Hello, everyone. Welcome to our last session for today. Key issues around the world. Before we get started, I have just a few quick, quick housekeeping notes on the right hand side of your screen, you will see a chat box which you can use to chat with other live attendees. We will be taking audience questions at the end of the session. So if you have questions for the presenters, please send those into the Q&A box. You can also upvote other people's questions if there are some you would really like to see answered. And without further ado, I will go ahead and turn it over to my colleague Brian to get the session started. Hello everybody. It's great to be with you virtually, and it's great to be here to help really. And the first day of the All Districts conference, which I know has been off to a great start and to have so many of you involved in Engage has been wonderful. So thank you for joining us. And I'm really, really pleased that we're going to talk today about some of the key issues that we're seeing around the globe affecting advancement. And to do so, I'm pleased to have my colleagues, Pamela Agar, who is our executive director in Europe. So, Pamela, it's good to see you. And Angelica Careaga, who is our executive director in Mexico City, who we talked about Mexico. And one of the things that I wanted to start by saying is, number one, we love to get your questions, so please feel free to submit your questions as we go along. And the other thing that I want to try to kind of set the stage as we talk about issues is we obviously as a CASE, our global association with members in 82 countries around the globe, Unfortunately, the three of us can't cover every issue and all 82 countries in 45 minutes. So we're going to particularly focus on the countries where we're located. So for for me, I'm located in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Angelica is in Mexico City, in Mexico, and Pamela Agar is in London in the United Kingdom, in the U.K. So we're going to focus there, though. We will bring in other countries and other parts of our regions as we talk and where it's relevant. And again, welcome your questions as the conversation kicks off and we get started. So just to start, one thing that I wanted to just kind of share a little bit about kind of what CASE does on the advocacy front. So my role at CASE as vice president of strategic Partnerships and obviously a number of things, but one of the areas that I oversee is our global advocacy work and initiatives. And one of the key pieces that helps us think at CASE about the many, many issues that we could take positions on is what's called our CASE Global policy framework, which is available on our website. But essentially the global policy framework, which is approved by the CASE Board of Trustees, outlines eight kind of broad areas of policy interest that CASE has around the globe. And the idea behind the framework is not that we will take positions on every issue that arises under all these issues, but really provides a framework with which we can think about issues both for country specific legislative agenda, is that we may develop and and approve, but also as issues arise around the globe, it allows us to be nimble and be able to weigh in on issues as they arise in various countries and where we have members and where our advocacy expertise is needed. So I just wanted to share the policy framework is a really, really important document for us. As you can imagine, you can make a CASE that advancement professionals can be involved in almost every issue you can imagine. So we have to have some sense of framework and some decision making and prioritization so that global policy framework really does help us frame the issues. And we'll talk a little about some of the issues at all the issues we'll talk about today. Franklin will fit into that framework. Again, I would encourage you all to please do submit your questions as we go along and we'll get to as many of them as we can once we get that conversation started. More towards the end of the end of our time together. But I guess to get things started. One interesting thing that we'll note about the U.S., Mexico and the United Kingdom for as we look ahead both to the end of this year and into next year, is 2024 is a general election year, federal election year for all three countries, which is really, really interesting coincidence. It doesn't always happen that way. But in the United Kingdom, there is all expectation that a general election will be called by the end of the year next year. So that could be any time in 2024 up to December of 2024. So that is an election that's coming which will potentially have momentous significance for the policy agenda moving forward in the United Kingdom. In Mexico, there also is a presidential election next year. So there will be an election. I'm sure We'll talk a little about that and how that will impact the policy agenda and kind of what's what's happening right now in Mexican government and in the United States. There's a presidential election next year, along with congressional elections that happen every four years. So in November of 2024, we'll have our next presidential election here in the United States. So, interestingly, elections in all three of the countries we're going to spend most of our time talking about today. But I always think before we jump into specific policy issues is important to get a sense of the context of what's happening in each of our countries and regions. So I guess I'll start by asking Pamela to kind of share a little about what's happening in the UK and the United Kingdom. What are what what's kind of the overall political context. Thank you, Brian, and it's great to be with everyone this evening, this afternoon. So yeah, it's difficult to sum up briefly, but I think like many countries, it's fair to say that the UK political context is complex and challenging at the moment. We've seen an unprecedented run of leadership change in the country recently. In the last six years alone we've had five prime ministers, three of which were just last year. One