Leading Through Change: Overcoming Challenges in Educational Leadership

On this episode of FYI we sit down with Carlos Cano and discuss how he leads his team through challenges and growth.

Subscribe for Updates

Don’t miss a single episode—subscribe today for the latest content!

Who is Carlos Cano?

Carlos Cano is currently serving as the Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Stevens Institute of Technology. He is a well respected and recognized leader in student recruitment and enrollment marketing.

In this Episode

Carlos Cano, Director of Undergraduate Admissions at the Stevens Institute of Technology, joins FYI host Gil Rogers to talk about what it’s like steering a college’s admissions helm in 2024, against the backdrop of an ever-shifting landscape. Carlos and Gil discuss subtle shifts in student preferences in the wake of the pandemic and the complexities of recruiting in a densely populated state like New Jersey.

Discover the delicate dance of patience and grace in the university admissions scene, particularly in light of FAFSA delays that put students and families on edge this year. Carlos brings his experience and wisdom to the table to let us know that however it goes, it will all end up okay. 

Listen to FYI on your favorite podcast platform!

Episode Transcript

Navigating This Year’s Higher Ed Challenges with Carlos Cano 

Publishing Date: April 9, 2024

[00:00:00] Gil: Welcome back to FYI, the For Your Institution podcast, presented by Mongoose. I’m your host, Gil Rogers. And today, I sit down with longtime friend and colleague, Carlos Cano, who is the Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.

We talk about a lot of things, ranging from navigating constant change to supporting our teams and being a part of the team on the front lines. Let’s listen into the conversation. Hey, Carlos. Welcome!

[00:00:35] Carlos: Gil, thanks so much for having me. Pleasure to be with you.

[00:00:38] Gil: Awesome. Well, I know this is a super, super busy time of year for you. So, I appreciate you taking the time to hop on. Before we hop into the conversation today, we’re going to be talking about Yield in 2024 and what that means now with everything that’s been going on.

But for those who may not know you and may not have in connected with you over the past number of years in the higher ed world, love for you to, kind of, share your story and how did you get to where you are. What are your passions in and out of higher ed? Would love to get to know you a little bit.

[00:01:06] Carlos: Awesome. You know, again, thanks, Gil, for having me. We go back a long time. And so, it’s great to have, sort of, a full-circle moment. But yeah, my name is Carlos Cano. I’m currently the Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Stevens Institute of Technology. I’m in year 14 in higher ed, all in admissions and enrollment. My story starts as a tour guide. I’m the tour guide turned admissions professional.

[00:01:31] Gil: Yep.

[00:01:32] Carlos: When it was time for me to graduate, I didn’t want to graduate, but I also didn’t want to pay tuition for the rest of my life. So, at the time, someone mentioned to me, like, “Hey, you can work at a college and, kind of, do the same work that you’re doing, just on a different level.” Right? And so, I graduate from my alma mater, William Paterson University. And that’s where I got my start in admissions and enrollment.

I was there for about seven years, then transitioned to a position as an assistant director for admissions, marketing, and communication at Maritime College, which is part of the SUNY system in the Bronx. And did that. Then the pandemic happens. And I thought it was a bright idea to transition jobs during the pandemic. End up at Georgian Court University, a small regional Catholic institution in Central Southern Jersey, depending on who you are.

So, I was there for three years as well. And most recently, again, now, I’m at Stevens. I start month four on Monday. But it has been great. And at the end of the day, I love the work. I love what I do despite the ups and downs.

And this year has been a crazy one in itself, continues to be one, but it’s part of the reason why I love the work. I love being able to see these challenges, work with great people to help our students and families navigate this all-evolving process.

[00:03:02] Gil: Yeah. So, let’s talk about Georgian Court for a second. It’s Central Southern New Jersey. You’re using geographical terms. You’re supposed to say which exit, right? That’s what you talk about.

[00:03:12] Carlos: That is a great point. Yeah. So, Georgian Court was 98 on the Parkway.

