The Grasstops and the Grassroots: How The Hill and The Neighborhood Can Work Together with Dr. Steven Taylor

Amy Hulst:
Hi, this is Amy Hulst, and you’re listening to From Poverty to Prosperity, where we ask what keeps people in poverty in America and what it takes to break free.
Today we talk with Dr. Steve Taylor about why policy needs to stay downstream of culture, what the American middle really cares about, and why he and Jason threw their book out three days before it was due.
Steve Taylor is today’s guest for our thought leadership segment. Thank you for being with us today, Steve. First, before we get started, I’m gonna brag on you a little bit. I’m gonna read your bio.
So, Dr. Steven C. Taylor is Policy Director and Senior Fellow for Economic Mobility at Stand Together Trust, where he builds bipartisan coalitions to expand education and workforce pathways nationwide. A first-generation college graduate and Pell Grant recipient, he founded ED2WORK in 2019 and previously led national credentialing initiatives at the American Council on Education. He serves on Virginia’s State Council of Higher Education and the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. He is co-author, with CrossPurpose CEO Jason Janz, of Together We Climb.
Jason Janz:
Welcome, Steve. Good to have you here, man.
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah. Sorry I can’t be there in person, but looking forward to the conversation.
Jason Janz:
Yeah, you totally just went on vacation. Give us one of your highlights. Where were you?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yes, two weeks in Spain and Portugal. I think the highlight was ending the trip on an island formed out of a volcano. So, Madeira. If you haven’t been to Madeira yet, Portugal is the place to go.
Amy Hulst:
Your skin is glowing. You look like you were just on a vacation.
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Well, see, that was the goal. Come home looking rested and looking like I was out in the sun for two weeks.
Amy Hulst:
Yeah, well achieved. Achieved.
Steve, let’s start a little bit with your story before we get into a lot of other fun things we’re gonna discuss today, one of which is Together We Climb, which is very beautifully positioned behind you, almost like you got paid to have it there. So we’re gonna get into all things Together We Climb, and also talk to you about what’s rolling around in your brain, what you think about all day with credentialing, education, and workforce development. But before we go there: from community college to PhD to policy director and senior fellow, Steve, tell us a little bit about your story. Where did it all begin?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
So I grew up in Southern California in a blue-collar household. Construction was sort of the dominant industry in our household. My mom’s… my stepdad was a construction worker. So this idea of work always just dominated, and resilience, and just scraping by and doing whatever you had to do to get by and make ends meet.
You know, by the time I actually made it to college, I was the first in my family to go to college and graduate. Got a Pell Grant, which helped me through. And all of that really has shaped my career, which started in higher education. It really ginned up this interest in work and thinking about what allows people to persist or succeed beyond their current circumstance and actually move forward.
So my career started in higher education, but as my career progressed, I really started to think about what comes next beyond education. Access and credentials, that was fine. Education in and of itself was not the answer.
Something that was really clear to me growing up is that relationships were key. And that’ll spill over into the work that Jason and I have been doing.
Just one little anecdote. Growing up, because we didn’t have much, my mom… we couldn’t pay for college. When I was a teenager over summer break, she would actually drag me to Chamber of Commerce mixers with her, because she would go for work. And she said, “You’re gonna learn how to…” You had this awkward teenage kid showing up with business leaders and community leaders at a Chamber of Commerce mixer, and she’s like, “Go figure it out.” And she didn’t know to call it social capital back then. She was just trying to teach me how to network.
But it was those relationships, it was that confidence, it was building that social capital and that network that I think actually changed the trajectory of my life. And so that, to me, just highlights the key: it’s relationships, it’s network, it’s access, it’s navigation, not just education, that helps people essentially access opportunity along the way.
Jason Janz:
Steve, one of the stories I think you’ve told me that came out of the struggle… You know, I see someone flying a sign on the side of the road, “Will work for food.” But didn’t you have a part of your growing-up years where you had to work for your food?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah. So my mom… we were a household that could have qualified for all the government benefits, but my mom was too proud to apply. And so she struck a deal with the neighbor, who happened to be the lunch lady at our school, and said, “Hey, if I drop Steve off at 6:30 in the morning when I head to work, and he helps you prepare the meals for the day before anybody else gets there, can he have free breakfast and lunch?”
