Why a University Proactively Sought a Merger

Publications Mentioned:

“Two North Carolina universities announced a merger. Why some alumni are pushing back,” in USA Today. 

“A Midwest Merger: How Two Ohio Colleges Are Coming Together,” from Future U, season 8.

Chapters

3:42 - Why Mergers and Acquisitions Are Increasingly Important In HIgher Ed

6:15 - What Led Gannon University to Look for a Merger?

9:30 - What Gannon University Hoped For in a Partner

13:01 - How Gannon University Found Ursuline College

16:21 - What’s Stopping More Colleges From Seeking Mergers?

21:36 - Learning From Other Mergers That Failed

23:04 - What Should Change to Help More Mergers Happen?

27:02 - Sponsor Break

29:00 - How to Change the Perception of M&A in Higher Ed

35:46 - Finding the Right Leadership

38:30 - What is the Trump Administration’s Stance on Making College Mergers Easier?

41:08 - Lightning Round

Transcript

Walter Iwanenko

So now I'm coming into this position saying, ‘Ok we’ve got the cliff.’

Jeff Selingo

Meaning the enrollment cliff, right?

Walter Iwanenko

Right. We're seeing it. Everybody’s seeing it. We're seeing drops in domestic enrollment. We're seeing drops in students deciding to go to college or university. The data is out there. We're seeing, since 2018 — although we had increases in international students — we were seeing a drop in domestic freshmen every year. And we said, ‘We've gotta do something differently.’ 

We got the team together. We said, ‘Look, let's look at a merger-acquisition-partnership strategy.’

Jeff Selingo

That was the president of Gannon University talking about his institution's decision to look for a merger. We'll cover that decision-making process and their ongoing work to merge with a college in Ohio. That's ahead on this episode of Future U.

Sponsor

This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium, a mission-driven nonprofit committed to improving learning and training systems to better serve learners from low-income backgrounds. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org. Subscribe to Future U wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoy the show, share it with your friends so others can discover the conversations we're having about higher education.

Jeff Selingo

I'm Jeff Selingo.

Michael Horn

And I'm Michael Horn.

Michael Horn

Jeff, a topic we keep coming back to on Future U is mergers and acquisitions. 

And we do it not just because it can be a dramatic event for a college and its surrounding community — its alums and so forth — but because college consolidation and financial challenges for schools is obviously a bigger and bigger part of the higher ed landscape right now. And they certainly continue to be in the news. 

Just as we're recording this, within the last week, Elon University, for example, announced it would merge or — in my words essentially acquire — Queen's University of Charlotte by the summer twenty twenty six, after which Elon will operate Queen's. 

And then I also think we do a couple of these episodes each year because, frankly, you and I keep learning a lot from each one. I think of the episode, for example, where we compared M&A in higher ed to M&A in health care because we thought they would be structurally similar. And then we ended up learning that health care is actually quite different because of the incentives, which helps to explain in part why there's been a lot less M&A in higher ed than in health care. 

And then last year, of course, we had two schools from Ohio, Bluffton University and the University of Findlay, on the podcast. And we picked them because they were planning to merge, but then literally after we recorded our episode, they didn't complete the merger — in part because of obstacles at the federal level. 

So today, we get to have a president on, Walter Iwaneko, Jr., Gannon University's eighth president. Because Gannon, which is based in Erie, Pa., is merging with Ursuline College in Ohio. And something struck you, Jeff, about the story in the way that it was perhaps different, I think, from what I think so many have in their heads when they think about a school that is proactively seeking a merger or acquisition.

Jeff Selingo

Yeah. Michael, I'm sure we'll probably hear from some of our listeners that, ‘Hey. Are you guys doing too much on mergers and acquisitions in higher ed?’ But clearly I think, and I know you think, too, that this is going to probably be the story in higher ed in the next maybe decade — maybe even a little bit more just because of the financial issues, the demographic issues, the cultural issues facing higher education. 

