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Federalist Radio Hour
The Secret To Making College Affordable Again
00:46:12
On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Cornerstone University President Gerson Moreno-Riano joins Federalist Elections Correspondent Matt Kittle to discuss the rising cost of higher education and explain how his university is tackling the...
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- [00:00]
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- [01:18]
Matt Kittle
And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio the federalist.com follow us on X FBRLST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and of course to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today is Gerson Moreno Riano, president of Cornerstone University, a Christ centered university preparing graduates to boldly influence the world for Jesus Christ. The topic today, the high cost of higher education and getting higher all the time. Or is it how do we bring back the catchphrase of the day, affordability back to campus? Well, we're going to discuss that in the next several minutes here. Garazone, thank you so much for joining us in this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Thank you, Matt. It's great to be here with you with your listeners. Thank you so much.
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Matt Kittle
Absolutely. The college Cornerstone is located in Grand Rapids, if I'm correct. Right, correct.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Grand Rapids, Michigan in West Michigan. The beautiful city of Grand Rapids.
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Matt Kittle
Exactly. So you are in the the back door of perhaps one of the the costliest universities and perhaps one of the most well known institutions of higher education in this country found a model to bring down the cost of education. Tell us about that. And, and what does it cost for a degree at your university?
- [03:08]
Gerson Moreno Riano
Well, thank you, Matt. You know, we west Michigan is home to about 22 universities and then you have to wrestle with, you know, Michigan State University of Michigan, all these schools. So at Cornerstone University we Took a really a real hard look at first and first and foremost the value that we bring to our students. We've spoken internally that anything we do has to bring compelling human value to them that will position them for a life of flourishing and a life of purpose and meaning wherever they go. We took a hard look at what we offered, how we operated our university. I think that's one of the key things that we have to discuss how we operate universities. Then I spoke to our team three years ago about for our undergraduate traditional campus to do a tuition reset where we lower the cost of tuition and kept it without raising the cost of tuition. So we've done that. Our tuition sticker price right now is about $22,000 a year. We've kept it at that now for several years and we're committing ourselves to keeping it that way for the next couple of years as well. And it makes us one of the most affordable, high quality institutions in Michigan right now. Private institution. So we've done that for the traditional student that does not include room and board. But when we look at all of our competitors in West Michigan and beyond, we're again one of the most affordable quality institutions in the state. But we've also done something different. One of the things that we put on our hearts to do, Matt, was how do we reach the millions and millions of Americans who have gone to college and never finished. There are about 43 million of those in the country and another 70 million who have no college degree. And what do we do with this significant portion of Americans that don't have a college education? And we're concerned that the implications of that can be and will be significant for our country. So we developed something over two years, the nation's first mobile degree platform where students can earn an undergraduate, accredited undergraduate degree or an accredited master's degree. And incredibly low cost, high, high quality, beautiful platform for the entire degree. On this mobile platform for an undergraduate bachelor's in business degree is only 20 to $24,000 for the entire degree and for the masters is less than $12,000 for the entire degree. World class, beautiful user experience, great technology, great faculty content. And we did that because affordability and cost is a significant issue for so many carrying debt loads and higher prices and inflation. So we were concerned from a mission perspective. How do we educate traditional students who want to come to our campus, give them a beautiful experience at a cost that families and they can afford without a massive amount of debt that they have to carry, while at the same time improving their mobility in Society and their ability to flourish. And then how do we educate the millions of Americans who are disenchanted, quite frankly, with higher education and can't finish, won't finish for many reasons. How do we get those for the sake of our republic? So we're grateful to have done both of these things and we're seeing great demand in the market for what we're doing and we're very grateful for that.