And so that was the deal. I’d go to elementary school at 6:30 in the morning, get dropped off, go pull those fish sticks and all the frozen stuff out of the freezer, and get things prepped for the day with the lunch lady.
And, you know, I wasn’t on some government program. Nobody knew I was getting reduced or free meals. I was working for it. And that’s just kind of what my mom did. It was strike deals where she could, and again, make ends meet.
Jason Janz:
And then you went off to community college. What was the impetus to go from high school to college? Because a lot of kids in the struggle never get the shot to go.
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah, I had a really great guidance counselor at my high school. I had a not-so-good guidance counselor before that, who kept telling me, “You’re gonna go to UC Santa Barbara.” And I said, “In what world am I paying for UC Santa Barbara?” I said, “You went to UC Santa Barbara. That’s your dream.” I said, “My dream is to keep my job.” I was working thirty hours a week. My dream is keep my job, make some money, and figure it out.
And so my next guidance counselor said, “Community college. It’s a great option.” Low cost. In California at the time, that was like eleven dollars a credit hour. And so I worked thirty, thirty-five hours a week, went to community college, lived at home, and was able to transfer, ultimately with basically no debt from my community college years, working and learning.
And so the advice that I give to a lot of young people: if you don’t have that direct path to a four-year university or an apprenticeship or some other training program or job, and you’re figuring it out, community college is a great place to do that. If you don’t have the answer for where you’re going to be next, it’s lower risk, lower cost. And this is the advice that I give to my own nieces: if you’re figuring it out, find the low-cost option. You don’t go to the flagship university to figure it out.
Amy Hulst:
Steve, we’re gonna move a little bit into talking about Together We Climb. One of the things that I know about you is that you are credited with naming the book. So how did you come up with Together We Climb?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Well, I think part of it is, like, we wrote this thing together. And so the entire experience and the journey of writing it was this act of togetherness, where Jason was bringing this lived experience, this experience of working with families and individuals on the ground. I brought my experience at the national and the state level, from a policy perspective, that lens. And so together we really navigated the writing, the messaging, the stories.
Throughout this whole process as well, what we kept coming back to is nobody who has climbed out of poverty did it alone. Everybody did it with someone. Whatever step that was along the mountain, whether it may have been a family member, a neighbor, a friend, a teacher, none of us got here alone, on our own. There were people alongside us, holding our hands or walking alongside us throughout that journey. And so that act of togetherness had to show up.
And then with the Mountain Model, climbing was the natural metaphor. And so Together We Climb was sort of a natural title to come out of the book. And it also evokes some really, really cool imagery for the cover, as you can see as well. So I think it worked out.
Jason Janz:
Steve, you know, two and a half years ago we had no book, and we didn’t even know each other. So it’s been a bit of an interesting journey. We were introduced by a mutual friend over Zoom. And then you said, “Hey, I’ll be in Denver sometime in the next little while. Let me pop in and see the work.” And so you popped into our nonprofit, and we spent some time there, and I mapped out the Mountain Model in more detail, kind of our framework for looking at poverty.
And on the way out, I remember you walked out of the building. You were probably ten feet out the door, and you turned to me and you said, “Hey, you know, I think that should be in a book. And if I wanted to write one, I’d write it with you.” And you walked to your car.
And then I forget if I emailed you or you emailed me in the month that followed. But I had been doing some research around thought leadership stuff, and I stumbled upon these different avenues of publication. And I sent you an email, and you said, “Hey, let’s go for it.” What made you jump in and say, at this stage of your life and in your career, you wanted to tackle this work on poverty? Because it took way more work, I think, than either of us planned on it taking to get it out the door.
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah. So one of the things that struck me when I was visiting CrossPurpose, when I came out for the first time and I was in the building, I just felt the energy of people moving around. I watched people helping people. I saw the family, for lack of a better word, the family that you’ve built there.