And what caught my eye about this one, when I met Walter at a dinner this past summer, was because, you know, normally, we're talking about much bigger institutions taking over smaller struggling institutions. Right? The Northeasterns of the world. We also had Villanova University, obviously, in a real estate play in Philadelphia. But these are well-endowed, nationally-known universities, kind of taking on the acquisition part of the M&A activity. 

And what interested me, even in this Elon example you just gave, that these are smaller institutions, less well-endowed institutions, institutions that don't have a lot of capital. And Walter was telling me that he basically went out seeking a merger partner, an acquisition partner, because he knew that rather than just sit around and wait for, first of all, the Northeasterns of the world to come into his backyard and take over these institutions or just to wait for other institutions to fail or merge or be acquired, he wanted to be more assertive about this, more aggressive about it. And that's what really caught my eye is that we're talking about not the Northeasterns of the world here, but the vast majority of colleges and universities out there that if we want M&A activity to increase, accelerate in higher ed, they're going to have to start doing this, meaning these types of institutions.

Michael Horn

So I think that's a perfect place, as prelude if you will, Jeff, to the episode, we have ahead. So without further ado, I'll hand it to you to welcome our guest.

Jeff Selingo

Well, Walter, we're thrilled to welcome you to Future U. It's great to see you again.

Walter Iwanenko

Great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Jeff Selingo

So, Walter, you and I were at a dinner in Pittsburgh this summer, and you were telling me this story about how your merger with Ursuline College came together. And I'm just hoping you could walk us through that because it's not exactly the typical storyline people think when they think about college mergers.

Walter Iwanenko

Sure. Thank you. 

Well, just for a little background, I am just beginning my third year as president of Gannon University. So the story began July 1 when I was blessed to move into this position and start my role here. So that was July 1, 2023. 

So I got the team together in some retreat sessions, and I was an internal hire. So I came up through the provost ranks, and we started talking about the future of Gannon University. 

Gannon University has been through a merger in the past. In 1989, Gannon University merged with Villa Maria College, which was an all women's college. That brought health care and some very strong education programs that really changed the trajectory of the university. And right now health care is our largest enrolled area. So it really helped us establish who we are. 

So as a leadership team, when I came into the vice president position in 2016, the institution had already started another expansion process. But this time, it wasn't a merger. It was starting up a new campus in a different market area, and this was in Ruskin, Florida. So we have a campus that I was part of the team to help grow, focused on health care professions just South of Tampa. So now I'm coming into this position saying, okay, we're we got the cliff, right? Everybody's ...

Jeff Selingo

Meaning the enrollment cliff. Right? Yep.

Walter Iwanenko

We're seeing it. We're seeing drops in domestic enrollment. We're seeing drops in students deciding to go to college or university. The data's out there. We're seeing, since 2018, although we had increases in international students, we were seeing a drop in domestic freshmen every year and said, we've gotta do something differently. Got the team together. 

We said, ‘Look, let's look at a merger-acquisition-partnership strategy, put a proposal together, worked with AGB. We had used AGB as a consulting body. We put together a plan and presented that to our board in September '23, and we were able to get full support from our board. 

Once we had full support, we fully engaged with AGB, started to look at data in February '24 — so we used the fall for planning. In February, we identified a list of institutions, and we had our top 15 institutions that we wanted to talk to. 

So what were we looking for in a partner? Well, number one, we are a Catholic institution. We were looking for mission fit. The institution didn't have to be Catholic, but it had to have a mission that aligned.

Jeff Selingo

So Walter, I want to get to what you were looking for. We want to definitely dig deeper in that. But you mentioned this expansion in Florida. So did Florida solve some of your enrollment issues, or did you now see, 'Well, we had to go to Ohio?' 

How would other campuses solve the issues that you were seeing, for example, in Pennsylvania? I just kind of wanted to clear that up.

Walter Iwanenko

That's a good question, Jeff. I think it comes down to what kind of market you're trying to enter. 

So in Florida, we did a market analysis, and we decided we're not going to pursue the undergrad market because you have such strong public institutions. We can't match the price point in Florida. But where the gap was, was in graduate and professional education in health care. So we launched OT, PT, speech language pathology, and PA. So that was our market. 

