“The New American” School

PRINCIPLE: Education should be measured by inclusion, not exclusion

What if we flipped education around? Instead of acceptance being the barrier, what if the only barrier was your willingness to learn? Imagine an educational system where anyone could walk through the door, where proving your skills was the real challenge - not getting past admissions officers. Picture millions of people, from rural villages to urban centers, all accessing the same high-quality education, upskilling while their progress was measured not by their background but by their capabilities. A system where acceptance is a given, but excellence must be earned.

The truth is, this world isn't just possible - it's already emerging. When a company in Silicon Valley is hiring engineers, their first step is often to visit the candidate's GitHub page. Design and marketing agencies request portfolios before anything else. GPA? Who cares? Getting a degree demonstrates that you can start something and finish it under instruction. The importance of the degree is fading as the importance of the proven ability comes to the fore.

In this world, who would care if the top-ranked engineer grew up in a poor town, dropped out of high school, discovered a passion for code and cocooned in it until he became extraordinary. Indeed, the best engineer that we ever hired was exactly this story. Did his lack of a traditional degree matter if he was demonstrably brilliant at what we were hiring him for? For Red Hat it didn’t. They saw his contributions to Linux and jumped at the chance to hire him onto the core of their desktop team. For me it didn’t when we cheered the triumph of stealing him from Red Hat.

The focus is shifting from pedigree to portfolio.

Arizona State University

This shift reminds me of Arizona State University under the magical leadership of Michael Crow. In 2002 he left his station as Executive Vice Provost of Columbia University to head to the baking desert of Tempe, Arizona to run a state school that was mostly known for its parties.

Michael’s vision was about addressing that perplexing paradox that most universities aren't about spreading education to as many people as possible. They are about exclusivity. Michael’s vision was about expanding access to education. The credo is simple: the more people they can educate, the more they're fulfilling their mission. This approach has led ASU to be named the most innovative university in America for ten consecutive years. It reminds me of when Bill Gates was so rich that he held the top spot in the world for 18 years. Nobody could compete with him. ASU is the equivalent for innovation in universities. Michael Crow has blown Stanford, MIT, Harvard and all of the Ivies away in this most important measure.

How innovative is the university in advancing the future of education? Number one, by a mile.

And, from my perspective, it’s also blowing them away on the next most important measure of an educational mission: how many people can they get that to? Harvard has gone from 6,500 students when I entered - coincidentally the year that President Crow joined ASU - to 7,063 students today. They grew by 500. In that same amount of time, Michael Crow has more than tripled ASU’s student population from 55,491 students to 181,000 students, 3.26 times larger.

But what about the quality of the education???

In that time, the freshman retention rate rose from 76% to over 85%. The 6-year graduation rate increased from 57% to over 70%. ASU increased its number of first-generation students from 10,000 to over 27,000. 87% of ASU graduates are now employed or in graduate school within 6 months, starting salaries for ASU graduates have increased substantially, and ASU has become one of the top producers of talent for Silicon Valley companies, including major employers like Apple, Google, and Amazon. It has had 159 Fulbright students selected, ranking 16th in the country, ahead of UC-Berkeley, Duke, and Cornell. It has also become a research powerhouse. Research expenditures grew from $123 million in 2002 to over $900 million. It has added 4.5 million square feet of new research facilities and achieved recognition as a top-tier Research 1 university, the highest research classification a university can achieve. Dang.

This is a university that is fulfilling its mission.

I feel like I want to cry writing this. My eyes are welling up. OH MY GOSH. It’s possible!

Why are they so innovative? It really comes down to that simple question that Michael asked: how do we flip the traditional education system to actually educate as many people as possible?

The more we educate the better. ASU’s charter begins with the bold, “ASU is a comprehensive public research university, measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed.” When you ask the question “how do we include as many people as possible and ensure that they succeed”, and when you’re ruthlessly serious about it, and when you hire 18,500 employees who are all committed to it, and fire all the people who aren’t, and when you emphasize that mission every chance possible, you get an organization that has to innovate.

The only way to deliver on that promise is to reinvent education, to flip the model on its head.

And that’s exactly what ASU has done.