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Matt Kittle
Matt, That's, I guess that's the question I need to ask. You know, affordability, that's the key. That's what's keeping so many young people and you know, people in the workforce who haven't finished their degree out of higher education. It's one of the reason, reasons. We'll get into some of the others coming up in just a bit. Your model is priced at half or more less than what you're seeing in private institutions and a lot of public state institutions. How do you do that? Because we keep hearing from the, you know, the, the higher education institutions around the country, you know, our prices just keep going up. Even as they say, we're, we're trying to bring them down. The prices do indeed keep going up. How do you do that and survive?
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Well, we, you know, one of the great things that's happened is that we've had increasing new student enrollment for three years in a row to our institution. And I'm very grateful for that. I came through a university that had declined for about 15 years when I came here in 2021. And we really urgently decided to make some significant changes. And I'm grateful that we have three years of increasing new student enrollment. And our new SOAR program, we just launched it late last year in the fall we have, we're inching up to 300 students in that program, the mobile platform that I just shared with you. So we're seeing total enrollment growth and new student growth. And the way we did it was we took a hard look at everything we did. How much of what we're doing do we really need to be doing to deliver on our mission in a high quality education? And that soul searching question you have to ask yourself as a president, as a university, how much of what we do do we really shouldn't we be doing? Number one. Number two, I asked our teams to go back and rethink how we operate and shift our business model in significant ways. And we're still working through that. We haven't finalized that. That's a multi year process. But we took a hard look again at all the things that we did, what can we stop doing? What can we shift and perhaps outsource? That's not, you know, mission academic critical. What can we also do to redevelop our workforce internally and train them and expand their productivity, focus on our mission. And we did all of those things, quite frankly, and then we realized through continual effort that we can actually operate in a more effective way, in a less costly way, without having to continue to balloon the costs and pass those down to our students.
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Matt Kittle
You must not have a union. I'm going to tell you that's. That's one of the driving costs of higher education. No doubt about it.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
I will tell you that when I came here, there wasn't a union, but it felt like there was a union. There were years and years here in which in some ways some of the employees and had in some ways unionized themselves in their heart and their mind. And we had to really take a hard look at that. And with the support of our board, we did it and we addressed it effectively. And that helped us to shift everything. Because whether you have a union or a union mentality in your workforce, either of them, the ultimate result is just as disastrous. And we had to shift that immediately. To focus on the goal of this institution is to advance the mission and its students. Not staff, not faculty, not the administration. The goal has to be delivered on this mission to bring about great students who are graduates and do fantastic things for Christ and for the country. And we looked at everything through that filter. Not an easy thing to do, especially if you have entrenched work habits or a work culture that focuses primarily on perhaps the employee or a faculty or the staff and not the student. And frankly, that's a significant conversation for every university to be having and to address it. And it takes hard work and courage and board unanimity and it's a multi year effort. But I think that those institutions that can do that are going to thrive. But more than that, they can, they have the opportunity and the potential to deliver for our students, which that to me is the name of the game,
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Matt Kittle
I would assume as well, given your overall mission, your core mission is to bring Christ to your campus and to the world. That you don't have a lot of overhead with DEI indoctrination on your campus, diversity, equity and inclusion. You don't have a lot of 20twentieth century gay folk dancing courses right now, the extraneous stuff. And that is a big reason. And universities across the country over the last several years creating these DEI administrative positions just so that they can pay someone with a dei, you know, title in, in what they do it. It would seem to me that's not the case at, at Cornerstone. But please correct me if I'm wrong.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
No, man, it's not the case now. It was the case when I came in 2021. So when I came in 2020, when I actually asked about that, about the governance structure and the DEI and the wokeness, and I was told none of this stuff existed. And, and, and, and it assured me, I was assured it doesn't exist here. And then when I arrived, I realized, oh boy, it's here. It's been here for many years and it's deeply entrenched. And I realized right away, not just that, but when you have an institution that had been declining enrollment for so many years, I realized we only had so much time to really take urgent, executive, decisive action to heal this place and to turn this place around. And it was a battle. I will tell you. The first year I was here, within a few weeks of me arriving at the campus, the faculty senate charged into the board meeting, my very first board meeting, and demanded that I be fired immediately on the spot. And they marched up and for an entire year, it was a smear campaign in the media, Washington Post, religious noon service, you name it, it happened. Even some of the faculty drummed up students to protest my inauguration, to cancel the speaker who came, it was ugly and nasty, and again, I did not know it was even here. Having said that, we looked very hard at that and immediately said, no, I led that effort. And really, I can really say that those folks who were there left on their own over a couple of years, and I'm grateful for that.
