1) As the CEO of the Hispanic American College Business School and University you are leading a unique initiative. What are the goals of this University and how does its Business School differ from others?
HAC Business school was born two years ago as a private initiative in the USA with headquarters in New York City, with the objective to be a business school with a university mindset primarily catering to the Hispanic community in USA, but also to those other Iberoamerican countries that see New York attractive to study in Spanish.
That’s another of our bets, in a world increasingly globalized that demands ‘multiculturalismo’, adaption to changes in this current revolution and greater breadth of knowledge, we didn’t want to leave out the importance of including the Spanish language out of our academic programs.
Also we’re working on including throughout the next year bilingual programs that will allow us to expand our academic offerings to all United States and Iberoamerican countries.
Lastly and maybe the most important is to keep in mind that our school maintains a pro Hispanic origin, which allows us to impart our programs is Spanish. Our school counts with dozens of Hispanics that have studied in Harvard, MIT, Columbia University, Georgetown, among other universities of prestige. The education in the US is among one of the top ranked among several international sources. Among them Webometrics, World Economic Forum and New York Times. This is why at the time of deciding to establish our business school we had it clear that we had to include through some of the most important cities in the US. New York was where we choose to establish ourselves. This decision came about because of the high percentage of Hispanic citizens in the city that fluctuates around 37%, without question these numbers were encouraging enough to choose NY as our headquarters. Furthermore, let’s not forget that the Hispanic population in the USA represents 17%, approximately what equals to 53 million citizens.
2) You are also leading the NY Summit, a personal and professional development event in Spanish that will take place in New York City on November 27th and 28th and will include presentations from some of the top leaders in the Hispanic community in the US. What are the motivation and the goals for this event?
New York Summit is born from one of our conferences “inspirando a líderes comprometidos” (inspiring committed leaders). A program that was born in 2015. Together we’ve traveled various cities, hosted 5 meetings that have gathered over 2,000 people, more than 200 companies have supported us, and more than 60 experts have shared our stage. The main objective to this program is knowledge transfer, international networking advantages, but above all to inspire the individuals that attend these events.
In an international society susceptible to new cultural conflicts and that jeopardize the future of new generations to come, we feel responsible to host events around motivation, inspiration and a respectful society. A world that requires collaboration from all of us.
The primary goal of these events is possible thanks to the experts that believe in the cause and aim to have an impact among the Spanish community. Yes, it’s quite a challenge.
3) Cost of college education in the US has skyrocketed in the last few years, climbing up to 70% in some cases. Students graduate with an average debt of close to $40,000. This is becoming more and more a concern in this country. How do you see this situation evolving in the future and what can universities do to address this issue?
We’re aware that the US education has a high financial cost that forces students that don’t have scholarships to go in debt for many years. This system has created a crisis in many universities and according to this BBC article published August 2016 “La difícil vida de los estudiantes de Estados Unidos con deudas de cientos de miles de dólares para pagar la universidad” (The difficult life of students in the US with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to pay for the university), they highlight the 43.3 million people currently in debt sourcing the Federal Reserve of the United States. This statistic plus the estimated $40,000 annual tuition to study in the US creates many obstacles.
There’s a stat that alarmed us stating that 20% of students aged 50+ are still in debt with student loans. Consequently, we saw a major opportunity to offer the same high quality education without the lucrative costs compared to the major US universities.
This challenge should be accepted by the major US universities to implement further social components to their education models. After all, these are the changes being demanded by society and their students.
4) What are, in your opinion, the best qualities of the American university? What qualities would you highlight of the Spanish university?
Without question, the US has some of the top universities in the world. To define the best qualities all of these share is difficult to pin down. The 4 international top ranking universities in 2015 were all North American: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and the University of California Berkeley. Their success is due largely to their funding, the investments, and also the prominent North American university-life culture.
The top North American centers: Harvard, MIT, Princeton, invest around 150,000€ per student each year. Oxford and Cambridge on the other hand don’t surpass 50,000€.
There are other factors very relevant to the North American culture that have helped to generate a strong and successful reputation for themselves. It’s part of their ideology “land of opportunities”. In the US, like in most other countries, the university life is vital for cultural growth. The challenge for the students comes from the costs and the life change. To live this metamorphosis adds to the overall collective experience.
The US college education is among the top in the world according to Webometrics, World Economic Forum and New York Times.
Spanish universities are more and more often recognizing the changes that students are demanding from their colleges and so far the outcomes have resulted in a quality education and experience for the student.
5) New technologies are redefining the way people learn. What innovations do you think will have the biggest impact on college education over the next decade?
I’m convinced that today’s educational system will adapt to the new cultural changes and the organizations that don’t adopt will disappear. We’re on the verge of a technological revolution that is fundamentally altering the way we live, work, and connect with one another.
Throughout this transformative process, we as humans are going to be faced with challenges and decisions like never before to maintain our overall connectedness.
With this in mind, universities must respond to the needs imposed by the students regarding content, media, methodology, and digital presence staying current with the digital transformation happening.
6) What differences between the US and Spain have you identified in the education provided to future entrepreneurs, and what could be learnt from each model?
One of the most important transformative actions is to see that big companies are investing in the education of their executives, something that didn’t really happen years ago as these types of programs were seen as more of a cost than an investment.
Big institutions like IESE, IE, ESIC, ESADE, etc. offer executive-level programs recognized internationally and this is something we should take advantage of and reflect why Spanish universities have not yet adopted these success driven models. I believe our next steps should be focused towards working to incorporate these models into our own educational system.