only lasted 50 days. We've had ten education secretaries, five last year. So you can imagine the context. It's been quite challenging to have long term policy activity going on. As Brian said, we're facing a general election next year and if current polling is anything to go by, there's a growing sense we may be seeing a change in leadership in party, but whoever is in power is facing some pretty significant issues and we're experiencing really high inflation, which has created a cost of living crisis. And we're seeing that play out in a high level of industrial action in the United Kingdom at the moment, with strikes impacting all manner of public services from doctors and nurses and paramedics through to transport postal workers and police, the CASE is closed over CASE teachers and strikes even at 150 universities over pay casual contracts, pension workloads. So quite a turbulent cycle time. We're, of course, still facing the fallout of the decision of the UK to leave the European Union. See, I'm so head about Brexit, a huge divisive issue in the UK. You might know that the vote was 52% in favor and 42% against leaving so massively divided the population. And I think it's fair to say the general consensus now is that the restricted freedom of movement of people and goods that that's caused has really held back the economy at an already challenging time. And then I think I'm sure the same with the rest of the world, across Europe, in the UK, with an energy crisis going on, the impacts of the invasion of Ukraine, a much more divided society in terms of political views. So yeah, it's a bit of a bleak picture, but a challenge for any government, I think. Thanks, Pamela. And how could you want to talk a little bit moving across the globe, what's happening in Mexico? Okay. Thank you very much, Brian. Also very nice to meet you all. I'm very happy to be here. Well, I must say that in a way, every country is leading more or less the same situation. I don't know how much you know about Mexico, but we have a president that is in his last year. Everyone knows him as AMLO, Lopez Obrador. He really was the one that developed a new party. Morena That cool where he really arriving to power after almost 18 years of pushing, trying to become a president. He has really during this time doing a lot of changes within government and to the point that right now, 22 states from the 32 states that we have in Mexico, the governors are from this party, which is allowing him to have a great majority in Congress and allowing a lot of the changes that, especially in legislation, do need to have. However, not much because it really changed in certain very important laws. You need to have two thirds where we still have an opposition. Right now we are in the situation where this more in a party is in the process of this defining will. The candidate will be and there is a lot of movement right now with five, three candidates that we have never really seen that in Mexico before. So we have a lot of politics going on into that area when we haven't heard anything from the opposition. We don't have the candidates yet. It seems that there will be some independent ones, but we know that there is a lot of pressure to try and to continue this same party in government so that they continue with all the changes that they called the transformation during this period. It has been a very interesting campaign in terms of migration, as you probably know, has been a lot of pressure where we have a lot of publications of refugees. Just to give you an example, we used to have 5000 a year and now we have about 100,000 per year. A lot of there has to be that relationship with the US and the commitment that we have with the U.S. And on top of that, we also have insecurity that probably you have heard that there is very well located and a lot of it is related to organized crime, unfortunately. But that doesn't mean that we are killing each other, but it is very focused and that is giving a lot of pressure in terms of the mission that we have at the moment, even though still this government has the majority approval when they do this kind of surveys, however, economically speaking, is kind of interesting. I was telling you that this is the first time ever in my life I have seen an over body of the Mexican peso towards the dollar. And we know that part of it is also the investment that the ensuring that is coal investment. A lot of Chinese and foreign investment is coming to Mexico to really helping the infrastructure and trying to improve all that, that then all the transaction of goods that we had primarily with another hemisphere, the United States and Canada. So that has given us strength in our economy in spite of having inflation and and really some employment kind of issues. So that brings universities to really question themselves a lot. Are we ready to face all these changes? So I would leave it with that. But sharing a lot of similarities with Pamela and the United States, I believe. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for that, Angelica. And just to add on from a from the U.S. perspective, as I mentioned, there's I would say economically there are still challenges, of course, with inflation. But I think generally speaking, the economy seems to be gradually improving, though you hear different things depending on the day. And the markets are still pretty volatile on all of that. And I think some of the kind of core concerns that you've had in the UK, for example, with cost of living and inflation are certainly in the United States, but probably not to the same extent. And also obviously some of the energy concerns are not to the same extent as well in terms of those concerns, what I would say about U.S. government and U.S. policy is very partizan, very divided. Right now. We have divided government. So we have a president who's from the Democratic Party, Joe Biden. We have a Senate majority, which is Democratic, but it's Democratic by a very slim margin. So it's 5149 in the Senate. On the House side, it's a Republican majority, and the majority in the House is a very