One of the core tenets in the work that I’ve been driving for years is that every person has agency, every person has dignity. You know, that’s inherent. And what you’ve built, and what I experienced at CrossPurpose, was a respect for the agency and the dignity. I was watching people as they were supporting each other through a program that you’ve built, where people were just surrounded by relationships. I could tell they had a network. The institution of CrossPurpose was present and there, but it was the people and the relationships that I could feel when I was there.
You were just helping them exercise that agency. You were respecting their dignity as people on their own individualized path, and I loved that. And so I think too often in society, we underestimate people. We underestimate what they’re capable of, and we overestimate what a program or what the system can do. And you had flipped that script. And so I loved that.
You know, you essentially had built something that put people first. And that was unlike many of the programs I’ve seen out there. And so I just knew we had to tell the story.
And when we set out to write this book, we didn’t necessarily know that we were going to marry policy with programs with people. And I think we ended up doing it pretty brilliantly, because you had the stories, because you had built this family at CrossPurpose with all of these lived experiences. Because you didn’t come in and say, “Here’s the path you’re going to walk down.” You came in and said, “What’s the path that you feel like is going to work best for you and your family? And then how can we walk alongside you in that journey to keep you moving forward?”
And so everything I had seen and read out there, though, came from this very parental, pejorative sense of poverty. It was like, we’re gonna parent and protect, not we’re gonna stand by and support.
Jason Janz:
So then, you know, we have this framework that we affectionately call the Mountain Model, these four steps up on the economic journey: from give a fish, to teach to fish, to equip with a good fishing pole, but we want our families to own the pond.
And then, you know, I remember going out to DC and meeting with you, and you had me meet with some of the people that you support. And you said there, when you were talking to them, “One thing I like about this mountain framework is that it humbles you.” What were other things that you liked about the model, as you’ve been dealing in policy for so many years?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah, it was such an easy connection between the steps. I mean, if you sit in DC or any statehouse or governor’s office and you work on healthcare or you work on the safety net, rarely are you the same person who’s working on workforce programs or education programs, or even maybe talking to those folks. Forget about the wealth-building aspect and economic empowerment. That’s rarely even part of the conversation.
And so I love that in one visual, you were connecting all of this work. And so somebody who’s working on safety net policy or operating a food bank can actually see the connection of their work to somebody buying a house, building wealth, and establishing the foundation for economic empowerment. It may not be directly connected to the work they’re doing that day in that food bank, but they see that they have a touch point to somebody getting there. So I think that’s empowering for both the provider and the practitioner, to see that they’re part of something bigger. They’re not just sitting in one little place.
The thing I loved about it is that it humbles you. So you do just sit in one place oftentimes, and you’ve got to know that. You can’t try to do everything. But it does allow you to say, “I’m part of a bigger picture here.” And I think we even say in the book, a bigger picture emerges here through the Mountain Model. And so that’s really what I loved.
And a lot of the partners that we support in the safety net, education, and workforce space, at that convening I had you come out to, when we asked them to place themselves and their organizations, their work, on the mountain, I think it was both humbling and informative to them to see that there were so many more touch points that they were missing. And that it opens potential for their work. It doesn’t limit it.
Amy Hulst:
Steve, I loved what you said about policy, programming, and people. And oftentimes those three don’t intersect. Sometimes they don’t like to play together. Sometimes they view each other as antagonistic, or not supportive of one another. But I think what you and Jason have really done beautifully in this book and in your work together is marry those three.
But tell me about some things that you pushed back on in Jason’s thinking, as more of a programmatic, people-centered practitioner. And where did he push back on you, where you’re sitting more at the grasstops with policymakers and shakers?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah, I mean, so much of the work I’m doing is around how we design policies or an ecosystem for scale, because policy has to design around scale. And Jason, you’re sitting down there literally holding the hands of people who are climbing out of poverty. So you’re looking at this from such an individualistic perspective, to say, how does this person in this circumstance get out of poverty in this community?