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Matt Kittle
You did that in 2021, in the heat of this fear fever that was sweeping this country. The DEI, after the whole BLM riot tour of 2020, that was, you know, it was so entrenched. That must have been a heck of a battle.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
It was brutal. I've got the scars to show it, I'll tell you. But you know, I mean, I came and I was accused of being. And look, I, I immigrated to America from Colombia 45 years ago, right? So I'm an immigrant, first generation student, had a wonderful education in the most exceptional country in history. America. Love this country. I had individuals on campus call me a stupid parrot of white people, a Christian nationalist, a misogynist, a race, I mean, you name it, a king, a monster, I mean, you name it. But, you know, we were focused. I was focused on the beauty of the mission of this university. It's a gorgeous mission. I always said it to our board. It's a gem of a university. We have to shift this drift immediately and course correct immediately. And I'm grateful that with the help of the support of the board that we did that and a small team of team and I were able to do that in the most heated time, as you mentioned, in recent history. And I can say now five years in, the board has unanimously reaffirmed me for another five years. They're very grateful to where we are that we, we corrected the drift, the hard drift to the left. We had all kinds of garbage on our campus, in our chapel at times as well as future plan that I realized. And we said, no, that's not the mission of institution. We're a Christ first, Christ centered mission to educate our students in the, in the beauty of the Christian worldview and the Christian tradition and not to institutionalize racism, not to institutionalize, you know, virtue signaling. Not to institutionalize, you know, you know, anything that's anti Semitic or, or destructive to America. No, we're not going to do that. We're going to defend the beauty of the Christian worldview, defend a beautiful Christian community, defend truth, beauty and goodness and defend the beauty of this country, the, the exceptionality of America. And we can talk about that later. But we did a number of things in that effort that starting this coming year and you know, to me, the beautiful things, many folks moved out on their own. I'm grateful for that. Many wonderful folks have come who want a place like this. And we've had a great increase of students and parents in the market saying we want this, we want a Christian university this way. We asked our students last year, all of our new students, why are you coming to Cornerstone? And the overwhelming majority said because of the Christian worldview. That's what we want.
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Matt Kittle
That's, that's great to hear. That's great to hear. And, and I, because I was going to ask you that. It sounds like you had to go through a bruising, brutal battle just, just to stay there. You did see, you know, a movement, outward movement of, you know, the, the leftists who wanted to keep their indoctrination camp operating. How much did that cost you financially when you, when you got into all of this, this battle?