slim four seat majority. So it is about as tight as you can imagine in terms of majority. So while the parties have control, I would put control in quotes of various aspects of government. The ability to really get a lot done is very, very limited. And I think you could see some of that with the recent conversation and debate around raising the debt ceiling, which I think is a pretty unique U.S. construct of having to raise the debt ceiling for borrowing purposes and all of the negotiations and agreements that that had that had to take place over months to get to an agreement to actually move that through Congress. And there are still ramifications that both sides are feeling for having compromised in that that agreement. So it's just tough right now to get anything through and it's just going to get tougher as we get closer to a presidential election, because what typically happens is as you get closer to elections, the parties, instead of wanting to come together and pass grand bipartisan legislation, and you can I guess you could argue whether that's still something that many want to do in the first place. But assuming that most come to Congress to do that, it gets much, much harder when you get close to the election, when you're trying to really emphasize your differences, that you can try to maximize the amount of hopefully in your perspective, depending on which party the majority you have moving into and the White House potentially that you would have moving into an off of the 2024 presidential election. So what we have in the in the United States is something has become a phenomenon with Congress and with generally, which is legislating by deadline, which means we don't see a lot of legislating whenever there's not a deadline. So right now we're kind of in the in the laws of nothing is really imminent. There's nothing that has to pass. The next big deadline are the annual appropriations bills, which have to be passed by September 30th, federal spending. And so that is the next deadline. But beyond between now and then, not a lot of other deadlines to push Congress to do much of anything. So you saw the debt ceiling agreement come together at the last minute because there was a deadline. You're going to see federal spending something happen on that front. And there's a lot of pessimism about whether the parties can come together on federal spending for for the next fiscal year for FY 24. But that will come to a we'll come to a peak once we get closer to the September 30th deadline. So we're in this what I would call kind of lull phase where there's a lot of vacuum for other issues to tend to come to the fore. And I just mentioned. So Congress is one area, but we also have to watch what the administration is doing in terms of regulatory reform and issues. We'll get into that in a second. And also the courts and we'll talk about that as well, because those are two other areas where we always are watching to see what's what's happening impacts our institutions. But maybe and also, if I go back to you for a second, you want to talk a little bit more specifically about kind of the policy priorities that you see in Mexico for colleges, universities and schools and kind of what you would what you would say are kind of top of mind for educational institutions in the country? Well, first of all, I saw a little bit of context. Our higher education is very complex. We have more than 3500 institutions in higher education for a population of 127 million, more or less altogether in the country. However, from those, not all of them are considered good quality. And that's why there is this association that is called the National Association of Higher Education Institutions in Mexico. I know, Yes. Which tried really to gather the, you know, the most kind of best quality institutions, both public and private, is interesting. Two thirds of the educational enrollment is seen in public education institutions and another third in the private sector. However, the majority of the citizens said they're so based on that. A little bit of background, I will say that together all these institutions go together and have pointed out in this kind of 20, 30 vision plan that they have five main areas. Priority number one is expansion of coverage, ensuring quality and equity, which is one of the big challenges at the moment. We only have 38% coverage for the ages that are supposed to be going to to to higher education. However, it is very in a way concentrated in arbitrage in Mexico City primarily. And then from that you can look about quality. Then you can see that those areas that have the least amount of coverage are the ones that have the not the best quality. So governance is very, very much concerned about the quality versus equity and also ensuring that women's role, which is is another big challenge that we have. And the indigenous population, for example, so far we only have 8% of our indigenous population being able to get to higher ed. And there is another one in terms of people with disabilities, learning disabilities, in some of their research, they only have 8% attending higher education. So these are like particular with these government inclusiveness and in that sense for our country of the related to that is the quality of education as we have nine different type of systems of higher education institutions from inter-cultural to technical to public to private and a lot of combinations there really, really realize that is important to ensure this quality assurance. Quality assurance is very popular in Mexico. It is very concentrated in processes and not necessarily about the learning outcomes of the students. So there is a big need of change in that approach, and primarily with all the changes happening in local life. And so they consider that this is a change that needs to be done. Also ensuring to close the gap with those regions and those areas where the quality is not present so that we can give the same opportunities across the generation that we have that's there. One that I can say is that the priority is really working on the governance. There