Keynote Guide: Clips from Brandon's Interview

Higher ed’s next decade belongs to the institutions willing to be intentional

Brandon Busteed has spent his career studying what students, parents, and employers actually want from a college degree — first at Gallup, now as CEO of Edconic. In this week’s Keynote, he made the case that higher ed’s next decade belongs to the institutions willing to be intentional: about experience, about employability, about reinvention, and about standing for something.

We pulled four clips that capture the heart of the conversation. Watch them in order, or jump to the one that hits closest to your work.

---

1. Scaling work-integrated learning is a commitment, not an accident

Co-ops and internships still reach only a minority of students — but Brandon argues that’s a choice, not a constraint. The schools that built work-integrated learning into their DNA prove it scales when an institution invests in the infrastructure to make it happen. And the movement is climbing the prestige ladder: Brandeis is helping students build work portfolios alongside transcripts, and Dartmouth raised $30 million so students can afford low- and unpaid internships. The payoff for the schools that commit? Northeastern is posting record applications and is now nearly as selective as the Ivy League.

“It’s a question of whether there’s a real commitment there.” — Brandon Busteed