And our plan was not to build a campus with more than 400-500 students to generate the revenue. What we're trying to address with the current merger is our undergraduate population and the pressure that we're seeing on the traditional four-year experience.

Michael Horn

Super interesting. So then you're talking about how you're seeking a college to merge with. You have criteria. And I understand Ursusline wasn't even initially on the radar. So go back into that answer that you were giving around the process that you all took to find a suitable partner.

Walter Iwanenko

So again, being Catholic, we're  looking at mission fit and alignment. 

Second is we were not looking for an institution that was in financial stress. And I will tell you that was probably one of the biggest barriers once we started talking with institutions was the financial status. 

Third, was this a geographic play? Meaning, are we entering a market that we currently do not recruit students from? 

And fourth, programmatic differences. So even if they're in our same geographic area, do they offer such a different array of programs that it might still be worth pursuing? 

So those were the four major criteria. So as we continue to move the initiative forward in March of '24, I started having conversations with different college presidents. And, you know, I will tell you that they were interesting. 

I can group it into two categories, to be honest? There were institutions that we could see their publicly-available data, look at finances, and say, 'Hey, do you wanna talk?' And the answer was, 'No. No. We're good. We're not interested.' I said, 'Okay.' 

And then there was another group of schools that they wanted to talk, and they wanted to merge yesterday because of the financial situation.

Michael Horn

Super interesting because there's a proactive nature there. Right? Like, Are you going to be proactive or oops, we weren't proactive and now we're reactive. 

So sort of take us along that financial equation journey, and then how you found Ursuline at the end of that.

Walter Iwanenko

Sure. So, you know, as we were looking at several institutions, and we did sign a couple of NDAs and started to do some preliminary due diligence. And the biggest issue (usually) was the financial situation in debt ratios and institutions that did not have cash availability to continue to move any type of initiatives. And when I mean move initiatives forward, it's not a new initiative, it's continuing to operate the institution.

Michael Horn

So it's like literally brass tacks of you're not trying to acquire a college that's financially distressed. You're trying to acquire a partner that really brings something to the table. So maybe fast-forward us in this timeline then of how those conversations went.

Walter Iwanenko

Sure, yeah. We now go into the spring in April of '24, And Ursuline actually did not come up on our list because one of our additional criteria was size of school. And we were interested in looking at institutions that were over 1,000 students. And in the databases, Ursuline came up at 991. So we missed it in the data search.

Michael Horn

Literally a hair under.

Walter Iwanenko

But, to their credit, and I do wanna give credit to the Ursuline sisters, they were doing the same thing on their end, and they were looking for a partner. And this is where kind of the magic happened because then I was contacted by and they were using Core Education, and I was contacted by the consulting body they were using and said, 'Hey, are you interested?' 

So as we started to look at those four criteria, mission to fit, absolutely. Ursuline sisters, a Catholic institution. 

When we were looking at finances, Ursuline College has no debt. Zero debt. They have no debt. 

When we looked at program mix, there were some programs that we don't offer we were interested in. 

And then when we look at geographic, Ursuline College is about 90 miles away. I get to Ursuline from my office in about an hour and twenty minutes, and we were worried about, you know, cannibalization, quite frankly. We did a market analysis. We don't recruit well in Ohio. In Erie, Pa., Gannon University, we hardly get any students from Ohio. And as we dug into it a little deeper, Ohio is pretty generous with their financial aid. If a student crosses the border into Pennsylvania… well you know how many middle-class families can walk away from the dollars that they're getting from the state? That was the barrier.

Jeff Selingo

Okay. So Walter, this is fascinating because, again, when we met this summer and you started telling this story, I'm thinking, 'Wow. You were kind of assertive about it. You were more creative about going out and finding these partners, but this is just not happening in higher ed. 

As you pointed out, there are the two buckets. Right? Like, the 'Oh we're all fine.' Or, 'We needed you to call yesterday.' 

So I'm thinking that your approach could be one way to bring the kind of M&A activity that Michael and I really think we need to have in higher ed, and we just haven't had it. Right? There's just not been enough M&A activity in higher ed. So what do you think is stopping other universities from doing what you did and proactively going out and seeking partners before, by the way, they start to go down that doom loop and that somebody has to call them eventually, or that, like, you know, others around them start doing what you're doing. 