is different type of structures and this is important to our system to ensure that there is more communication, interaction and learning more between each other. I think that in your CASE can provide our support because there there are a lot of issues about how we can coordinated do synergies and instead of competing that this is the way they've been working, they need to start working more collectively as institutions and even private and public together. The fourth one that has been very, very important in our region and in Mexico primarily is a full exercise of social and responsible. They see in higher education as a very important rule with all the poverty that we have on all these contrasting countries that we have where institutions play a very important role in supporting with research and solving problems, to really ensure that these especially those populations that need more to offer what they need to have and ensure that this is going to allow to prosper as a country in a way. And obviously number five, that is not least, but is the budget or finances. I forgot to mention that this is the first time our government has done very severe cuts, being Harriet in particular, all the public institutions. This is the first time I've seen how are the institutions, the public, once struggling with the budget, coming to us, asking for help because they realize that they don't have enough to be able to offer what they want to offer their missions and visions. And the private institutions with the pandemic also have been struggling a little bit with enrollment. So they also kind of have this kind of challenge of that. And there are a lot of initiatives. One of them is that for the first time, the government allowed the higher education institutions to be officially designated as an institution that will be able to deduct donations. But then I will talk about it later, but not that much and with a reason. Just to add, with a recent government, they added security, justice and cultural peace. A lot of this has happened with specially with women. I love the discrimination against women students harassment. These are the issues that are really very hot right now in Cairo's Christian institutions in Mexico, and the government is really pushing institutions to look at these issues to ensure that there are no budget violations. And that and also to reinforce these issues of inclusivity that I just mentioned before that I think is very important institutions to move forward. So that is that is a different approach from the EIB, what you have. But this is what we have in our region and that includes Indigenous disability and also these vulnerable populations that otherwise if they don't have the possibility to go to a higher education, they will not be able to work. And with this government also by law on the public institutions for the first, don't have to be free next year. They're going to struggle even more because they just to, you know, as public institutions they used to charter very small amount, just symbolic, but it was some income for them. But now by law, they cannot charge anything. Everything has to be completely free for our students. And there is this demand of increase in enrollment. So you can see the situation card is facing at this moment. And the last kind of new area is this area about to support in all the United Nations sustainability agenda and looking into climate change and all the issues related that we are suffering for the first time, for example, in Mexico's hot weather that we have never had before. And finally, they are recognizing that institutions have to play a very important role. So these are as a summary, what I can say are the priorities. Thanks to now again, it sounds like, particularly when it comes to, for example, the know tuition for public colleges, universities, that that really kind of cuts against also the budget concerns because my guess is the funding is not keeping up with that commitment from government, which I think is something we see across the globe. And I was going to say, Pamela, if you want to talk a little bit about essentially what are kind of the top issues, you mentioned a lot of the transition with leaders and in education that are happening in the UK government. But you want to talk a little bit about what's kind of top of mind for schools, colleges and universities in the UK. So thank you. I'm I think similar to Angelica's point, that the kind of funding model is probably the most the primary thing impacting universities in the UK. The annual fees for British students at any English universities are fixed at a set level of just over £9,000, and that level hasn't changed since 2012, which means that in given inflation, that fee is now worth about £6,500 per student per year, which is affecting a kind of a real loss. And of course the actual cost of teaching and educating a student is far more than that, particularly for medical scientific programs. So most universities are losing money on teaching. I think a I read a statistic that 32% of English universities reported a deficit in 20 1920, up from 5% in 20 1516. So there's a real issue about ensuring there's a sustainable funding model for universities. There's no public appetite for increasing fees, and there's a fall in student satisfaction around value for money. As a result, I think of universities having financial challenges. So that's a really significant policy point that there's not really much political appetite to to approach. So one way universities are tackling that is through growing their international markets where fees are not capped. And so that leads on to another policy challenge, which is in recent years the government have made a lot of policy changes in reforms to immigration rules and regulations, which are really impacting our ability to recruit international students and attract them to the UK. And so, for example, recently the UK government has set to limit dependent visas for international students. So if you're coming to the UK to do a one year master's program, you can't bring your family members with