[00:03:16] Gil: There we go. So, for those who know, you know. One of my favorite t-shirts that I have had for a very long time, this is when I was traveling New Jersey for University of New Haven, I think. My last exit from New Jersey one travel season, I got off at the Vince Lombardi Travel Plaza, as I usually do. And I got my New Jersey Turnpike t-shirt because that’s what I needed to get.

And I had that for the longest time. So, lots of good memories from traveling New Jersey. And for admissions counselors out there that have run the road, and have done New Jersey as a travel territory, there’s 65 college fairs every single night. And if you miss one stop on the Red Bank Regional Consortium, you’re now booted out forever, right? And so, the pressures of the roadrunners, right?

[00:04:01] Carlos: It is. We’re making it better, though. We’re making it better. One of the things I’m involved with, New Jersey ACAC. And I’m actually chair of our college fairs and our college fair registry. And so, we’re making a dent. So, we’re not at 65 college fairs. We’re more at, like, 62.

[00:04:16] Gil: 62. There we go.

[00:04:16] Carlos: So, we’re working on it, we’re working on it.

[00:04:17] Gil: Marginal impact, right? You know what? That is part of the charm, though, right? And I think back to my time as an admissions counselor, and I had New Jersey in my territory at two different schools, right? And there’s a certain rite of passage to recruiting in New Jersey with the spacing of the schools and the volume of opportunity.

There are so many students in such a small geographic area, relatively speaking, like, states like New Jersey and Alaska and, you know, big, giant places. And so, it’s a, it’s a lot about particularly for the Southern New England area schools, New York Metro, Mid-Atlantic.

And this isn’t the topic of the conversation, but just thinking about it, like, recruiting students in that area, we talked about what got you into the role and what keeps you here, how do you compete in a market like that where they can stay in state, but the ones many that do go to a large public school, or a couple of smaller private schools, or they can go out of state to all these other places that are sending hundreds of admissions counselors to come and see them on a day-to-day basis? What keeps a student in New Jersey?

[00:05:18] Carlos: What I’ve found is, I think, that, especially since the pandemic, there is more of a sway for students to actually stay at home or stay closer to home anyway. I think there are students that still inevitably are going to want to leave, but I think that the pandemic has done something for a student who may have thought they wanted to go away, but maybe for one reason or another, now, doesn’t want to.

But I think ultimately, what I’m seeing, at least from the conversations that I have with prospective students, is that they’re more aware of what their options are. They know that they have options right at their fingertips, right at their doorstep, so to speak, if they’re in New Jersey, and they know they can go to any one of the institutions that are in state, but also knowing that they do have opportunities out of the state as well, whether it’s a little further away, whether it’s across the river in either direction, going to Pennsylvania, going to New York, but they have options.

And I think they’re more mindful of the options that they have. So, it does make it a lot more competitive, but again, I just think, anecdotally speaking, from the conversations that I have, students are more willing and more likely to consider just staying-

[00:06:37] Gil: Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:37] Carlos: … within reach of home.

[00:06:39] Gil: And that’s, I think, that’s a reflection of, “post-pandemic world,” right, where when people are familiar with and have been much tighter to their home unit than they might have been in the past, right? There’s that, I don’t want to say, fear of going away, but it’s all-

[00:06:55] Carlos: Yeah.

[00:06:55] Gil: … the more comfort with being closer to home, which has, has its benefits of a family unit being close by for support and those sorts of things.

[00:07:03] Carlos: Of course.

[00:07:03] Gil: So, so, there’s, for sure, an impact there. You mentioned that you didn’t want to get a real job when you graduated, right? And so, that’s, I feel like, how a lot of people… I’m the same, right? When I graduated from the University of Hartford, I didn’t want to get a real job.

I wanted to work at a Boy Scout camp in Minnesota for the summer. And so, the only job I could take was an admissions counselor position at a college because that started in August. It’s when I started having to make my travel plans and whatnot. What keeps you in higher ed and keeps you particularly in enrollment management and admissions?