There seem to be a lot of institutions that are just sitting back and waiting. So what's stopping them from doing what you're doing?

Walter Iwanenko

Honestly, I think it's a commitment to being bold, and there is an aspect of bravery. What's bravery? It's being a little afraid and still doing it anyways. Right? So people have to make bold decisions, and it has to be the leadership of the institution and the board. 

And I really want to give that type of credit to the Ursuline sisters. Now you could imagine, they have oversight over Ursuline College. Leadership is looking at the order saying, ‘We haven't had a new sister join the organization in quite some time. Our average age is increasing. There's not a sustainability plan here. Let's look at merging with another institution even though we're not in financial distress.’ That's where it starts. 

And then from our end, it's being able to take a risk on an initiative. And this is a lot of work. And when we identified the partner, one of the first things that I did was get to Cleveland to meet with the Ursuline sisters so that they could get to know me personally. So there's a lot of personal relationship building that has to happen to make this go. 

And I'll give you a great story. I'm in Cleveland. Now we're in the spring. So we're in April or May, and I'm meeting with sister Chris, who's the president of the Ursuline sisters, and she says, ‘You know, by the way, I'm talking with you now, but I'm retiring. So on July 1 there's going to be a new president here.’ And I was like, 'Huh, that's two months away, where are we going with this?' 

So now we're working with the Ursuline board, and the Ursuline board decided they were going to pursue hiring a president basically on a short-term contract to lead the merger for Ursuline College. And they ended up hiring Dr. David King, a past president who was retired, who came out of retirement to lead this merger. And I will tell you that's one of the best decisions made because Dr. King has been a fantastic partner in helping with the transition. So, Jeff and Michael, a lot of things had to fall in place just right to get us to the next level.

Michael Horn

Where you just went is actually what's been a point of curiosity for me as I've heard you talk, which is I'm just thinking, you know, not only do the stars have to align in terms of finding an institution that, in this case, didn't have any debt, right, and is mission aligned, programmatically not cannibalizing, it was additive, and so forth. But also, where they saw this as an opportunity on their campus, it was felt at the board level. It was not going to be offensive to alumni on both sides of the equation. 

Just speak maybe to that change management process when you all are a mid-sized college. Right? They're a smaller college. How do you get that orientation to say, 'We're going to be proactive about this. We're not going to be scooped up by a big institution.' But culturally we're excited about this because it's furthering the mission by being with a different institution that's not part of our past.

Walter Iwanenko

Well, we set up a strategy. So as we move through the process, Dr. King comes on board July 1, and we start laying out a communication plan. How do we communicate this progress out? 

We set a goal of August '24 for an official MOU that we could agree on some points on how we were gonna continue the discussions further. We released that out to both of our communities, and then I spent some time on the Ursuline campus. Dr. King came to the Gannon campus, and we were having open communications with the constituencies because, you know, you could imagine that people are automatically starting to think, 'What about my job? Am I going to have a position here?' Gannon is a diocesan institution. Is that going to change the culture of the Ursuline campus? 

We moved right into developing an integration strategy that involved forming 15 separate integration teams made up of members of both Ursuline and Gannon. And at Gannon, we hired an integration coordinator from the outside. We hired a consultant to come in and drive that forward so that he was tracking progress of each and every one of those teams, sitting in on the meetings. If there were any fires happening, he would point that out, bring it to the leadership's attention, and then we could address it. So that was our strategy to address that change management piece.

Michael Horn

Super interesting. So last year on Future U, we had this episode where we talked to two colleges actually in Ohio, who are on the verge of merging, University of Findlay and Bluffton University. As you know, right before the episode was set to run, the deal fell apart. They walked their separate ways. I'm sure you followed it given the regional proximity to Ursuline. What did you learn from that situation that you kept in mind as you've gone through this partnership set of conversations and all the planning you just described that you put in?