you. Which measures like that are really impacting how competitive we are and the trend I mentioned and more broadly around a kind of challenges around migration and immigration. The rhetoric around that is creating quite a negative perception. I think of the UK as being a welcoming place to study, which is obviously really impacting our ability to recruit and to make up our funding and deficit. And I'll just make one final point some countries of time, but think about schools that are kind of K through 12 age group. Are state schools obviously grappling with that industrial action and teachers being on strike and the huge issues they're facing with their budgets. But one thing we're hearing frequently from our independent school members is relating to a policy position of the opposition party. So the Labor Party here has confirmed it plans to remove a tax exemption on independent school fees, which could result in parents having to pay 20% more for their fees, which will obviously have a huge impact on families but will have a knock on effect on state schools that may have to then fund and pick up the slack of people who can't afford to send their children to independent schools anymore. So those are probably the three top issues facing all of our sector and our members at the moment. Thanks, Pamela. And I guess just to wrap things up with with us perspective, a number of the same issues. I will say that, you know, particularly costs, particularly in terms of higher education, continues to be an issue. And there's always a focus on at the federal level anyway, finding a way to get additional funding for students to increase the Pell Grant program, which is a huge, huge assistance program that's run through the federal government that helps provide access for low income students is always a priority. And trying to there's been various campaigns that higher education has waged and we've certainly been supportive of doubling the Pell Grant and doing things to help increase access to to institutions. A lot of focus on getting it for those institutions that are focused on research, on more funding for research innovation, but also a concern around the relationship between institutions and foreign countries and governments, much more scrutiny of those relationships and that involvement. And so that's certainly brought up some scrutiny up on Capitol Hill and brought some additional potential legislative risks for institutions and also just some conversation about what's the right approach and what's the to those types of relationships. So that would be another kind of key area. And I also think that, you know, various institutions, depending on their on their focus, are interested in a variety of other aspects of what government is funding from sustainability. And climate change, I think is probably an issue that institutions have across the globe and an interest on. Just dig a little deeper on on the advancement side and some of the focus areas and issues. A couple of things just to mention on in terms of philanthropy and charitable giving and today actually giving us a study which looks at giving across in the United States, across all of the charitable the charitable sector came out with results from their 2022 data, which showed that giving overall went down by three and a half percent last year and adjusted for inflation was down 10%, which is a huge decline compared to what we typically seen most recently from giving USA results. So there definitely is a sense of the increased uncertainty. Some of the stock market volatility, particularly weakness in the last part, latter part of 2022, which impacted giving to educational institutions but to broadly to charitable organizations overall. So we of course, have been really working hard to work up on Capitol Hill on a bipartisan legislation that would actually expand the charitable deduction to the 90% or so of Americans who don't itemize their deductions so that they can benefit from a charitable deduction as well. So we've been working to get what's known as the charitable act in place. And I think the data that came out today is even more important as we look at other ways to incentivize charitable giving through policy, which is always obviously a key concern. There are also been other issues at the federal level. But I also want to mention in particular at the state level in the United States, there's been a lot of state level legislation, particularly related to DB issues, diversity and inclusion of belonging, efforts to limit the EIB. There's been other state level issues around that I think really go to institutional autonomy and focus that have been an issue. And a lot of times those issues that start at the states end up becoming federal issues over time. So certainly issues that we are aware of and watching as well. And then the final thing I'll mention, I mentioned that Congress is one place where we watch legislative action in policy, but the Supreme Court is going to be another area we're watching, particularly over the next few weeks, because we anticipate a couple of big decisions coming down from the court. One in particular that is on everybody's mind is students. Is the is the affirmative action CASE that's in front of the court right now. It's students for their admissions versus Harvard University and also versus University of North Carolina, which Chapel Hill, which had been combined into one CASE in front of the court. We are CASE supported in amicus brief that said there should be the court should continue to allow race conscious admissions as a factor in a holistic admissions process, as is the CASE at both of those institutions. And we were joined, I should say, we joined the American Council on Education amicus brief on that with a number with about 30 or so other higher education associations that had that decision, which is expected to come down any day now, almost certainly have implications for not only college universities, but also for our schools as well, and for independent schools and other schools because of what it will mean for how to ensure, depending on how the ruling goes down, how we can ensure diverse classes coming into our educational institutions across the board, and how independent schools can help ensure that there are diverse student bodies. Diverse applicants help their applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds, diverse backgrounds have access to colleges, universities and education. So we did a webinar a week or so ago that you can find a recording of that is available on preparing for the ruling, and we're going to be having a few a few programs, including an updated a session of their CASE summit in New York City, will focus on what to do now that the ruling is out. Once we know the ruling, it can have a lot of broad implications just beyond admissions. So we're watching that ruling very, very carefully. So just a couple of the things that we're watching from the perspective of of what's happening in the US. Let me just take a moment to pause, because we've been through quite a few issues and just to remind everybody to please ask your questions. We're going to go to those here in a minute or two. I just wanted to add before we jump any further, I just want to talk about some of the common issues that we're seeing across across the globe and in particular, focus on a couple of areas that I think are of interest. And so one, Pamela, is I'm wondering if you could talk about something CASE was involved in a little over a decade ago, the UK match funding scheme and kind of what we've learned from that project. And then I'd like to kind of turn over to Angelica to kind of talk about how that we're trying to use that particular example in Mexico. Yeah, of course. And so back between 2008 and 2011, the UK government made £200 million available from match funding initiative in England, which was intended to incentivize giving to universities, but also to encourage professionalism within institutions. And philanthropy was still relatively new here then. And so alongside that match funding program, it included an extensive program of capacity building, training and fundraising, which was delivered by CASE Europe during that period. And I think for many institutions at all levels in the match funding scheme, they really found that helped attract new donors and added urgency to giving for both new and existing supporters. And during that time period, the government matched funding payments of £143 million, triggered by £580 million spending from donors. And so I think obviously the benefits of establishing more of a culture of philanthropy was really important. But I think the real lasting legacy of it is that catalyst it created in terms of professionalizing the role of fundraiser and building that capacity in institutions which any institutions who have built on that. So you're really seeing rewards today. That's great. Well, and and help you talk a little bit how we've been working with the Mexican government to try to think about a similar program in Mexico. Yes, we we were very excited with what happened in the UK and in a way, we share with our Mexican government, even with some representatives of the Congress, say what happened there. And it was very well received at the moment. We have been doing a lot of lobbying, particularly some members of our regional council member. Council members have been very active with me in doing lobbying proactively with the Ministry of Education, sharing the impact that really that kind of scheme was in the UK, because in Mexico, primarily public universities are not place members. We have very few, therefore they don't know anything about advancement at all. So we've recognized that we need to do some capacity building in a more strategic way and one thing to do is really to be led by the government. So the idea is really working with the world together so that we train a very specific of the presidents of the situations, as well as to director level people that will be leading the fund raising scheme. So that then that will compensate with a cost that the universities are receiving. So that is the presentation is not going to be matching funds yet per se. But the initial instrument that we are going through is the ministry doing the course. Then the Minister should support building that capacity building in a very initial stage where then the universities can continue to invest in. And so we are crossing our fingers. Yeah, well, and I appreciate that. And I'll get also, Pamela for that background. I think one of the things that we're trying to do a better job at at CASE as we continue our global growth and representing so many different institutions in different parts of the world, is find examples where we've had success, where we've been able to see some success and build capacity in whatever advancement discipline. We we've seen that success and then translate that in a way and take those models and examples across the globe and also just share that in the it the Australian Government just created, I should say, is in the midst of a philanthropy inquiry that's being run by the productivity Commission, which is a commission that's set up by the Australian Government. And as a part of that they were seeking comments from stakeholders about ways to double philanthropy within Australia by 2030. And as a part of that we pointed to in our submission in CASE filed a formal submission to the Productivity Commission and part of our proposal focused on the match funding as an opportunity, having a match funding program within Australia that would help build that capacity, both the capacity for institutions where the government would help match funding, depending on how much, how many resources the institution had, how long they've been doing fundraising, but also then also investing in building training capacity and capacity there. So we're trying to find those types of models and bring those models that have been successful to other parts of the globe. And that's also true with things like focusing on other charitable giving incentives to focusing on other legislative issues, foreign influence, which we talked about, which has been both