And so that’s where I think a lot of this challenging of our concepts came about, where Jason would say, “Yeah, but you do something at the national or the federal level in a policy like that, that’s just never gonna fly in this community.” Or, “For this family, this is how they’ve experienced that policy, and it just doesn’t work.”
And so where Jason could push back, I would say, think about this policy broadly applied to a million people. Different stories, different circumstances. How do we create policy that’s flexible enough, that’s empowering enough, that it does trickle down, or at least removes barriers and creates the space and the conditions for CrossPurpose and other providers out there to treat every individual and their circumstance humanely, but still be able to leverage the resources and access the tools that are out there, because policy has cleared the barrier, or cleared the way?
Jason Janz:
I think the collaborative journey was a lot less of pushing back on each other and a lot more… I think we actually realized that there were parts of the mountain you were specialized in. Like, I think you took steps one and two, I took steps three and four, and we did a lot of collaboration and said, “Hey, you take that, and I’ll accentuate what you write.” And then we flipped the tables on the other chapters.
But then I remember one thing we totally agreed on is our first draft of the book completely sucked. Because we got into a room and started reading it out loud, and by chapter three, we ripped up the whole thing and said, “We’re starting over,” because we realized it was boring. It was not what we wanted. And I’ll never forget that moment.
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Three days before it was due to the publisher.
Jason Janz:
Right.
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah, three days before it was due to the publisher. I remember I flew out to Denver. We sat in a church in Golden, Colorado, on a Wednesday morning, and we said, “This thing’s crap.” And it was due to the publisher on Friday.
Jason Janz:
Yeah. So we emailed them Friday and said, “Hey, you’re not getting a book today. You’re gonna get it by the end of December.” And we ended up getting…
Dr. Steven Taylor:
And that was the beginning of December. And, you know, we ended up giving him a final product by, like, the end of March. So yeah, there were some key learnings about how to and how not to write a book, or co-author a book. I probably should have gotten to Denver like six months earlier. But we live, we learn, and it became such a better product.
Jason Janz:
I do think one of the things we talked a lot about, that we pushed back and forth on, was the role of the public sector in alleviating poverty. Because on one side, we had seen the safety net as necessary, it seems like, in communities. At the same time, you know, distributed pretty poorly and managed pretty poorly. And then we had seen signs of government programs that have gone south and not done well. And then, you know, we all have friends who think less government intervention, and we have friends who think more.
And then even the place of it in the book, you know: is it the first thing we talk about, or the last thing we talk about? I think we actually had a ton of engaging conversations, and I actually learned a lot on the journey about the role of the public player, not just the private sector and not just the philanthropic sector. I just remember we spent a lot of time parsing that through. Because I think it’s perhaps one of the most broken parts of the whole thing. It seems like there’s not a lot of agreement on it. People aren’t really happy with the results. And so what role should it play?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Well, I think when we start, or if we lead, with government and the public sector, it does become a more polarizing topic. It becomes us versus them. Poverty becomes weaponized. It’s us versus them.
So when we first set out to write this, we were leading with the public sector, because as we kind of framed it through dollars and cents, it was the biggest anchor of the safety net. As we started to think about this book, though, in the public versus the private versus the philanthropic sector, it’s like, if we anchor on government, if we’re anchoring on policy… People don’t live their lives in policy silos. Like, “This is health. Your life right now is anchored into the policies around health and human services, or education, or housing.” People live their lives based on the work they’re doing, the job, the childcare problem they’re experiencing, the lack of transportation to get to their shift at their third job right now.
And so we thought, you start with the person. People live in communities. The first people to wrap their arms around someone in need, in a time of need or trouble, are their friends, their families, their neighbors. And so we totally flipped the script and led with communities first.
And we had this realization that actually community philanthropy, this idea of hidden philanthropy that exists every day, millions of acts of generosity every day, is the most durable social safety net and the most durable form of support. And it’s more scalable than government can ever be, and it’s the most individualized form of support.
And so I think that was, to me, a huge unlock, Jason, when we flipped from public sector to philanthropic and put communities first. That was a massive unlock for me.
Jason Janz:
Yeah. And you were the one that came up with that line in the book, I think, that it’s not a red thing, it’s not a blue thing, it’s a red, white, and blue thing. And even the… if people pick it up, and if they listen to this podcast, they’ll get it. But the subtle cover of the book has red and blue and white on it, for that messaging that, hey, this should not be a partisan issue, how we solve our number one social problem in this country.
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Well, this book is ultimately about the American dream. Poverty is a massive barrier to people achieving the American dream. And so this idea that poverty is not a red or a blue issue, it’s a red, white, and blue issue, because it is about removing barriers to the American dream.
And I think when we focus on the policy aspect, that’s when it becomes a red or a blue issue, or a left or a right issue. There’s a big American middle that doesn’t want to choose between compassion and agency. They believe that you can help someone, that you can empower people when they’re down, walk alongside them, and support them on that journey. And they believe that people are capable of more.
It’s the fringes on both the left and the right that say, “We’ve got to double down.” And that’s just not where most of America’s at. And I think when we really take on this community-first focus, it becomes so apparent that Americans are not on the fringes. They are there, ready to hold the hands of their neighbors.
Amy Hulst:
Steve, what do you think matters on the Hill versus what matters in the neighborhood?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah, I mean, oftentimes on the Hill or in a statehouse, it’s like, if there’s evidence of a problem and there’s a clear need for a policy solution, lawmakers are there to listen. I think an important thing that came out of writing this book is that policy needs to be downstream of culture.
If we were to just go to the Hill or go to a statehouse and say, “Hey, here are five policies, five bills that you should go pass that are gonna solve poverty,” but if communities aren’t organized yet to operationalize that policy opportunity, if families aren’t ready, if there’s a lack of trust or knowledge or transparency about the solutions out there, those policies are gonna fall flat.
And so I think the best thing that we can do, and this is the approach I take when I’m meeting with policymakers, educating their staff: I look at what’s working on the ground in communities across the country, where poverty has stricken communities and solutions are emerging. And these solutions have emerged because a neighbor decided to stand up. A nonprofit leader in the community decided to listen to people experiencing these barriers and these problems, and then do something about it and solve that problem with those neighbors, with those people experiencing poverty.
That’s the kind of stuff where I then say, “Look, this is a proof point that shows where there’s a policy barrier.” We can actually change X, Y, Z within this policy, clear the way, and allow models like this to emerge, scale, adapt, and flourish.
That’s what drives a good policy conversation. When you have proof of what’s working to solve problems in community, it’s not some philanthropic or big national policy organization saying, “We have the solution.” Rather, you can say there are myriad solutions across communities in every part of this country. So we just need to create the space and create the conditions for those models to adapt and flourish. That becomes a selling argument for policy. We have the human story to tell with that. It’s gold.
Jason Janz:
Steve, you said in the book we wrote, “Policy is the echo of a people who’ve already begun to care.” And I think one of the reasons we wanted a book out there is we just need more people to care. But you’re based out of DC. You see this at a grasstops level. Everywhere I’ve been with you, there have been rooms of people talking about large-scale things in states or in regions. What do you think are the top three things that the people of this country are caring the most about, as we think about the mountain and these four steps of economic mobility?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah, I think, right, because poverty has been in the national debate this past year, partly because of changes through the One Big Beautiful Bill, partly due to fraud in certain circumstances. So it’s just become part of the national debate. It’s fired up both sides.
But I think what it’s done as well, and I hope what we do with this book, is build a conversation in this country around helping people who are in poverty. And not just helping them by giving, but empowering people who are in poverty to do more, to contribute more, to do what they’re capable of.
So we don’t just have a conversation around poverty and how to alleviate its symptoms, because that’s what we’ve done for decades: just say what program is going to treat this symptom of somebody who’s living in poverty, and not actually help them escape it. Change the conversation to say, how do we actually help people contribute to their fullest capacity, tap into their full potential, their aptitudes, their interests, their goals, their passions? And how do we support that, so that somebody sees, on their climb out of poverty, the massive potential they have to contribute to society, to their family?
I think people are starting to say it doesn’t have to be a fringe conversation. All boats can rise. And so that’s what I’m hoping this book does. It gins up that conversation and changes it from “let’s keep treating symptoms,” or fighting about how we treat symptoms, to fighting together to empower people to make the most of their life, and to do what we’ve said in the book is the ultimate goal.
Economic empowerment, step four, that’s not the goal. The goal we set out for in the book is human flourishing. And so we were pretty intentional about that. And so when you talk about poverty and poverty alleviation and actually helping people climb the mountain, and human flourishing is the goal, who doesn’t want that? It changes the conversation. And so I hope that’s a massive goal for me.
The other thing that I would hope we can change in the conversation: when we talk about poverty, it’s all about dollars and cents, and it’s poverty lines, and it’s measures. But the poverty line, any of these dollars-and-cents measures that we’re talking about, they’re terrible aspirations. To say, “Man, the federal poverty line, if somebody can just make it above the poverty line, a family of four can make it, just make it above $32,000 a year.” What a terrible aspiration, to say, “Just get there.”
And so I think if we can change the conversation to say getting out of poverty is about reaching your full potential, not reaching an income level. And when you reach your full potential, that means you’re able to fully participate in society. You can show up to your kid’s soccer game. You can show up to church. You can volunteer in the classroom. You have the financial freedom, you have the flexibility, and you feel empowered to contribute to society in ways that, when you’re just surviving, you can’t.
Jason Janz:
I’m gonna get a little wonky with you on policy here, for some of the policy people who are listening in. You were a recipient of the Pell Grant, and it got you through community college, and I’m sure you’re grateful for that help. And then for the last ten years on the Hill, people have been trying to get Workforce Pell passed. In other words, Pell not just for two- and four-year degree schools, but also for credentialing that can get people into careers faster, and into what we call the middle skills. Not high skills, not entry skills, but these middle skills.
At CrossPurpose, the work that we do at our organization is mainly middle-skills credentialing. And then our graduates can move into two- and four-year programs as well. So we were pretty excited when the bill was passed and Workforce Pell for the first time was approved last year and was enacted this summer.
But when you and I were launching the book out in DC a couple months ago, I went to this happy hour and ran into some of your colleagues there. And some of them had worked on the Workforce Pell regulations, I don’t know if that’s the right word. But one of their disappointments was… I call it the red team and the blue team. The red team was kind of setting up the rules, and the red team said, “We want to make sure that there’s accountability for outcomes.” And so the accountability on the outcomes, as I remember, and I might be wrong, but you had to have seventy percent program completion and seventy percent job placement in order to be able to get the money back for Workforce Pell.
And I think if you go to two- and four-year degrees, you roughly get seven to eight thousand dollars a year on Pell. Workforce Pell, I think, taps out at forty-two hundred. So it’s about half of the benefit for a credentialing program. Obviously, those are more inexpensive. But their surmising was that very few institutions are actually going to go after Workforce Pell, because they can’t hit the metrics that were put down by the red team on what it would take to make sure that we’re spending money correctly and getting outcomes.
It was crazy a bit to me, and maybe I’m tipping my hand here, that two- and four-year institutions aren’t required to do seventy percent program completion and get seventy percent job placement to get the larger Pell subsidy. So in other words, it seems like it still favors the wealthy and the middle class. That subsidy is going to help them more than it’s going to help people in poverty. Because it just seems like most people… and the adoption, I think we all see the numbers coming in now, are pretty low on the institutions that are going after Workforce Pell.
I don’t know if I’m viewing that correctly or not, but I did walk away from DC a little bit disappointed in what I thought was very well-intentioned, but might be just handcuffed out of the gate. Thoughts?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah. So I think a couple of things drove the stricter accountability, specifically around job placement. Like the name, Workforce, we had to have a higher bar tied to employment for those programs, simply because there was a lot… This has been twenty-five years in the making. Talking about workforce-type Pell, or short-term Pell, it’s been a conversation in DC for twenty-five years. And so it’s been really hard to find common ground and agreement to finally get to a place where we could approve this. And so there needed to be a higher bar, a higher standard, in order to get this thing approved.
And ultimately, I think it becomes a signal to traditional higher ed for what’s to come. And I agree with you. Traditional higher ed programs, two- and four-year degrees, the bar is so low to participate in Title IV. I think accreditation has largely failed. Because regardless of whether it’s a for-profit, a nonprofit, a public, or a private school, there are millions of students getting degrees and certificates at accredited universities with horrible outcomes. These kids go out, they’ve got a degree that’s worthless in the field, they can’t get a job, they’re underemployed, they’re in massive debt. Their ROI is horrible.
And so when the administration decided to go write these rules for Workforce Pell, they said, “We are going to set a high bar for this. We see what a mess traditional higher ed is, with little accountability, with little skin in the game.” And so, I mean, I applaud a high bar for Workforce Pell.
But what it does mean is a lot of states and institutions are just going to opt out, because they know they can’t meet those metrics. They don’t want to try. Or, if you’re an institution, why would you send a student down a path to go access Pell in a shorter-term but lower-dollar program, which means less revenue for you as an institution, when you can send that student down a degree path where they’re paying you more? They’re going to be a customer, essentially, for multiple years, accessing their max Pell. And so as an institution, it benefits you to send students down that longer-term pathway, not the shorter-term, lower-cost pathway.
And so that’s something that I hope this 70/70 mobility metric changes in the conversation. And I will tell you, it already is. So I’m vice chair of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. We’re the federal body that essentially evaluates the accreditors and recommends to the Secretary of Education which accreditors should be approved as Title IV gatekeepers.
And the kinds of conversations we have at these meetings now, when accreditors come before us: we are holding their feet to the fire. We are demanding better information on outcomes. We are demanding that they do better, that they hold their institutions and colleges to a higher standard. Because to me, it’s criminal that we’re gonna hold this HVAC training provider to a standard and say, “You’ve got to make sure that these students pass, and we’ve got to make sure that they go get a job,” but somebody spending $100,000 for a bachelor’s degree in, pick the field, can get a hundred grand [in debt] for… a barista. Not knocking baristas. That wage certainly doesn’t match a hundred-thousand-dollar-in-debt degree. There’s almost zero accountability on that. I think that’s criminal.
Amy Hulst:
Steve, something else that we would love to ask your thoughts on: the buzzword everywhere, in any conversation in any field, is AI. And as AI changes work and creates more economic uncertainty for our country, for those who are in school, for those who are in the workforce, what worries you, in your seat, about the policy response? And what would a more hopeful response look like?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah, I mean, what worries me is the pace of change that AI is driving, and the disruption it’s driving in the workforce and education. I don’t think our postsecondary education system can keep up with the rapid pace of change, as people are going to start exiting the workforce because their jobs may be disrupted. And they’re going to need to retrain, retool, reorient, maybe start a whole new career. Our higher education system is not there yet. It’s not prepared. It’s ill-equipped to help people get those skills in a two-, three-, six-month time period. So this is where we’ll have to look to alternative training providers, or employers, to start offering these types of rapid reskilling.
It gives me hope, though: AI and the conversation about this rapid change, and really employers and just about every sector of society saying, “None of us fully know what this looks like. None of us are fully prepared, and none of us are fully equipped to navigate this change.” We’re all going into this with a huge question mark. That means it’s an opportunity for us to have a conversation around how we don’t just keep someone from falling when AI disrupts their life or their job and they find themselves on the sideline. But together, we can start to find solutions so that when AI disrupts somebody’s life, those solutions make it easier for them to keep climbing.
Because if all we do is focus on the fall, that exit from the workforce, the stationary positioning on the sideline, we’re missing an opportunity to think about contribution. And I think the theme for me in this conversation today really is about contribution. People want to contribute. The best poverty-escaping solution is a good job with a good community around you.
If we can focus on what gets people back into the climb, not just preventing the fall… People will fall. Let’s not just focus on preventing the fall. Focus on reentering and reclimbing, or continuing the climb, so that people can contribute in new and different ways. That’s the work I’m focused on.
That’s what gives me hope: nobody has the answer. Nobody’s selling the AI silver bullet here. And so it’s a real opening. And I’m encouraged by efforts that I’m seeing from massive nonpartisan organizations saying, “None of us have the answer. Let’s all come together. Let’s figure this out. And let’s not come up with the answer. Let’s come up with a suite of answers to the suite of questions that we have.”
Look, in three years the world could look vastly different. So I think what we’re saying is we just need to be adaptable with all the answers, and we need to be willing to admit when we don’t have it right or when we get it wrong. It’s gonna take some real humility among all the sectors, among all the players, as we navigate AI together.
Jason Janz:
Steve, in closing: we started off, and you told us about the impact of your mom, that she took you to these Chamber of Commerce meetings, and she arranged this deal with the cafeteria lady. Well, just as we finished the book here this late spring, your mom’s health was in decline, and then this summer she passed away.
When you told me about her life, it was moving to me. The legacy she left. And if you’d be open to it, the stuff you told me that she did, and the metrics and outcomes that they actually tracked, I thought were pretty stunning. If we’re gonna get more people to care, more people gotta be like your mom. So could you close by just talking about her a little bit, the work she did, and some of the tributes that came in at her passing?
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yeah. So my mom… yeah, thank you for bringing her up. So she passed away in June. And she’s had multiple sclerosis my entire life. So the only mom I ever knew was one that had MS and was battling this disease. And it ultimately won.
But for the last twenty years, she was no longer employable, if you will. So for the last twenty years, she ended up just volunteering. She volunteered in the same Chamber of Commerce she used to take me to, and make me go to as a teenager to network at these meetings. She was volunteering as an ambassador. She would show up to new business openings and encourage and mentor new business owners in the community, show up to events and sell raffle tickets and be at the registration desk. And she did the same thing for Habitat for Humanity for twenty years in our community.
And at her memorial service, the executive directors of the Chamber of Commerce and Habitat for Humanity both came up and spoke. And just for Habitat for Humanity, they estimated in twenty years she had attended over four thousand events, and had contributed over ten thousand volunteer hours beyond those four thousand events. And that was never for a reward or accolade. It’s because she loved it. She showed up, and it gave her purpose, and it became her passion.
And so when I think about human flourishing: every day she had this disease that was beating her back. And she said, “The day I stop moving, and the day I stop volunteering, is the day the disease wins.” And that’s what kept her moving and fighting right up until the very end. And so when I dedicated the book to her, and when I talk about the power of perseverance, that’s who I look to. You know, when I do the work I do: don’t give up. You keep fighting. There’s always more to give.
But yeah, she had a lot of… a powerful outpouring at her service of folks who just talked about the impact she had, most importantly, on people. And for her… I’ll sort of end on this. She used to say, “Every day, you should laugh at something in yourself.” And she said it every day. And she didn’t… she touched so many lives in our community back home, and that was apparent in all of those who showed up and the stories they shared.
Jason Janz:
That’s amazing. Four thousand events, ten thousand hours, twenty years with a debilitating disease. What a great testimony.
Steve, thank you so much for being with us today. I just want to say, from us here at CrossPurpose, thank you so much for the work that you do on the Hill, which makes the work that we do for our neighbors possible, and more just, and a smoother ascent for them. And so we just appreciate the work that you’re doing, but more importantly than that, the story that you carry in your own life, for the people around you and your community.
Dr. Steven Taylor:
Well, thank you. Thank you, and I look forward to the work ahead, Jason. I don’t just consider you a co-author or a friend. You’re a brother now. So I appreciate the journey we’ve had and the journey we have ahead.
Jason Janz:
I gotcha, man. Thanks. Thanks, Steve.
Amy Hulst:
Together We Climb is officially out, so head to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Books-A-Million to get your copy today.