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Well, you know, thankfully I can, I can simply openly say this, that we have, every fiscal year since I've been here, we've bound, we've landed on a black budget every single year. And it's a great group of team, team That I have, that that's helped manage great enrollment growth, strong retention, strong persistence, new programs that we've launched, you know, we've cut some programs out that we had didn't have any business carrying with only one or two students. We shifted those redele resources. It was what I call strategic management to deliver on the mission. So we've been able to deliver a balanced budget every year in the black, strong fiscal position. But we know the challenges are real out there when it comes to enrollment growth, value. The whole sector is shaking up right now and we don't sleep on our laurels. We know that the challenges are real at any level and we have to continue to deliver on the mission and show real value to our students. And so thankfully, it didn't cost us financially. And quite frankly, what it did do, despite the bruising battle that it was, it clarified who we are and who we were for the market. This is one of the reasons I'm convinced that our university suffered for so many years before I arrived. There was a lack of clarity on who are you and what are you really about. On the one hand, you save this mission, but on the other hand, I'm seeing, we're seeing all this woke stuff and DEI stuff. Who really are you? And I know that for a fact. I spoke to about 120 pastors in West Michigan my first year and dozens of parents and alumni, and I realized that we have lost our reputation in the market. At best, it was ambiguous. At worst, we were seen as a woke institution and the very pastors and churches that were sending students to us and families said no. So that cost us. This shift has actually reawakened those connections and we're seeing a surge of not just interest, but now we want to help. We want to, you know, give, we want to send to Cornerstone. We're thrilled about what's happening. So I'm grateful to God, to a great team, to a great board that supported that, and to the great team of faculty and staff that we have now on our campus who are full in and are learning the new ropes, as it were. As we continue to grow and refine who we are,
- [19:23]
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- [19:57]
Matt Kittle
Well, it's very encouraging to hear that. It really is. As someone who very much values a Christ centered view, not just in higher education, but in our society. And I know how critical that is to the continuation of this exceptional republic. So k to you on that front, but a lot of Christian colleges, private schools that say they are Christian centered simply are not. Do you find that you're a, unfortunately, a niche market?
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Yeah, unfortunately, right. I mean, some ways unfortunate, in other ways it's fortunate because it clarifies the few. And then I want everyone to come here.
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Matt Kittle
Yeah, right, right.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
But you know, I've had, just a few months back, I had Robbie George and Cornel west on our campus. We do an event twice a year called Wisdom Conversations. We started in the spring of 2022 and we tackle a really significant, timely question. And we bring great opinion leaders from all walks of life, you know, and political persuasions to speak on our campus. And I moderate that conversation. And Robbie George said something to me. He said, you know, Jerson or Mr. President, he said, a lot of parents ask me whether I can recommend Christian universities to them, and I really can. There's only a few in my hand, literally recommend. I'm grateful to say he said that I can recommend Cornerstone University because you are committed, you guys are committed here to the real integration of the Christian faith and learning. And that's, that's what we need to be doing. That's Robbie George sayings to me in a bat in the green room. But I've heard the same from many individuals about the drift of Christian universities. Right. And my sense is that the drift
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Matt Kittle
and the grift, I might add.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Yes.
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Matt Kittle
You know, honestly, and it's not, you know, it's not just the universities, it's the prep schools written a lot about that where we've seen wokeism just so, so injected into Christian schools across the country, you know, pre K through, through senior year, through graduation. And so, you know, you're, you're seeing students shaped by that very, very secular mission, that very secular ideology, you know, coming into schools with that kind of expectation. You're breaking that expectation, it sounds like to me.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Well, I mean, it's a perversion that's happening in the market, unfortunately. And Christian universities have become, I think, enamored with this stuff and it's really corrupting them and hurting them. But more than that, it's hurting our students, which is what makes me very angry. I'm just gonna be very honest with you. It makes me very angry. When you bring a student to your institution, K12 or college, and you corrupt them in their thinking, that is almost unpardonable because those students and those parents are entrusting themselves to us. We make tremendous obligation and duty to ensure that we educate them in what is beautiful and true and good and honoring them as human beings made in God's image and honoring God or Maker. When we don't do that, and yet we carry Christian in somewhere in our institution, there's something fundamentally wrong. And to me, what's happened in many Christian universities is that I believe that primarily, oftentimes it's the humanities and the liberal arts and the social sciences that have given themselves