[00:07:33] Carlos: It’s the people. I know that sounds… at the risk of sounding super hokey, right, and, and corny, but-

[00:07:38] Gil: It, it, it really is.

[00:07:40] Carlos: … it’s the people. And I think, for me, I’ve never been someone who wants the routine on a daily basis in terms of the job, right? So, I don’t want each and every single day to look the same. Each of my days here at work looks different. I’m recruiting because I still love to recruit. At, at my core, I’m a road warrior. Granted, I don’t recruit anywhere near as much as I did when I first started, nor do I want to, but I still love to get out there.

And so, for me, it’s the different groups of people that I get to interact with, so students and their families, but then also on a professional level, so my immediate team, colleagues at other institutions, colleagues like you, Gil, that I’ve had the opportunity to meet at conferences and at different events over the course of time, and just getting all the different perspectives, all the different stories and information in order to be able to craft in addition to what I have going on in my head, in terms of what I’m seeing, being able to have then my own perspective and the things that I want to see carried out by our team and in whatever’s going on at the time. And so, for me, yeah, it’s the people. It’s all the different kinds of people that I get to interact with on a regular basis.

[00:08:57] Gil: I also love what you mentioned there about how no day is the same and no, no year is the same. No cycle is the same. And I think, for a lot of people, this admission cycle was supposed to be the, “return back to a normal benchmarking type of a year,” right? I feel like that’s never ever been the case. There’s always some, sort of, outlier or thing that has impacted the being able to measure things year over year or two years or three year trailing or whatever.

And so, obviously, this cycle, we have the somewhat of a double whammy where we have the families who were entering high school when COVID hit, right? And dealing with what is, for sure, families that are having challenges with, you know, anxiety and, and challenges with the stress and just separation and just understanding the processes.

It’s a different group to deal with than we’ve ever had before. Take gen alpha, gen Z, millennial, whatever out of it. Like, this is just, yeah, the deck that’s been dealt with this class and supporting them through this process. And then on top of that, this group that’s dealing with the stresses for the first time is now dealing with a FAFSA rollout that has been marred by delays and tech glitches and further delays.

And now, I’m seeing institutions who are dealing with, potentially, not only pushing back their deposit deadline to May 15th, but maybe even June 1st.

[00:10:15] AD 1: Discover future applicants, delight enrolled students, and amplify fundraising performance with our Cadence engagement platform’s live chat and chatbot solutions. Designed exclusively for higher ed by higher ed professionals, Cadence helps you engage your audiences with the perfect balance of AI and personal connection.

We leverage proactive outreach and anticipate common roadblocks, knowing the most significant decisions often start with the smallest conversations. Our powerful AI ensures instant support and is smart enough to know exactly when to hand off to a staff member.

And if nobody is available, it allows for easy follow up. Effortlessly integrated with your website, we proudly feature an industry-leading 85% self-service rate. It’s never been easier to make every message count.

[00:11:07] Gil: There’s, you know, these issues and challenges of, kind of, what do we do to best support these students. And so, from your purview, and prior to click and record, we were talking about families and how they’re dealing with the process, what are some of the things you’re hearing from families and talking to them about as they’re trying to navigate this process this year?

[00:11:27] Carlos: Yeah. It’s the uncertainty, right? It’s going through a process that was put out there as being easier now, which, from the feedback that I’ve gotten from students and families, it has been an, an easy process for them to complete the FAFSA, but then just the uncertainty of clicking submit, and then your information is out in the ether, and it’s not getting to the institutions, and students getting feedback that they need to go back in and complete information, but they can’t quite do that yet because the Department of Education hasn’t allowed them to go back in to make certain edits or changes or whatever the case may be. And so, it’s that cloud of uncertainty and being that we’re dealing… It’s not us. It’s not them. There’s basically this-

[00:12:17] Gil: Right.

[00:12:20] Carlos: … middleman, this middle person, that’s the FAFSA, or the Department of Education, or whatever you want to call it. Again, everything is in their hands. And while they have made moves and are doing things to, sort of, expedite this process, it has the timeline that we’re most used to, right?

