Yeah, Friday morning, Boston pencils fully let it education talk, educated educators talking
education, free throws, hurdles, all those things. Friday night lights. Yeah, that's what
we were doing on Fridays, but you know, Johnny was thinking as we're coming in to summer,
it's time for a new Friday segment. And I tell you that what I'm really, you know,
thinking about this, I was just like, you know, we've got Jacob Chairman of the Boards are,
you know, he's not, he's not our new producer anymore, but he's there. He's been doing some
just amazing things. And you know, always dropping vocabulary on me that I don't really understand
so that, you know, and he's, yeah, he's an intelligent dude. And he likes the rest his history
podcast, which is, yeah, you know, which is some really good stuff. So I'm thinking and Johnny,
you know, we're kind of teasing this around going like, how about on Fridays, it's Jacob is
truly the producer and control the show. And he's going to just kind of hit us cold with the
stuff he's thinking about, you know, in an education, I don't know, Johnny, I know you, you're
not good on like quick sarcasm. I'm wondering how you're going to be on, you know, the Tim bombs
always dis, discombobulate you. Are you going to be all right? I don't, tell me coming at me hard
right out of the gate. I don't think that's accurate. I think, yeah, I tend not to pick up the
sarcasm, but I'm quick, quick on my feet. I got fast hands. Tim, I got quick rebuttals.
I'm always, I'm always on edge razor tongue. You know, but no, I love it because Jacob is such
part of the show. And we're starting to vibe in gel. And it's been, you know, it's been a little
over a month. And we're getting some good chemistry going with the guy on the boards. And he's got
awesome questions and discussions that he brings up throughout the week. And we thought, you know
what, we've all been to the casino. And we've thought we've gone to the table where it's dealer's
choice. We've all had that, you know, and not to be confused with Sophie's choice. But Friday's
segments can be Jacob's choice. Stuff that kind of pops out to him from the week or, you know,
part of our site conversations that he's like, hold on, I'm going to ask these guys more about that.
Let's talk a little bit more about these, these other exciting things that popped up that maybe
we didn't, you know, elaborate on. And so we kick it to Jacob, especially in the summer when
so many of our essential curriculars that we hit on these segments are also in the off season.
So lots of cool stuff happening in summer. But this is a fun break. And Jacob,
here we are premiering Jacob's choice here on our Friday drop. So, you know, hit us with whatever.
Okay, I'm super excited for this, Johnny. I've been thinking about it all week ever since he
told me about the idea. And part of that is, this is pretty dumb. But I made a little intro for
the segment. Yes, sir. I love it. Yes, we do. Here it is. Tim and I have concocted a
special new segment that's going to start up pretty soon. Jacob, you're going to be,
you're going to be driving our Friday drops. Anything goes. It's going to be producer's choice.
You're in our two choices. Chairman of the board, Jacob.
Oh, Jake, chairman of the board. I've got the board. It's spelled B-O-R-E-D.
We choose to go to the moon. Life's full of tough choices here.
To chose poorly. So I put more work into that, guys, that I have really anything I'm actually
supposed to do around here so far in my three months working for the company. And I'm very proud
of it. I'm very excited. But most importantly, that's just an intro. Now it's time for the
segment, guys. Are you ready? I love it. Let's go. I'm ready, Jacob. Gentlemen, there is no hotter
topic in education this week and really this month than Donald Trump's decision to cut straight at
the heart of Harvard University. Now, how's he doing this? You may ask, is he expelling Goodwill
Hunting from the school? Is he banning Dunkin Donuts from the campus? Is he making legacy admissions
illegal? No, no. We can all agree. Those would be good things. No. What Donald Trump's doing is
he's threatening not to issue visas for foreign students to come and study at Harvard.
Now, gentlemen, I would like to hear your opinions. Is this as bad as it sounds on a straightforward
level or as some Trump supporters say, is this a chance to knock down and create some structural
change? Well, this convinced higher education, especially our Ivy League, not to depend so much
on foreign students who they can charge out the Yazoo, Johnny, and start to be a bit more competitive
for American students. Gentlemen, the time is yours. I'm going to leave now.
I, okay, I'm going to try to go quickly. Jacob walks off the set. He's like, yeah, I'm going to
just let you guys handle it. Okay, I really, the way he was kind of teed that up for us is he's
going, hmm, it could be a little bit of both. I got to take this though from the standpoint of
going, it's bad policy. It's Trump doing anything he can to keep him, him in the news. Now,
whether he's going to follow through with any of this, make any but happen, I mean, this is just
the constant noise that Trump continues to actually thrive on because it is something that,
you know, he likes to hear his name in the news. And as I've listened to a couple other people,
it's really a pretty darn good strategy because we get really sucked up by all of the things
that he's doing. And then we forget to pay attention to the things maybe that really, really matter.
So Tim, you're saying you think this is all just a big distraction from the master 5D
chess player, Donald Trump, to trick us into not paying attention to his true machinations.