over to a. A corrupt way of thinking, a corrupt worldview philosophy that they advance and therefore they leave, leave our students, at best in moral limbo, at worst in intellectual blasphemy or heresy, being completely lost. I've seen this at various institutions in which I've served. That begins in these disciplines where you're advancing certain philosophies that absolutely bring about intellectual corruption. And what we have done for many, many years is we've created either sophisticated skeptics who can't affirm anything because they believe doubt is fashionable and doubt is characteristic of the Christian life in reality. Not true. Or we are educating very dangerous activists, destructive activists who are willing to kill, willing to murder, willing to fire by my home. That's coming out of our universities. And it's because of a philosophy that rejects truth, beauty, goodness, God at the core of existence and reality, and inserts power into that equation. It's all about power and equality. And when you be. When you educate generations of students in that philosophy, you will end up getting what we're seeing in our society right now. And I believe that secular institutions have done that in terrible ways. And I believe now in some, many ways, Christian institutions are beginning to drink that Kool Aid. And I'll give you an example, Matt. Years and years ago, I was on a plane flying back from New Mexico to Virginia Beach, a long, long flight. And a young man sat down next to me, and a very talkative young man, and he asked me, what do you do for a living? And I told him, well, I'm a chief academic officer at the following university. I'm a professor. And he said this to me. He said, great, I need your help. I'm a Senior graduating from St. John's I've read all the great books, I've done all the great experiments, and I am more lost and confused now than I have ever been about life and truth and reality. Wow. That's what he said to me. Can you help me? So, Matt, for two and a half hours I talked with him from the pre Socratics all the way till now about truth, beauty and goodness, the reality of God, the importance and beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and touched on all these philosophers. And I'll never forget that at the end of that conversation, this young man looked at me and said, sir, if you write about Jesus, it flips the
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Matt Kittle
world upside down because Jesus flipped the world upside down.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Absolutely.
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Matt Kittle
And that sounds like what, exactly what you communicated to him and exactly, exactly what this young man needed and so many young people need. I think the problem that we've had, you talk about, you know, affirmation. One of the huge problems we've had in higher education is the affirming of so many things that aren't real, that are quite frankly dangerous and wicked and that, that's a problem for those people, for society, for the continuation of republic. Our guest today is Gerson Moreno Riano. He is president of Cornerstone University. Not just president, professor there as well. He's served his, his life in, in education, particularly Christ centered education. And that's what Cornerstone is, a Christ centered university, preparing graduates to go out into the world and to bring Jesus Christ to the world. And it sounds like you live that. Miss that flight from New Mexico to Virginia Beach. And it's so critical. But let's face it, one of the big issues that young men and young women are facing is how do I pay for this thing that my counselors have been telling me I have to have if I want to have a good life. And that is a college degree. And I think the numbers have, you know, borne that out over the years. Although that dynamic is shifting as well, where we see a lot of people taking different roads, maybe different education paths and finding, you know, good jobs and good paying jobs in, in different fields. You know, we, we need our mechanics out there, we need our plumbers, and, and that's, you know, that's been a big issue is trying to find young people who are willing to go into those. And there are, there are different routes. But in this case, you're up against some pretty daunting numbers. I think it was last month, it was recently Hampshire College announced it will be closing after the fall 2026 semester. Following years of financial strain and declining enrollment. That is not the exception to the rule. So how do you face that reality in the, the marketplace? Obviously, as you've told us, you've been in the black every year since you've been there. How do you sustain that and how do you keep the cost of higher education affordable?
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Gerson Moreno Riano
It's a great question. Well, you have this institution. I mean, it's interesting. Yesterday the, the CEO of Heinz, right, you know, the ketchup condiments food company,
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Matt Kittle
was interviewed in a. John Kerry's family.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Right, Right. And he, so he's interviewed and he says we have to figure out a way to ensure that we're bringing value to our customers all the time, every day, literally, because inflation and prices are so high, costs are so high, they can't afford to buy these basic things called food.
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Matt Kittle
Yeah.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
So he's saying, look, as a company, we have to look at everything we're doing, repackage, rethink everything we're doing and ensure that we're delivering value, great value at the most affordable price to our customers. I thought, I read that, I sent it to our executive team. I read that. I thought immediately, if this conversation is about food, the most essential thing, right. Food man, we better ensure that what we're doing at Cornerstone, right. We're thinking the same way.