And again, I don’t know that anyone… Well, I take that back because I think everyone, sort of, anticipated it, right, because even from jump with, okay, the FAFSA is going to be available in December, but again, that could have meant December 1st or December 31st. And then that was, in itself, a thing.

And so, I think from that, we already got off to the bad foot, the wrong start, again, however you want to describe it. And now, we’re just seeing, again, prolonged delays and so on and so forth.

And I think, particularly for institutions that solely rely on the FAFSA to develop financial aid packages and whatnot, again, students can’t make a decision without having that information in hand for the most part because they are relying on some form of need-based aid to be able to see their way through their college education.

And so, all you can do is, kind of, sit and wait and reassure folks that, yeah, whenever we do get our hands on this highly coveted information and where we know that it’s accurate and that we’re going to be able to generate a package for you that we’re going to get it out to you as soon as possible so that you can make the best decision for you.

[00:13:53] Gil: Yeah. And I think the one thing we can all agree on is we can all throw our hands up in the air and blame the government, right, in election year and everything else. So, there’s a whole, like, things we can go down. We’re not going to on the podcast, but we could. And so, I, I think in one of the things that we were talking about earlier this afternoon was the level of grace that everyone is giving each other in this process.

And when we think about, and, you know, you and I go back to the times of, pre-COVID, and COVID, and during that, like, we saw it happen firsthand where, when COVID hit the fan and institutions had to overnight prop-up virtual events and admitted student days and open houses all online, whatever platforms they chose to use at those times, there was a certain level of grace that the audience of those events gave that they wouldn’t give if you had the same problems like an on-campus open house.

Like, microphone messes up when you’re on an on-campus open house, families are like, “My gosh, this school is a mess. Everything is, like… Like, they can’t get their act together.” Your microphone’s messed up on Zoom when you’re doing an info session, people were okay with that because everyone hasn’t left their house in three weeks, and they’re all dealing with the same stresses that you are.

I remember a VP of enrollment telling me during that time that the most popular portion of the session was when his dog came running into his room and barked while he was giving a presentation. And it’s like, that’s what humanized us in that whole process where we were so used to having to be prim and proper and perfect for these in-person experiences. And then during that brief period of COVID, everyone was human, and everyone was able to just be.

Eventually, you have to level up and you have to have a better quality experience, but at that time, it was forgiven. And I think we’re in that same type of an experience right now with financial aid packaging, where families can’t blame you. It’s not your fault. You didn’t mess up the FAFSA release. And like you said, it’s not their fault. They’re doing everything that they need to do-

[00:15:49] Carlos: Yeah.

[00:15:49] Gil: … correctly. More families need to file the FAFSA. And we need to do-

[00:15:53] Carlos: Right.

[00:15:53] Gil: … some catch up there, but again, it’s not their fault that there were glitches on the delay and the, the release was delayed and whatnot. And so, I guess, talk a little bit about what you’re seeing with families and with your staff when it comes to sharing in this process and, and supporting each other.

[00:16:10] Carlos: Yeah. I know, for our immediate team, there are still tough conversations to be had with folks about scholarships and things of that nature, but overall, there is that broader level of understanding with regards to what’s happening with the FAFSA, right?

And so, particularly for folks who are waiting on other institutions to send out financial aid packages so that they can make a more informed decision, again, that’s all we can really do is be able to say, “Here’s all the information we can currently provide you. We know that we’re missing this one piece here that you may still need, but if there’s anything else that we can do to support you in this process, let us know. And we’re going to get back to you with the information that you’re missing as soon as we possibly can.”

And again, like you said, it’s having that grace and having that understanding that it isn’t us. It isn’t them. And again, I think about it every now and again, where it’s like, look, there are people working in the federal government, in the Department of Education who are in similar positions to us in the sense that they could be working on a particular part of the FAFSA or a function or a process. And they may be in the same boat where they have to wait for somebody else to do something before they can contribute their part-

[00:17:38] Gil: Right.