Walter Iwanenko

Well, we learned to be direct with our communication. Let's for all intents and purposes, let's not sugarcoat any of the facts as we move forward. Let's be very transparent with the communities. I've often had to say, 'This is the information that I have right now. This information may change tomorrow, and we may adjust our message. It doesn't mean that we weren't giving you the information. It just means this is the information I had.' And as we move through the accreditation bodies and the requirements, information would change. And what I was tracking with that particular situation was making sure that we were on top of the communications with HLC and Middle States, Department of Education, Ohio, Pennsylvania. And you that's the part to navigate that you really have to pay attention to.

Jeff Selingo

Yeah. You know, Walter, this might be our fourth or fifth episode on M&A because we keep wanting to see this happen. And every single time we have somebody on, we learn something new about why this is so difficult. 

But in some ways it shouldn't be so difficult because there's clearly a need for this to happen in the market, not because anybody wants to see fewer universities. I think people see this as such a negative, M&A. We just want to have stronger colleges and universities in the end, and that's what M&A will do for a lot of institutions. 

So I'm kind of curious about what would you change in either policy at the accreditation level, at the state level, at the federal level, or other pieces of the landscape to just make what seems to be a very stuck and long process just happen to, I think, achieve everybody's goal here. Which is, again, I understand people think it's terrible. 'Oh my god, we're going to have fewer colleges and universities.' Yes. We're going to have fewer colleges and universities, but don't you want what's left to be stronger? And if you let colleges just go out of business, I'm not convinced at least, that what is left will necessarily be stronger.

Walter Iwanenko

What I would change is the current processes for mergers and acquisitions from the accrediting bodies. The current policies and procedures don't fit because what we're seeing is something very different. There's a merger that's taking place in Iowa, which I'm sure you're aware of, Saint Ambrose University in Mount Mercy. Doctor Amy Novak from Saint Ambrose. They're a diocesan institution like we are. Mount Mercy was founded by a religious order just like Ursuline — very similar. 

So Dr. David King and I have been talking with those two presidents and kind of learning from each other. I will tell you that with this particular merger with Gannon, we're crossing accreditation bodies. So Ursuline College has HLC accreditation, Gannon University has Middle States. 

Middle States has been extremely accommodating. They've recognized that their current policies and procedures don't fit. And the president of Middle States has said, 'Okay. Let's rethink what we're doing. Here's our published timelines.' They worked with us. And so the good news is we're seeing changes. 

I also want to give credit to HLC for rethinking policies and procedures. Not that they want to stick to them, and they want quality, hands down. But when you have set meeting dates at certain times of the year, those meeting dates are based on an academic calendar. They don't meet business calendars, which means I need this done tomorrow, and you're telling me you don't have a meeting until nine months from now. They're recognizing that. I have to give them credit. They've been extremely accommodating.

Michael Horn

Well, and what you said is right. Like, no one's looking for lower quality. We want stronger institutions right at the table for students. Walter, huge thanks for coming on Future U and sharing the story. We really appreciate it.

Walter Iwanenko

Absolutely. Looking forward to it. 

I do want to tell you that we are actually ahead of schedule on completing the merger. So we're scheduled to complete the merger in June of '26. Originally, we were thinking it was going to be December. So the Department of Education has said, 'We think this can happen.' Ohio says, 'We think this can happen.' We already received approval from, Middle States and HLC. So, it's moving in the right direction.

Michael Horn

Terrific to hear, and thank you again.

Walter Iwanenko

You bet.

Sponsor

This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium, a mission-driven nonprofit committed to improving learning and training systems to better serve learners from low-income backgrounds. Ascendium envisions a world where low-income learners succeed in postsecondary education and workforce training as paths to upward mobility. Ascendium's grantees are removing systemic barriers and helping to build evidence about what works so learners can achieve their career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org.

Michael Horn

Welcome back to Future U. And, Jeff, you already spoke, upfront about why this particular story was, of course, interesting to you, but I also want to highlight, I didn't see it coming, during the conversation, but you you said it in the middle of one of your questions to Walter because I think it speaks to another one of the big, maybe implicit reasons, that we keep coming back to M&A on this show, which is that the purpose of M&A is so that we have colleges that are stronger. 