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Matt Kittle
Sure.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
We have to. So that's forced us to really take a very hard look at everything we're doing in our academics and student life on campus so that we are advancing the most, the high impact activities, programs, academic teaching, learning initiatives for our students that prepares them for what I call great market positioning. Right. So when they walk in, they're several steps ahead of other graduates and adding immediate value to any employer, any organization in their communities. I mean, that's sort of the high level how we look at this. So we've always asking ourselves that question. For all of our programs, this has meant we have gone through and we're going through every learning outcome, every program, every minor, every major, every course, and asking ourselves those very hard questions. It's uncomfortable, by the way, to do that, and I know it is, but we have to because if not, these students are going to go somewhere else or they're not going to go at all. And we're charging them. We're saying this is good, phenomenal value and tremendously important to you, but we need to ensure that it truly is. So we're monitoring the market all the time, we're speaking with employers all the time, and we have a presence, industry council about eight CEOs that provide insight advice to me about these kinds of things to ensure that man we're staying well ahead of the market and of industry and that any gaps that exist in our programs, we're addressing them. We're putting together an AI advisory board of about 8 to 10, some of them world renowned AI thinkers and academics or believers or Christians who want to help Cornerstone stay ahead and ensure that our students lead these conversations and utilize AI in tremendously good and productive ways and don't become Luddites and fear hiding. Right. So, so we're, I mean we're working all the time to analyze and relook at how do we adding value and ensuring that we're doing more with what we have and being better and more effective stewards with it and not simply assuming that we're great already, which is a tremendous hubris problem in academia today.
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Matt Kittle
Oh yes, we're great already.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
You all need what we have. Whether you know it or not, you need it. Well, the market is saying, no we don't, we actually don't. I think the other part of this is that for centuries I think we've, we've labored under this false dichotomy, unfortunately. And look, I'm a big fan of Aristotle, I mean my read much of Aristotle in my graduate work. But the dichotomy that if you work with your hands and you're a mechanic, you're less than in your second class. Right. In comparison to the philosopher and the love and the life of the mind. That economy is destructive, it's false and
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Matt Kittle
it is endemic in higher education.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Absolutely, absolutely.
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Matt Kittle
It's that arrogance I think that is keeping so many away.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
It is, it is. You feel it, you see it. And the reality now is that the market is, is saying and individuals are saying, I cannot just make a life, make a good living this way. And there's something noble about this. So we of course have talked a lot about that and it's a vigorous conversation because the fears that are we going to become some kind of vocational tech school? Well, no, but we're not against it. I'm not. I think we need to educate any human being that wants to come to this university. We want to educate them in a Christ centered way, in a thoughtful way and ensure that it's not just the mind, it's applied, it's hands on, they can get their hands dirty and they're not second class or actually very, very important. And so that the shift in how we think so all of these things Take time. But we've begun those conversations to ensure that we don't end up like Hampshire or many other colleges in Michigan that are closing or will close. We don't want that. We want to demonstrate that we are the destination of choice for Christian higher education. We take ideas seriously, we take Christ the most serious, but we also take the life of the hand seriously, the lived out life seriously. Because all these things matter significantly and just these icons have to go away.
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Matt Kittle
And in your classrooms, you can always show them a picture of yours truly as a scared straight program for the. Those who want to choose the Luddite lifestyle.
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Gerson Moreno Riano
Right.
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Matt Kittle
You know, don't end up like this guy, you know, in journalism, you know, doing podcasts, you know, this, this sort of thing. You're, you're absolutely right though. I mean that's, that's such a huge part of this conversation of, you know, the future of higher education. You mentioned the, the chief executive at Heinz talking about, we have to think about value every, what's valuable to our customer at every turn. Universities in the main, across this country have failed in that mission because so many graduates are coming out who don't have, quite frankly, value what they've learned, what their degrees have shaped, what their minds have been shaped into. They don't have value. And they're waiting on the sidelines in the job market for a long time. So that seems like the dynamic that you're looking at and that's, you know, on the top of the priority list for you.
