition—as well as the value of higher education and the role of college athletics. “That’s something that we have to wrestle with and figure out what to do. It’s a multifactorial problem, there’s not one easy answer,” said Bendapudi on making Penn State more affordable.
“If you track education expenses over time as state appropriations have gone down, the share of the students’ tuition has gone up…. And there are other things too, we can’t just say that’s the answer. We do need to look at what are we doing, how are we monetizing the assets we have, how are we providing financial aid, who are we prioritizing? All of these become issues.”