No, he's not playing 5D chess, but I just wanted to point that out there. He's barely playing
two-dimensional checkers, I would say. I would say too. What, what's happening, though, is that I
think there is a legitimate critique that you just brought up, Jacob, which is, you know, relying
on international students as budget cogs. In other words, to say, let's, you know, charge as much
as we can because we can balance the budget. And I will say, though, for Harvard, that's actually
nonsense because they don't need to bring international students and charge them exorbitant
rates to make their budget work. Their budget's always going to work. In fact, I'm going to point,
they probably could bring those international students actually on full scholarships and
still be quite okay by the simple fact that the tuition they're charging American students
is way more than enough to continue to make bank. But this, though, when you're talking about
from the standpoint of access, though, you know, here's something Trump, I would like him to
actually talk about, which is to say, for an institution, and not just Harvard, but any of these
places that really, truly, as you say, legacy admissions just happens, you know, your connection.
How many students out there who have the ability to be a Harvard student, to be a Cornell student,
to be a Bowdoin student, you name it, right? They can't get in and they never will get in.
Why? Not because they're not capable, but because Harvard's really play the game of making them
a luxury product that is only accessible to a very small minority of people. And that, in my
is to say, I would like to see something being done for all of these mega-exclusive schools,
to say, when are you going to open the doors for all of the students that really could
deserve a chance and could do incredibly well and actually take away some of that kind of
elitist stigma. That's my take, Johnny. Yeah, man. I mean, for me, Jacob, I love this. This is a hot
topic and it's an interesting one because, you know, like, I like wrestling, WWE, I like the
theatrics. I also like reality TV, you know, Bravo, bro, self admittedly here. I like some drama.
This is actually pretty serious, but it's a kin. You know, this to me is just part of the storyline
of Trump's, like you said, Tim, Trump's whole big noise. And this is about the ongoing beef
between Trump and institutions he's beefing with. One of them, Harvard, they're, you know,
they're easy target to say, like, yeah, it's full of woke individuals. And, you know, I think
recently this week I saw a headline that, you know, the administration was attacking LGBTQ
graduates and things like that. It's like hate speech coded into beef, you know. And so I think
this is just another, like, part of that storyline. It's, it's another chapter in the Trump
versus the supposed elite in higher ed who expose, you know, some of the fallacies and weak points.
It's also another way to do a coded attack on the working class. Not a blue collar scholar here.
And say, like, he's couching this whole thing. Like you said, Tim, there's a valid critique in all
this in terms of, you know, not relying on international students in terms of tuition, you know,
you know, short fallings and things like that. But if he's truly what you say, he's truly doing this
to create more opportunity for students here in the United States, particularly from the working
class, which is like right in the wording of his own rationalization and justification for this
lawless, right, for this lawless attack on Harvard. Of course, Harvard is, you know, the other
counterpart to this is its unified Harvard. Yeah. Like they have a, like, like, you know, a historically
a space of a historical dissonance amongst like, is it conservative? Is it like, if we really
get into sort of the research Harvard puts out, it's pretty across the board politically.
And so, but if it's done one thing successfully, it's unified those people to be like,
hey, man, if this guy, like he can't do that. So that's interesting. But I come back to this
coded attack on the working class, which is a signifier of the Trump administration. It's that, you
know, if you really, sir, if you really want to create more opportunity for the working class,
how about you convince your fellow Republicans and the House to drop their new budget changes
around financial aid for higher education? This stuff that they're doing is actually restricted,
large number of working class students from being able to attend even trade schools.
Right. So if you're, if you're really all for, you know, like learners here in the United States,
having more opportunity than be all about that. I'm all for that. Instead, what you're really
about is your next beef, your next saga, you know, in the, in the ongoing feud that you have with
people who speak truth to power on both sides of the spectrum politically. But really, you just
are beefing. And this is just one of the, one of the punches thrown from your direction,
the Trump administration, at higher education, you know, saying, well, we want to create more
opportunity for young people in the United States, especially those in the working class. I mean,
Harvard already has reduced tuition at the, I believe relatively, I want to say free because
nothing is free, but significantly reduced tuition for anybody in this country who is qualified
to attend Harvard and whose household income is below a certain level. I mean, this constitutes the
working class and the working poor in this country. So Harvard is not an institution that has not
been accessible to people in the United States. So this is like a coded way. And to my say,
that is it's also a strategic punch thrown because yes, it fits into his personal beef and we know
the guy loves his beefs, right? But we know because I mean, he likes McDonald's, McDonald's,
like corn beef and all the beefs. But in general, what this does is it sends, you said this before
10. No, I'm borrowing your words. It sends a chilling effect. Yeah. It sends a message out across all
these institutions of higher education. Like, oh, no, this could be, this could be us. Good thing
it's not us. It's like, hey, he's picked a fight with a particular university strategically.
That university is also unified in its response. You know, they pretty much have clapped back and
said, good luck with that. That's not going to happen. We will not comply. We'll continue to not
comply. And therefore, we have a good old fashioned like like WWE, a good storyline going here
that we can continue to follow. But again, I just want to highlight to me that the piece is like,
it's a coded way of like, it's a dog whistle for saying, hey, I'm going to help you working class.
But really, he's not helping anybody in the working class. You know, it's also a sign of irrationality
because like, this is lawless. Like, you really can't do this. So it's sort of, I've said this
before, I'm going to say it again, it's sort of like any parent out there when you've been caught
in like a power struggle with a young person, especially a teenager. You're like, guess what,
you're grounded this weekend. You know, and they might say, I hate you or no, I don't care. Like,
like, you know, you don't love me. And then, and then you say, oh yeah, it's two weeks. And they
say, oh yeah, I have you. And you say, oh yeah, you're grounded for three years. It's like, they know
and you know, they're not grounded for three years. It's like one of those escalated beefs that
that just gives to be irrational and ridiculous. But I don't want to downplay it, Tim, because you
hit on this several times before that this stuff has a chilling effect and this stuff matters.
And to me, that's why I wanted to highlight Jacob. Thanks for teeing that up because I hadn't
really thought much about it in the last couple of days. But, you know, as I revisited and we
were talking about it, I'm thinking, you know, I did catch some headlines where he said, this
is going to create opportunity for the working class. And my blue collar a year went open wide
up. And I'm like, really, really this is this the same way, like people were duped into voting for
you because grocery bills were high. And now they're even higher. Right. This is the same kind of
thing. You actually limited access by poking the bear over at Harvard or across the country. And
and like to come back to you, if you really want to help kids, families, learners of all different
generations that are part of the working class, then get your cronies in the house to drop
their new budget changes, get back to get back to financial aid for higher education. Let's move
towards if we really want to create opportunity, hey, let's do it. So this is just like a populist
movement to really attack higher education and limit the working class even further.
Yeah, I was going to say and Jacob, I really want your take on how we we did because you get to
assess the educators. Oh, you know, for sure. But Johnny, yeah, you know, and what you just said
is an example of what I thought, you know, okay, all of this noise with Harvard, Harvard, Harvard,
Harvard, Harvard. Guess what? Massive budget cut to financial aid for students who need it to get
into college. We're not looking at that big beautiful bill. We're instead consumed by this Harvard
thing. I, Jacob, chairman of the board, how do we do? And I know we're getting tight. And I don't
know if you're going to try to squeeze a quick one in on us. Overall, guys, really strong first
effort. And I admire that. I thought that was really great. We're going to try to do better next
time. Do you guys think you can be here with me next week? Join me again. Yeah, man, we are here with
you. That's that's great. You're driving the bus and I'm on it, man. Let's go. All right. And
so like I always say about populism, not on this show, because I try not to talk too much,
but like bars and stuff. I always say about populism, they can identify things that bother people
and maybe identify some problems. They just come up with really horrible, ignorant dumb solutions
to those problems. And I want to leave people on a note of positivity here on busted pencils.
So I was thinking maybe could you guys give me your 60 second pitch on how we can actually help
working class people get a university degree? Johnny, you want to leave us off? Yeah, man,
provide more access through financial aid to higher education. And even even there I go there,
talk about universal higher education. Let's just provide public education. K through adulthood,
like, hey, you want to you want to get into the trades, trade schools and option, like register here
and you qualify, especially if you're citizen of this country, right? It's part of tax-funded
efforts to keep America great. It doesn't need to be made great again. It needs to be kept great
with changes. So that's my 60 seconds or less pitch, less really support, you know, families
and working class kids. And you know, instead of funding tax cuts for the rich, you know, put
put some of those dollars towards continued education for great people in our communities.
Oh, Tim, Tim, that was good from Johnny. I don't know. You got to do your 60 seconds. I can't
top that. I can't. I don't know if I can top that because I'm going to do the old Johnny said,
what I want him to say. You know, you get to go first, Tim. No, but I mean, yeah, access, right?
Okay, access. But then and people I talk about this, you know, access, but access with resources,
the resources that allow the access then to be meaningful. And I love what you said, Johnny,
to any type of higher education, trade school community college, we see community colleges now
really stepping up. But yeah, you know what, higher education, education, it's a right. It's not,
it should not be a privilege. And so I would point that out and say, what can we do? We can
really create a movement of people talking about going the right to education is what we have
by being Americans. And yeah, that is what continues or could really make America great. So Jacob,
with that, I would say now is time for your moment of Zen.
Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population
whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion be taught that all is right just as it is.
Oh, thank you for listening to this episode of Busted Pencils. Jacob's producer's choice.
Remember to grab great podcasts full with more Busted Pencils content on Apple podcasts,
Spotify, and of course on the civic media website or at BustedPensils.com. Hey, don't you
dare be late for home room on Monday and be sure to grab next week's class and session on Wednesday.
And if you don't already know, then I'm going to tell you and you're going to love it.
You can catch BustedPensils broadcast, 3P of essential time every Saturday across all the civic
media network stations for one hour of your favorite blue-collar scholars, Tim and Johnny,
and keep BustedPensils.