Presumably that means, yes, financial strength, but also programmatically, value proposition wise, mission, results, and so forth. But just tell me, why you made that point about the purpose of M&A being stronger colleges and universities.

Jeff Selingo

Because, Michael, I think in higher ed we see M&A as a negative thing. Right? 

We see the disappearance of any institution, whether they're being merged or acquired, as a bad thing. Where I think, again, in the business world, M&A is seen as, you know, potentially on some sides, obviously, consolidating power, but on other sides, making sure that two entities can go further faster and even survive in some cases because they have been merged. 

And I really do feel that for M&A activity to increase in higher ed, we're going to have to move beyond the usual suspects that we've seen to this day — just a handful of colleges and universities that have the resources — and we're going to have to go a little bit deeper in the bench. 

And what are they looking for, and who are they? So I would look at institutions that are like a Gannon. They're big enough, but they're not large enough to really be going concerns on their own. And so they're going to look for those institutions that, as Walter said, that maybe are around a 1,000 or 1,500 students that could maybe add, you know, 50% to their student body, 25% to 50% to their their student body could — which I think is really key here — add a new geographic region to the college or university. 

I think we have to remember that most college students, especially at the type of institution that a Gannon is, are coming from 75 miles away from home. So moving into a slightly different region is really not going to cannibalize your students.

And then third is really that programmatic piece. You know, none of these colleges are really fully comprehensive, in a way that a Northeastern might or a Villanova might or a big public flagship might or a Boston University might. Right? So what are they gaining from potentially adding another college on in terms of programmatic? 

And, you know, whether it's the arts or whether it's computer science or whether it's nursing or other health care programs, there are all these programmatic areas that I think these smaller colleges and universities want to go after, and they don't have the money or the resources to build it on their own. So why not just essentially merge or acquire another institution to do that?

Michael Horn

Yeah. And Jeff, it speaks to something else actually. We think a fair bit about how when a college closes, what it does to the surrounding community — economically, vacating jobs, and so forth. And I do think that there's some sort of inevitability about this consolidation. 

If I'm in the community, I want the college to have a chance. Right? Like the infrastructure, some of it, to have a chance at surviving. And so who knows what these mergers ultimately look like — if they keep the branch campuses open and so forth down the line. 

But I will say, I think that's probably the only shot at these communities sort of holding on to that higher ed institution is if they're done with that context in mind, and there is some merger activity. I know some places probably take a cynical view of that. You merge and you sunset certain campuses. I don't think that's the way it'll be done in higher ed, personally. And so I think also from the community perspective, M&A is an incredibly important topic towards strengthening the presence of higher ed in these regions.

Jeff Selingo

Yeah. And, Michael, let me just jump in on that because we talked, when we were talking about my book a couple of episodes ago about the idea of the zombie mall, right, coming to colleges and universities. I noticed on social media a couple people picked up on that. Right? So is it better to have an institution that is kind of just limping along rather than no institution at all? 

You know, in terms of M&A, we're going to have institutions that are at least going to be able to maybe keep these institutions to be going concerns above what they would have been otherwise. And so, you know, I get it. These are job centers. These are cultural centers. These are economic centers for many of these towns, but the chances of them surviving are getting slimmer by the day in some cases. The other thing that will happen is they become like just shadows of themselves. That they are like these zombie malls. Or maybe they can at least be able to preserve their biggest strengths if they were able to merge or be acquired by a bigger player.

Michael Horn

Well, and that's where I want to go next because [the issue of] strength of institution, which is that, you know, when Gannon was going through its criteria for which institutions would be interesting, you know, as merger partners, they were super clear on objectives. Now we could perhaps Monday-morning-quarterback and ask if getting an institution in Ohio that's going to have its own demographic declines, if that makes sense. But I do think the other point was critical, which is that the institution that they were looking at, Walter said, could not already be in financial problems from a cash-flow perspective. And as you know, I'm working with someone on a piece that will hopefully publish later this year. So I don't want to talk too much about it yet and jinx that, but it really centers on the importance of cash to an institution and net cash flow specifically. 