an issue in the UK and the US, tried to share as much information across boundaries as we can across the globe so that we can represent CASE and really bring that global focus that we have that that global power that we have as an association to bear in all of these policy issues. So that's been really, really refreshing. I want to pause here because I want to make sure and see if we have any questions that we can turn over. We have a few other questions we could ask, but we want to open it up to you and see if we've had any questions. So, Kristie, I don't know if you have a question that you could share. Yeah, I absolutely do. We've got several. So someone asked with the complex economics of the instability impacting our communities, how do we inspire donors to close the gap? Well, Pamela or Angelica, you want to do either you want to take that question first. I mean, I think my my my response was really around storytelling. It's it's around, you know, really working hard to to explain the situation, but not always in a very bleak, oblique way, really demonstrating that the impact that they can have and, you know, ensuring that that can really demonstrate that it's worth investing in. So I always feel that that kind of ability to to tell stories in a really compelling way is the only anything that's going to work. I agree with Pamela and when you have data, for example, we have data where a graduate from higher education airs more even 26 points from those that only have basic education and then nine points more than those only have high school. So that kind of possibilities employment obviously then has to be a strategy from that. Also from the private sector offering the jobs because it is it has to be linked. But if you let them know that this will help to have a better society and transform it into that with that storytelling that you're saying, but with more data than those who have the money will be willing to give. And this is what we are trying to do, because that gap, even in my country, is really huge because we have a population that they cannot even enter tomorrow. You know, it's a very good that the only thing I would add to it is just as we talk about, you know, the important role that philanthropy plays in private support, it's also important to know that private support and flat fee is not a substitute for critical government funding. It will never be a substitute in any of the countries that we're talking about and countries beyond. It is really meant to be to be additive to the work to help you achieve your mission, to help support the institution. But the government funding is critical. So if we get to a space where it feels that we are trading one for the other, that's not a great place for us to be as institutions. And also just from a schools perspective as well, just critical to talk about the importance of private support and philanthropy for schools in the work that happens at the independent independent school world as well, and making that CASE for that does drive the mission forward. And again, there's the core of the tuition and fees and all that. But from an access perspective and affordability perspective, that private support is just critical to open up schools, diversify schools and provide more opportunity. So I think it's important to to to remember a couple of those issues as well. As you think about that CASE, Chris, you have other questions. We do. So someone also asked in the U.S., there's a lot of discussion around declining university enrollment and retention and the coming enrollment cliff. And so is there are there any thoughts or high level initiative ideas around this? And I think we can also sort of broaden it and ask if that's an issue being faced in some of these other countries. You guys are about. Yeah, I mean, it's been an issue. I guess I'll start with this one. It's been an issue in the States. It's something everybody's been looking towards, which I would say with trepidation for sure, with the demographic cliff. And for those who don't know, it's the essentially the fact that come 28 with the Great Recession, there was a dip in overall birth rates. And so we're hitting that time period where there's a decline in the number of students potentially. You'll be enrolling, though, of course, I would remind folks that students are not all only just traditional age students as we think about them. There are a lot of other nontraditional students, as we would call them, which almost needs to be changed to traditional students at this point because there are so many. But essentially that's the concern and just concern about enrollment generally. And it depends on the institution and the states. There are certainly institutions that are having challenges with enrollment, are having trouble actually accepting more and more students at their institutions, but also a lot who are struggling with enrollment where that continues to be a concern. I would say that key to a lot of this work is a couple of things. One is, of course, the focus on how we can support institutions and provide the resources and funding that they need, whether it's government funding or through private support as well. So they can do that. But also I think we have to look at the overall perception of education in our countries and particularly in the states. We have a very right now a very partizan split between how Republicans and Democrats view higher education, whether it's a positive net, positive on society, as long as there's a split. It's one of the reasons why we at CASE have been so focused through Discover the next and some of our other focus on documentation and really talking about the important role that that education plays, how it can open doors, how there a variety of pathways, education. There's not just one pathway to achieving education. It's not all about degrees, it's about certificates, it's about credentials in other ways. So to the extent that we can really demonstrate the value of our institutions in how they open doors and how their variety of pathways to seeking education, I think that will be critical to helping address that. The real concern of the enrollment cliff. But I don't know. Pamela or Angelica, if you guys want to weigh in on on enrollment and how that how that's looking in your countries. Well, what I read, we're still kind of flipping off because recently high school was made mandatory. So we are seeing the results because it's not the age population that we have. The trouble that Tony is having the students with the preparation to enter university and they made it mandatory. Now we are seeing more possibilities. How depends on the university and the region and where you're located. UNAM, for example, we're not from university. They had a decrease in the number of applications applications this last year, but on the other hand, admitted more than they usually because there is this pressure on immediate. But then to have all the issues of obviously funding. So we see that that is going to be a big challenge and also depends on the subject areas we're seeing with the challenges now, universities are starting to discuss a lot about soft skills to review again the programs we have in the right programs because students are becoming more demanding and in the CASE of Mexico, being open and distance learning has become a crucial. This started before the pandemic, but continues right now. And the numbers are really heating up. So these nontraditional students are growing like crazy. A primarily is distances facilities and the situation that we're living. And I see that in our CASE, we don't have that. But we have other issues previously, which was high school. And I think just to add from a UK perspective, we're certainly we're seeing demand for higher education continuing to rise. It's been rising for a long time and the the admissions service that manages applications going into UK universities is predicting that's going to continue in the years to come despite the kind of context and perhaps because of the economic crisis, actually there's not much else to do often get university, but I think that that's kind of balanced off between, you know, the prospects of that backdrop hitting us and also trying to maintain student quality of experience, quality of education when universities are making a loss. So it's a it's a really tricky balance, I think, for admissions teams in the UK trying to to deal with rising demand when perhaps we can't meet it well enough. But the only thing I'll also add on this that I should mention is the attitude is just the real focus on international students of getting students from outside of country in the country and what those obstacles are. But clearly there's a real in many instances in many countries, a financial incentive to that. It's a way to deal, obviously, with enrollment concerns, but it does cause some political controversy potentially as well, if it if there's a sense that those students are crowding out students who are based domestically, but they're also a lifeline for a lot of institutions to to to to meet their financial goals and to help achieve their mission. So it's one of those issues that we'll have to watch very carefully. I don't know, Kristie. We have time for one more question. Yeah, I think just one more. And actually I am going to ask one that's a little bit more general here. Somebody asked about the latest giving report, which was just released. And I think, Brian, you mentioned that earlier, but they're looking for any key insights that you can kind of summarize. But yeah, I would just say just generally speaking, overall giving in that again, this was giving U.S. So this is a study of giving to the charitable sector in calendar year 2022. Giving overall in 2022 was down across all sectors. The overall number was 3.5%, it was down. But if you adjust for inflation, which of course is critical during a high inflationary time, it actually was down 10.5%. So a pretty significant decline giving to education was down much less. It was down 3%. Obviously not good, but, you know, not as bad as across the across the charitable sector as a whole. But I think I think there's a recognition generally that any time giving is down, whether it's to educational institutions or other charitable organizations, it's not a good thing. And we need to do whatever we can do to bring giving back. The key kind of factors that kind of led to that were a weak stock market. Generally speaking, this is what giving us a pointed to, particularly in the latter half of 2022. It actually matches up with AFP. The Association of Fundraising Professionals has a fundraising effectiveness project study as well, and they also saw giving go down in that last quarter of 2022. So it kind of matches that that was a very weak year end giving, which is usually the most robust time of giving for not only educational institutions but for charities overall. So some sobering results. We're certainly going to be unpacking that. It just came out today, but obviously some to do to to to from a policy perspective, to do things to work with lawmakers, to find policies that will incentivize additional giving and also to get back out there and to encourage as much giving as we can to really, again, make the CASE for the many, many, many valuable needs that we have at our institutions. So hopefully that provides enough of a snapshot for now Kristi. Yes, Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you, Angelica and Pamela. So for joining for great session. And thank you to all of you who joined us today live. If you haven't done yet, please complete the feedback survey, which you can find on the right hand side next to the chat boxes of your screen recordings from all of today's sessions will be available within the next hour and we will upload speaker slides to the resources as they become available. We'll be back tomorrow with live session starting again at 11 a.m. Eastern time in the United States and Canada.

higher education institutions

philanthropy

funding gap

storytelling

sustainability of funding models

recruiting international students

immigration policy changes

tax increases on independent school fees