[00:17:39] Carlos: … or whatever the case is, whatever may be going on. So, I think we just need to be able to show each other a little bit of grace and understanding. And we’re doing that, like I said, we’re doing that with our families and saying, “Look, we want you to make a decision, we want you to ultimately come to us, but we understand that you have other choices and that you need that information to make the best possible decision.”

Because what we don’t want is, or at least what I don’t want, is for students to simply make a choice to go wherever just because they feel like they’re being pressured because of a deadline or something like that, and then ultimately, make that decision and then end up regretting it, melting away, whatever the case is. We want people to make the best decision the first time around as much as possible.

[00:18:30] Gil: Right.

[00:18:31] AD 2: Thoughtfully nurture applicants, personalize retention efforts, and exceed fundraising goals with our Cadence engagement platform’s text messaging solutions. Designed exclusively for higher ed by higher ed professionals, Cadence helps you engage your audiences with the perfect balance of AI and personal connection.

We leverage an intuitively designed interface and easy-to-use texting templates so you can have targeted conversations or scale up to expand your reach. Our powerful smart messaging can respond automatically, exactly how you would.

And to measure progress, track your campaigns with unparalleled reports and analytics. Effectively meet your community where they are as we proudly feature an industry-leading 95% read rate within three minutes. It’s never been easier to make every message count.

[00:19:23] Gil: So, this is where, you know, I’ve obviously gone a lot more gray than you have over the past 10, 15 years or so as we’ve been in this field together, but we get to show our age a little bit and pass some wisdom on to the admissions counselors who are, kind of, on the front lines of all of this, right?

Like, you’re a unique bird in a sense that you are out there and you’re, you’re recruiting, you’re at these events, and you’re in this space. And there are a lot of folks in your similar role and position at many institutions that do the same, but there are others that are, kind of, separated out a level and aren’t necessarily on the front lines as closely as you are to a lot of these folks, right?

And so, to put your director hat on and you’re meeting with your staff, right, and you’re trying to help them manage through this challenge because, you know, we all know that most people in these roles are not in it because they want to be salespeople, right?

They truly want to help and support students through this process, but there’s also the pressures of hitting the enrollment targets so that the health of the institution is maintained. And there are more institutions, like Stevens, out there that are not like Stevens, where you’ve got enrollment targets you need to hit for tuition revenue and everything else.

What do you say to your staff and what do you say to staffs out there that are feeling that pressure of, “Well, you know, we can’t control what, what’s happening with the Department of Education, we can’t control the timing of, of these things, but we also do need to make sure that we’re doing the things that we can to hit our enrollment targets.”?

What do you do to keep them motivated? What do you do to keep them high energy and positive, so that you don’t have… You used the term melt away with student enrollments. Well, they can melt away as an employee, too, right? And so, what are some of the things that you say to your team to keep their head up?

[00:21:05] Carlos: Well, I’ll tell you, I have started to go gray, even though it’s not very apparent, but probably more so due to my kids at home. I tell my wife and my daughters that they’re pretty much the main contributors to the degree and not necessarily my team here, but, yeah, I definitely have been around longer than I care to think sometimes.

And so, I do have conversations with members of my staff in terms of, I think, some of those conversations just to remind them of the glory days that I lived, right, when I first started and some of those challenges that we had to navigate when the SAT changed from 1,600 to 2,400 and then back to 1,600.

[00:21:46] Gil: Oh, man. I remember those days.

[00:21:47] Carlos: Yeah. And it was funny because a couple of weeks back, with everything going on with the FAFSA, and I don’t remember exactly what the issue was, but the solution to said issue was, “Well, fill out a paper, FAFSA.” And my immediate thought was, those are, like, those are still a thing? And everyone on our financial aid team was like, “No, no, no. Don’t tell them… Like, you can’t have them do that. Don’t do that.”