And I guess it occurs to me that for a smaller school like Gannon as opposed to presumably something like a Northwestern or Villanova or even an ASU if they went on a spree. I would think financial health of the target school would be really, really important. And to that end, I thought it was interesting that it had been less than 1,000 students, sort of a cutoff. Right? It speaks to what we always talk about. You have it in your book, as well as something to keep an eye on, right, if parents are thinking about this stuff. But it also speaks a little bit to the arbitrariness, I guess, of 1,000 students. Like, Ursuline just under at 900 or whatever. It just misses the cutoff, so it didn't hit into their filters. But then they were lucky that Ursuline was also being proactive at the same time. 

And it gets at something that I at least think a lot about, which is that data, obviously, important, have a big role to play. But sometimes we forget that the categories of data are created by people. We’ve got to crawl underneath the hood if you will just to make that decision. And I guess I get a little nervous with these big cutoffs because maybe you missed that gem that is the perfect institutional partner. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Jeff Selingo

Yeah. Michael, I think it's interesting that Ursuline — you also have to be among those gems of institutions willing to want to talk openly about their situations and want to be acquired. 

So I think some of this is around the data, but I think that these institutions — and this goes back to something that we've talked about before — is the boards of these institutions, the leaderships of these institutions need to be proactive much further in advance than they already are to say, 'You know what? We're not gonna be able to keep this institution as a going concern. We're going to have to go out and find partners and be proactive.' Because if it's all left to the Gannons of the world to filter out who's in and who's out of potential partnerships, it's just going to be a chance about who they're gonna find rather than those institutions that really need the help now.

Michael Horn

Yeah. And, well, and leadership is exactly where I want to go. So that's on the board side. The other really interesting thing that I thought Walter told us was that the board picked an interim president at Ursuline, someone who was the former president and president King, whose explicit mission is effectively to shepherd this merger. And I think it's so interesting because then you have a president who's not sitting there thinking about my legacy of, you know, continuing this institution on independently, but is instead really a steward of its past resources and synonymous with success is, ‘Do I get this merger done?' It seems like a very clever orientation for a president coming in so that it's, like, super clear on what success is, and it's not independent survival in this case. It's more steward of their mission and resources. I thought that was clever. 

I'm curious how you think about leadership in this space because I get it. It can be an ego thing, I suspect, if you're the president thinking, I'm sunsetting my tenure by bringing this institution to merger.

Jeff Selingo

But I think it's also a very good use of somebody who knows the institution. I think the other thing that really struck me about that part of the conversation, Michael, was that these are mission-driven institutions often with large religious affiliations. Right? 

Many of these colleges that have been running into issues lately have been religiously affiliated, church affiliated institutions. As we know, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of them, particularly in the Northeast and the Midwest. And that's another kind of filter to put through this. That's another issue often, perhaps even a hurdle, to get these through because it's going to be much more difficult to do that given their affiliations with churches or different orders and something. And that's something that, to be honest with you, I kind of got when we were talking about the Ohio, merger, but this is something that really came home to me when Walter was talking about it because this may be a bigger issue going forward with trying to bring institutions together, especially in similar geographies, whether they have similar affiliations or not could be a problem. 

Or even, often — and I know this from being in Northeastern Pennsylvania where there's a lot of Catholic colleges — sometimes that's a reason not to do it. Right? Because they really want to kind of protect their identity. So it's another element to M&A. It seems every single time we do one of these M&A episodes, it's like peeling away an onion. We kinda find yet another issue. Right? Oh my god. This is another reason why this is not gonna happen in higher ed the way we think it should.

Michael Horn

Alright. Well, speaking of things that make it sort of not happen, last thing, and I don't know if you'll have a hot take on this at all. I haven't previewed this with you, but I think we were both struck in the episode we did last year about how difficult the federal government makes merging and merger and acquisition activity for higher ed. Walter talked about how accommodating and smart the accreditors have been. Right? That their natural process, to be clear, is not that, but that they made a lot of adjustments to really help them pull it off and not be behind the eight ball. That was fascinating, I think. 

I'm just curious, you know, you're inside the Beltway. I'm not, up here in Boston. Do you hear any discussion about the Trump administration that theoretically likes less regulation? I say theoretically because in higher ed it's not clear that they like less regulation. But do you think we might see any dereg around the college merger process, or is this a, 'Who knows what's going on' category?

Jeff Selingo

I think this is a little bit about, 'Who knows.' I don't get the sense this is on their radar. 

I was part of an M&A convening back in April, and my big takeaway from that is just how many entities are involved in this, and we got a sense of that from, you know, some of our previous episodes. We have the accreditors, in some cases, multiple accreditors. We have the state. And we obviously have the federal government as part of this. So, Michael, even if the federal government were able to deregulate this, to be honest with you, you know, politically, we're not necessarily in a ... I would imagine more blue states than red states when it comes to the type of institutions that would end up merging. They don't tend to be the places that are in a deregulatory state. In fact, especially when it comes to higher ed, I think they're more focused on consumer protection. You know that from being in Massachusetts. 

So even if we were able to have this happen at the federal government level, we still have these two other entities which are pretty important in this whole process. That is the accreditors, which seem to be getting on board, I get the sense. But then we also have the states.

Michael Horn

Alright, Jeff. Let's leave it there. I think that's a pretty robust conversation. As you said, peeling the onion back. We keep getting more and more nuance. 

We're gonna do more on this topic. Forewarning our listeners, but it just keeps getting more and more interesting because there's a lot of dimensions to this and a lot of need, frankly, as well. 

Before we leave though, we're going to bring Walter back one more time for his take to our lightning round segment to get to know him better and some of his hot takes on his time in higher ed. 

Music

So, Walter, we have this segment on Future U where we get to ask our guests a few light-hearted lightning round type questions, a little bit of a deviation from the main body of the show. And it's supposed to get to know you better, but also to get to know you better in context of higher ed specifically. 

So if you're game, let's dive in. And the first question we have for you is, ‘What was your favorite college class when you were a student, and why?’

Walter Iwanenko

History. I just had a fantastic professor that got me hooked and history repeats itself. Pay attention to history.

Michael Horn

There you go. What kind of history was it?

Walter Iwanenko

American history. American history.

Michael Horn

Perfect. Alright. 

What's one higher ed buzzword that you never want to hear again?

Walter Iwanenko

It's marketing, but I'm gonna tell you why.

Jeff Selingo

Okay.

Walter Iwanenko

I will continue to hear it, but everybody blames marketing for everything. So if your numbers go down, it's marketing. You know, let's talk about the other things like, do you have a good product? And so so ... Marketing.

Michael Horn

Well said. Well said. 

Alright. Last question before we take you off the hot seat. 

What is the biggest difference in your observation between students now and when you were in school?

Walter Iwanenko

Engagement. Engagement.

Jeff Selingo

More engagement now or less engagement?

Walter Iwanenko

Less. Less face-to-face engagement. A lot of engagement on social media, and we all know, you know, phones and Instagram. But, the ability to have conversations, very adverse to group work, and we all know that's how we function in the workforce. 

So I have to tell you, I'm starting to see a shift in the newer students coming in where they're craving more socialization. So I think it's very positive. I think we're coming out of that COVID period, but it's noticeable.

Jeff Selingo

That's interesting. Maybe COVID actually did something good in a way. Right? Because maybe we were headed towards less engagement. COVID really made people aware of it, and now they're kinda coming back.

Walter Iwanenko

I hope so. 

Michael Horn

Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

Jeff Selingo

Maybe a new book idea.

Walter Iwanenko

Absolutely.

Jeff Selingo

Anyway, Walter, thank you for being with us.

Walter Iwanenko

Thank you for having me. I appreciate the time.

Jeff Selingo

I don't know about you, Michael, but I think that segment is gonna just be a fun way to end Future U during most of our episodes this season. 

And thank you again to Walter for talking with us and also just participating in that last segment as well. 

And thank you all for listening, and we'll talk to you next time on Future U.