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The American Council on Education sent Americans a message Sunday morning.
American Council on Education
The American Council on Education, a lobbying organization that represents higher ed leaders, caught a lot of eyes over the weekend with a full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times that shared a simple message in large capital letters: “Higher Education Builds America.”
The ad also contained a letter addressed, “Dear Presidential Candidate,” from Ted Mitchell, president of ACE, about the country’s wide spectrum of higher ed institutions and what they have to offer.
“If you are elected, we pledge to work with your administration to innovate and advance opportunity for all Americans. We must and will deliver results. We are ready to build,” Mitchell wrote.
Nick Anderson, vice president for higher education partnerships and improvement at ACE, told Inside Higher Ed the splashy print ad was an “old-school”—and, he believes, effective—attempt to grab the attention of policymakers and voters and remind them of higher ed’s value at a time when it’s too often oversimplified or misunderstood.
Inside Higher Ed spoke with Anderson about the purpose of the ad and what the organization wants the future president and Americans to know about higher education right now.
The conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows below.
Q: What prompted this ad?
A: We’re in a moment where American voters are tuning in to an election. Policymakers and politicians are tuning in … as well, for the very simple reason that we’re all trying to figure out where the country is headed and what might happen after the election.
And so here at ACE, we saw this as a really great time to make a point … This message is for both candidates, and it’s for supporters of both of the major political parties, or for folks who aren’t aligned with any political party. We want all of those people … to know that higher education is an extremely robust, diverse set of institutions, public and private, that is invested in building America. Taking out an ad is simply an expression of that desire to break through the clutter and put a positive message out there for higher education, because we know that there’s a lot of work to do, and we’re ready to help. And we always have been.
Q: When you say higher ed builds America, what do you mean by that? What does that look like?
A: We play a role in building the workforce of America. We play a role in building economies. We play a role in building the ideas and the innovation that power America. We play a role in building the arts, in building our culture, in building our common humanity, in building political debate. We are glad to play that role. We always have played that role, and we want to continue to play that role.
Q: You put out that message in a bold way. Do you feel like that message has been recently questioned or lost?
A: We’re under no illusion that one ad is going to grab everybody’s attention at this moment when there’s so much going on. But we feel compelled to try. We feel compelled to make a statement of principle … We are trying to put our best foot forward.
We’re also mindful that we’re not perfect, that colleges and universities have a lot of work to do to improve. The higher education of the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s is not necessarily the thing that’s going to be needed in the 21st century. We need to constantly be in the process of innovating and advancing opportunity in America. And that’s on us to do our part to be self-scrutinizing.
But we are a vital national asset. The world envies U.S. higher education. Nowhere else in the world do you have this breadth and depth from all sectors at all levels. So, this is a reminder of that. It’s a pledge to work with the candidates. It’s a pledge for continuous self-improvement. It’s a pledge to work with whoever is elected and the next Congress that takes office. When the campaign season is over, we’ll be there.
Q: What made ACE leaders feel like politicians need reminding about the value and potential of higher ed in this moment?
A: Sometimes there are stereotypes of higher education, or shorthand, images, symbols of higher education that are used in political discourse that I think oversimplify who we are and what we do. And so, the point of this ad, to our minds, is to remind people, hey, community colleges, liberal arts colleges, regional universities, research universities—all of that is higher ed, all of it. And all of the work that it does is important.
Sometimes there are news stories that focus on a particular issue that might be happening at a particular college … And let me be clear that we support all of higher education, and we support colleges and universities that might be under the microscope if they have any kinds of protests or upheaval … But there can be times—and we’ve seen it in Congress—when lawmakers will make broad statements about higher education that we think might be oversimplified, and we want to remind them again of who we are. If there is a story of the moment, fine. Those stories happen … but let’s remember the wider, broader landscape.