So, I think by telling some of those anecdotes, I think it evens them out. It, sort of, tells them, like, “Okay. Like, this is unique. Like, this specific situation and what’s going on is unique, but it’s not like it hasn’t happened before in some other way through something else.” And so, I think when they see that and they hear that, it puts them a little more at ease. And I think for me, as a director, as a newer director, too, I try to put myself on even footing with them.

I don’t ask people to do something that I wouldn’t do myself. And so, that’s why I intentionally still do recruit, again, not only because I like it, but because I want to be on that same level with them in some way, shape, or form. So, again, I don’t ask them to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself.

So, I still recruit. I still call students. I still e-mail students. I still go through the same things that I did when I first started, again, granted, not at the same level because of so many other responsibilities that I have now as the director.

But I still need to be able to live in their shoes even if just for a little bit so that when I have those conversations with them about how do I have a tough conversation with a student or how do I tell a student that they can’t get more scholarship money or whatever that tough conversation is, that I’m able to relate it to a conversation that I may have had a day ago or a week ago as opposed to the conversation that maybe I haven’t had in years because I’m not recruiting and I’m not actively assisting with yield.

I think the staff… I’d, I’d like to think, anyway, that my staff appreciates that, that I’m not a director or a leader that just hides out in his office and is doing other things. I am doing those other things, too, but I’m also, again, boots on the ground with them and ready, willing, and able to have those conversations with them about the same challenges that they’re dealing with. The challenges that they’re dealing with are the challenges that I’m dealing with.

[00:24:21] Gil: Right, right. Yeah. And I think there, there’s a certain level of, I used to be super involved in the Boy Scouts, right? And the, the term is servant leadership, right? It’s putting yourself actually below the people below you and doing and helping to elevate them up through your actions. And I think that-

[00:24:36] Carlos: Yeah.

[00:24:36] Gil: … it’s a lot easier to work for a boss who is going to be in the trenches with you when-

[00:24:42] Carlos: Right.

[00:24:42] Gil: … crap hits the fan, whether it’s FAFSA, or COVID, or new standardized test scores, or the CRM accidentally sends an e-mail saying everybody’s admitted, right? Knock on wood. That’s not going to happen to you all this year. But to that point, I think one of the things that is interesting, I remember having a lunch with a VP of enrollment a couple of years ago.

And he was one of those schools. He was at one of those schools where, you know, that it happens every year, unfortunately, where the mail house accidentally sent the admit letter to all the incomplete applicants, right? And that happens. It shouldn’t happen, especially with CRMs and slate being so perfect and everything else, but it happens.

And so, what he outlined was that, that single event caused the admissions officers to stop being application processors and start being recruiters again, right, because they had to call every single one of those students that was impacted and had to walk them through what was still needed for their application and support them.

Now, this is a regional private school. Their admit rate isn’t super-duper selective. So, most of those students were admissible anyway. They just were missing items to be able to-

[00:25:52] Carlos: Right.

[00:25:52] Gil: … be admitted, right? And so, it, it actually turned lemonade out of lemons, kind of, a scenario, right? But it’s like, they got to that point where their team was now actively recruiting again and not just being a part, but he was a part of it, right? He had to make those calls, too.

And so, I think you’ve been through the tech transitions. You’ve been through the global pandemics. you’ve been through the FAFSA rollouts. You’ll be through whatever the next thing is, right? And-

[00:26:17] Carlos: Yeah.

[00:26:17] Gil: … we’ll all be in this together. And so, I guess, parting thought from you for all the folks who are listening is what should they keep on their mind as they are moving through the next big challenge?

We won’t try to predict what the next big challenge will be, but we will predict that there will be one, right? And so, what keeps you, again, motivated, and what should keep them motivated, when… These are all things that are not working directly with students issues. These are all outside-

[00:26:41] Carlos: Yeah.

[00:26:41] Gil: … issues, right? And so-

[00:26:43] Carlos: Right.

[00:26:43] Gil: … how do you block out the noise to best do your job?