- [35:55]
Gerson Moreno Riano
I think about it all the time. Literally, I'm always thinking about this and, you know, providing these very intense questions to my team, executive team, and they're thinking about all the time and with their folks and their teams as well. We have to add value at every intersection, interview change with our students. We have to do it. So, for example, we've revamped, we call it the Office of Career and Calling. Over the last two years. We put in a very proactive office with a great team led by our Vice President for people and culture that we mandate. For example, we require an internship, an actual real internship where every student at Corristone in our on campus campus programs as a part of their four year degree and we monitor that and we work with employers to ensure that those interests are meaningful and they're advancing significant program goals and learning goals for our students because we want them not just to be employed, but we want them to realize they're the real world out there, not just ideas. And you should live out your faith with excellence. In that world and bring real solutions and real value. And we provide a curriculum that goes hand in hand with academics throughout the four years of a student on campus, in that office where they learn to lead, where they learn executive presence and learn how to communicate, they learn, they interact with executives and business professionals. And so we're working very hard and we require appointments. I think this semester we've had probably 6 to 700 appointments of students with this office preparing themselves for this. So we're taking it very, very seriously. We have a lot still to improve and refine. We're seeing all the time. But we think it's absolutely essential so that our students don't leave with just any theory or Christian worldview. Right? Some set of logical propositions that don't change their heart, their mind, or how they work. In theory, the Christian worldview. In practice, we should be the best at what we do. The most excellent employees, the most excellent leaders, the most excellent thinkers. And so our goals and it's a big goal. I get it, Matt. But we want to educate our students in that direction because we want them to add great value to our community in West Michigan and to Michigan into the nation. We want them to add great value, bring great solutions centered on the Christian worldview. And that, to me, is the great debacle of American higher education. It has become godless.
- [38:21]
Matt Kittle
Yes.
- [38:22]
Gerson Moreno Riano
So what happens when a incredible pillar of American society, higher education, it has become godless? You graduate men and women in the market with no purpose, right? Or a destructive purpose. This no meaning, right. A godlessness. And then all that talent, all that input, all the resources, at best are unfocused, at worst can be destructive. And that's the problem. Americans see it. Whether you're on the left or the right, everyone sees it. About 70% of Americans, higher ed is headed in the wrong direction. I think everyone feels it and sees it, and we're grateful, as I call it, our small mighty universities, what I call ourselves, that we're working in this and very focused on bringing great positive redirection.
- [39:13]
Matt Kittle
Well, that's what I wanted to ask you because I think it is crucial that we are not only educating the next generation of this, this country, preparing them for the workforce with valuable skills and, and the education that they will need to be able to be successful in an emerging industry, emerging technologies, all of that, but let us not forget about being good moral human beings, sending good moral human beings out into the world, because maybe I'm a crusty old guy, and I am, but I'm Seeing less and less of that at every turn. And that's a big problem. So what is your enrollment? And tied into that, have you seen growth because of what we have experienced in this country over the last couple of years, but within the last year in particular, I speak of the just breathtaking, horrifying moment when, when Charlie Kirk was assassinated in front of his family, in front of the world. And this was a guy who was not only, you know, a leader in the conservative movement, he was an evangelizer. And he appealed to a lot of young people who have huge deficits of soul. That's what I, that, that's what I'm seeing out there. It's how I, I define it. That there's a huge empty vacant spot and they are longing just like that young man on that flight that, that you shared with us. Are you seeing more students at least interested, more higher enrollment because of what is missing in their lives?
- [41:13]
Gerson Moreno Riano
Yeah, that's a great question. Yes. I, I mean we've seen a. Not just an update but a real thirst for what we're doing on our campus. The, the Christian worldview ethos. We, our chapel attendance has gone up. Our, Our spiritual sort of community groups in the dorms have gone up. Our students traveling to our spiritual retreats, part of student life have gone up the attendance. So we're seeing a. Not just a growth in numbers attending, a growth in inquiries and applications for what we're trying to do at Cornerstone, but we're seeing our existing students attendance grow in these what I call beautiful Christian community practices that are so, so important and that gives me great, great hope. I would love Matt, for you to come and visit our campus one time and visit one the of our chapel services. You have a chapel, Christ Chapel, full of students three days a week and at 10 o' clock and are singing, praying, worshiping, hands in the air, sometimes in the knees, crying. That's beautiful. To me, it's energizing for me to see that. It's energizing for me speak to more parents than I've ever spoken to in five years. Say we've visited 10 schools, eight schools, whatever. This is the one. You guys are serious about Christ? You're serious about the life of the spirit? You're serious about our sons and daughters hearts here, this is the one. And to me I wish more universities would be that serious about this. I, I can't tell you how many students and parents I should say have told me we've gone. I had one mom tell me we, I visit 10 or 11 Christian schools. Yours is the only one that takes the Christian worldview so seriously and meaningfully in everything you're trying to do. And so I take that very seriously. And to me, I want to tie this into the current conversation of outcomes. Right. Because one of the things that. One of the good things I think has happened through President Trump and the DOE now, focusing on outcomes and employment and employability and earnings, those are really important things. And the fact that so many schools, as a matter of fact, the cccu, they didn't ask member schools, but the cccu, the Coalition for Christian College University, gave a statement against the Compact of Higher Education for Higher Education. For many reasons. I think the outcomes piece is important. What I'm concerned about is that we're only focusing on the outcomes of money and employability. Right? Right. And the outcome of moral formation, the outcome of what does it mean to be a good human being, a good man, a good woman. Those outcomes no one wants to talk about, they should be part of the compact. They should be part of what we're dealing with now in higher ed. Because at the end of the day, education isn't. Is about moral formation. Yes. It's about preparing for careers and jobs and using our gifts and preparing, refining our gifts for those things. Very important.
- [44:16]
Matt Kittle
Important.
- [44:16]
Gerson Moreno Riano
But man, at the end of the day, I don't want just a bunch of competent graduates from Cornerstone that have flawed, bankrupt moral characters. Not interested. I want many women who are competent and we want to educate them for that. But also of great strength and moral character, a true moral compass, a devotion to God, a devotion to what is good, devotion to others. And that to me is absolutely missing in our country. And we, we desperately need that now for the sake of our future.
- [44:47]
Matt Kittle
I couldn't agree with you more. That is the ultimate value of higher education when done right. That is the ultimate value of education when done right. Yes, Trigonometry is important.
- [45:01]
Gerson Moreno Riano
Believe me.
- [45:02]
Matt Kittle
I, I have, I have a son who is immersed in the world of physics right now in college. It's very important for his aerospace career. But what is also very important to him, and I'm bless that it is, is his relationship with his Lord and his Savior. And we need more of that in higher education. But we also need the affordability side of things. And it looks like you've, you've got a model that is working and I wish you nothing but the best moving forward.
- [45:38]
Gerson Moreno Riano
Man. Thank you. We're working hard at it. It's a team effort. So I'm just great team executive team, middle managers, faculty and staff working together and learning how to row together in the same direction in very turbulent seas. But it's working. We're continuing to refine, improve, and I'm very grateful the support of our board and all of this. It's a team effort. And we're grateful to be here at this time in our nation's history.
- [46:01]
Matt Kittle
Indeed. And what a remarkable time it is, to say the least, for so many reasons. But here we are, just about to celebrate the 250th birthday of this exceptional nation, which was in 1776. It was very difficult to see that we would become the republic that we would become. But we have, and as a very wise signer of the Declaration of Independence said, also one of the sages of the creation of the Constitution. It is a republic if you can keep it. Thanks to my guest today, Gerson Moreno Riano, president of Cornerstone University. You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom, anxious for the fray,
- [47:02]
Gerson Moreno Riano
voice of reason. And then it faded away.
- [47:13]
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