[00:26:46] Carlos: Right. I think, for me, it’s two things. Number one, knowing that at the end of the day, regardless of whatever is going on, that it does impact the end student, right? And so, getting through whatever the challenge is in a given year or challenges in a given year, whether they’re internal, they’re external, at the end of the day, it’s going to influence the group of students that you bring into your institution that are ultimately going to graduate someday and go on and do really great things, right?

And that parallels to the folks that I work with, that we work with on a daily basis, is that the hope is that you navigate this process together and that you come out the other end better than you were when it first started. And that it is ultimately those experiences that are going to bring your team, bring your colleagues to whatever that next step is for them.

So, I look at, again, I do some self-reflection in that sense, in that I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t navigated as a professional on a personal level. If I hadn’t navigated the pandemic, and if I hadn’t gone through changes to the SAT and changes to the FAFSA and internal changes to applications and going Common App and all of these things that happen that keep us on our toes, but it’s how I got here, right?

It’s how I was able to navigate the work and the world that we work in and get to a position where someone thought of me enough to say, “Carlos has seen X, Y, and Z. And that’s why I think he is the guy for this particular role in this particular time,” right? So, that, like you said, Gil, it’s always going to be something.

[00:28:42] Gil: Yeah.

[00:28:42] Carlos: I think if we ever have a year where we’re not talking about what that something is, then I think that, in itself, is something, right? Like, whoa-

[00:28:50] Gil: Great.

[00:28:50] Carlos: … like, there is no… Like, okay. So, then that’s it. Like, that there’s no FAFSA or this, that, or the other thing. So, yeah. So, I think knowing that every year is going to have a challenge, every year is going to be different. And for me, that’s what keeps me coming back, that I know that this year will shape out how it needs to shape out.

At the end of the day, FAFSAs will get out. Like, we will get FAFSAs. We will package students for aid. And we will get that rolling. Everyone will. And then it will be on to the next. And the next challenge will be something else. And it will be something different, but we will all be better for it at the end of the day.

And not just myself, but again, I think about my collective team right now and coming out the other side and being able to celebrate, making another class, bringing in another great batch of students, and then moving on to the next one, dare I say fall of ’25 or is it too soon? I don’t know.

[00:29:49] Gil: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, that number keeps getting bigger. And it’s crazy. So, and, and to circle it back to your why, right, at the beginning of the conversation, it was there’s always something different, always something new to be dealing with.

And there’s, obviously, not always the ideal things to be dealing with, but it’s part of the challenge and part of the opportunity to, you know, what are the next hurdles that we’re going to have to go over to help deliver the value of the higher educational experience to students, right? And so, these are all bumps in the road on a bigger trajectory. So-

[00:30:24] Carlos: Absolutely.

[00:30:24] Gil: … so, Carlos, I appreciate you, again, taking the time to be a part of this conversation and being on the podcast. Before I let you go, how are the best ways for people to get in touch with you and stay in contact if they want to continue the conversation?

[00:30:39] Carlos: Yeah. Gil, thanks again for the opportunity. For me, the easiest way, especially professional, even personal, too, on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn. You can find me by my name, Carlos Cano. Probably, I don’t know of too many other Carlos Canos in our field, especially. So, I should be pretty easy to find.

And I have a lovely headshot that you should be able to see of me when you search me on LinkedIn. So, yeah, that’s definitely the best and easiest way to get a hold of me. And open to conversations. I love linking up with folks. And also, at your next big major college admissions conference, wherever that may be, more than likely, I’ll probably be there, too.

[00:31:21] Gil: There we go, there we go. And if there’s more than one Carlos Cano in higher ed, what we need to do is have a reception for both of you.

[00:31:30] Carlos: Yes, yes, please.

[00:31:30] Gil: Like, one of these conferences. And, and take the picture together. There we go.

[00:31:31] Carlos: Exactly.[00:31:35] Gil: We love it, we love it. Well, thank you so much, again, Carlos. I appreciate you taking the time. And we will see you all next time on FYI. Bye!

Author: