TRANSCRIPT
Shanxi: Hello, this is Shanxi Omoniyi, host of MPE’s “Homeschool Hints” podcast to encourage you wherever you may be on your homeschool journey.
Today, I’m joined by Jason Jackson of Ricketts Great Books College, and we’ll be talking a little bit about him and his company and the upcoming conference. So, Jason, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and the journey that’s brought you here?
Jason: Yeah, my pleasure, and thanks for having me. We’re really excited about the opportunity to share about Ricketts Great Books College. We think it’s going to be a really disruptive opportunity for aspirational learners thinking about their collegiate experience.
So a little bit about me, Jason Jackson, I joined the Ricketts Great Books College team about four months ago and was really excited about, you know, what I learned and having an opportunity to grow this educational opportunity for students across the country.
A little bit about my own journey - I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, went to high school at a small Catholic high school in Mountain View, California, in the southern part of this San Francisco Bay Area. And from there, went on to the Naval Academy, spent four years at the Naval Academy in Annapolis for my undergraduate degree, and then eventually picked up a graduate degree from San Diego State and my law degree from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego while I was pursuing my military career.
After getting out of the military, I started working in the private sector at a lot of various organizations before finally coming to the Ricketts Great Books College team.
So, you know, I think from my background, I’ve always been a lifelong learner, and the opportunity to come into an academic environment and just see the opportunities that the Ricketts Great Books College affords its students - to really accelerate their life journey and be a catalyst for their professional journey - in the same way that I’ve benefited from some unique educational opportunities along the way, it’s just really exciting.
Shanxi: So do you know any homeschoolers at Ricketts Great Books College right now?
Jason: So, we’re still in our infancy and we’re really on the precipice of a lot of growth. So we have our first freshman class enrolled right now, but we believe that homeschool students in particular would really value the educational experience that we have to offer.
It very much kind of comports with, I think, the learning style of a homeschool kind of learning style in the sense that it’s not self-paced. There’s a lot of accountability. It’s professional instruction. It very much replicates the experience of our most prestigious universities in the country in terms of the credentials of the academics that are leading the instruction, the pace and the accountability associated with it.
But it’s also a distributed learning model that students can participate, you know, online in the comfort of their own homes or in what, you know, whatever other infrastructure they have at, you know, at their disposal.
So, I think it very much is at least adjacent to the learning experience of a homeschool learner from K -12. And this is an opportunity that would afford those students to continue in that same learning style through their college educational experience.
Shanxi: Okay. Yeah, that’s great to know. How did you hear of this Ricketts Greatbooks College and how did you become involved there?
Jason: Yeah, I just came across it and some of the folks that work with it were in my personal network and I just, the more I learned, the more, I could see that this is something, one, it’s altruistic. Yeah, I love working on projects where, it isn’t just about moving the bottom line for a company, but it’s about, there’s altruism and there’s actual, a societal benefit that’s accruing as a part of, of the work. And that’s what I think everybody at the Ricketts Great Books College team feels like.
We see with what’s going on university campuses today, whether it be, you know, just a faculty that is teaching things at odds with our values, or whether you’re seeing the costs, you know, really skyrocketing and being mostly, or at least not directly obvious, how that’s benefiting the learner in terms of the quality of the education.
And so we see an opportunity here to really make an affordable elite degree available to the widest possible field of potential learners while, you know, for families that are concerned about what their children might be exposed to on a college campus.
So, this affords an alternative kind of learning style for your collegiate experience that mitigates some of those risks.
Shanxi: Yeah, definitely. And I noticed on the website it emphasized the classic works of Western thought. And I just thought, can you give us some examples of that?
Jason: Well, yeah, I mean, so that’s one of the unique things about the curriculum. So this is a great books college. It’s an immersive curriculum in the classical kind of Western canon of literature, science, law, theology, philosophy - really a very comprehensive degree and field of study across all of those domains.
So really just kind of an immersive curriculum and kind of Western Canon of literature and kind of great works. And you know, one of the - I think differentiating things about our program is that the learner has the opportunity to actually obtain different certifications as they progress.
So, your first year, you get a certificate in great work studies. Your second year, you earn an associate’s degree. Your third and fourth year, you work on a bachelor’s degree. And if you remained enrolled for the fifth year of the program, you earn a master’s degree.
And so, you know, very few traditionally four-year university experiences afford students the opportunity to obtain those different credentials along their educational journey.
You know, to get an associate’s degree, you have to go to a junior college first and then transfer into, you know, a typical four-year university. So that’s an important element of the curriculum.
You asked for a couple of examples of classical works. I’m not nearly so well read as somebody who completes our curriculum will ultimately be. But two of my favorites from the curriculum are Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which, of course, is one of the foundational treatises on economics and I think holds up very well.
And even today, I read that Wealth of Nations many, many years ago and probably in my undergrad experience, and it still shapes how I view the world and I think holds up very well when you think about things like how do capital markets move and labor specialization.
And I’m coming to you from Nebraska today, and even when I observe economic conflicts as between like rural and urban communities. There’s a lot that Adam Smith defined many, hundreds of years ago that help (us) understand some of those issues and those and those conflicts.
And then another one that kind of jumps out at me is de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Obviously, you know, from - I studied political science in my undergraduate studies and of course, anybody who proceeds very far in a political science field of study at some point will encounter de Tocqueville’s work.
And it’s - to me, it’s unbelievable how well that work holds up as well in terms of defining and seeking to understand the American political system and political behavior long before political science even emerged as a field.
And now we can, both with respect to Adam Smith and with de Tocqueville, a lot of their theories that they were just describing the world as they observed them, but now we can empirically test these ideas, and they still hold up very well.
So those are two examples, but literally anybody who goes to our website at Ricketts Great Books College can see the entire course of study.
That’s another thing that differentiates us is: University campuses today, often you might enroll in a class and the syllabus might not be available to you until you step into the classroom.
And certainly, it’s not really transparent for a parent. What will be the field of study or the syllabus of these various courses that my learner will be going through? If you go to our website right now, you will see every book and the entire field of study that your learner will be exposed to over the duration of their four- or five-year experience with us.
And so I encourage all your listeners to do that. And I’m sure there will be some ... everybody will see some personal favorites from their own studies that will pop up on that list.
Shanxi: Yeah, that’s awesome. Plus, you don’t have to worry about, you know, having your textbooks outdated and having to buy the latest and greatest version. <laughs>
Jason: Well, that’s true. Yeah, that’s right.
Shanxi: That’s awesome. Speaking of what a homeschool family should expect when they’re trying to make college decisions - what challenges along the way have you seen and experienced that you know you recommend people should consider when making these choices?
Jason: Yeah, you know, it wouldn’t be my hypothesis that the challenges faced by homeschool families are dramatically different than, you know, other families.
So you know, everybody’s trying to choose the college or university experience that’s best for their respective child. I’m a parent of a high school junior myself, and we’re on that journey ourselves in terms of deciding what the best fit is.
And of course, you’re concerned about what’s the distance from home? How are they going to be supported? Are they going to want to strike their own path and be away from family? Or are they going to want the comfort of being co-located with family while they immerse themselves in their studies?
What are the fields of study or what are the degrees? What’s the affordability? What’s the pedigree associated with the degree and the prospects associated with the degree that my learner will experience as they complete their educational journey?
So I think these are questions that every family faces as they have a high schooler that’s contemplating what’s next for them from an educational perspective.
And I think as your listeners look at Ricketts Great Books College, I think there’s a lot of answers to those questions that differentiate ourselves and add more value than the typical university experience.
Again, minimizing the distractions that for the university or the college campus life so that the learner can just focus on their studies in a learning environment of their own choosing.
From an affordability perspective, you’d be hard pressed to find a degree that’s as affordable as the one that’s offered by Ricketts Great Books College, particularly one that comes with the prestige of the faculty that are made available to the learner as they’re going through the curriculum.
From a cost perspective, it’s $16,000 a year, $8,000 a semester. But if the learner successfully completes the course of study, they get half of that credited back.
Which is, you know, completely unique and foreign to any other university offering.
So freshman year, let’s just take that as an example. $16,000 is the tuition associated with that. But if the learner successfully completes their freshman year and passes, it’s 8,000 back to them. So for a net perspective, it only costs $8,000. You can complete the four-year degree for $32,000.
So, you know, it’s a very, very cost-effective, affordable, accessible (option) to families, particularly as compared to other similar types of degree programs at prestigious universities.
So we’re excited, just again, about the quality of the degree and the instruction that’s offered, the affordability and accessibility and the flexibility of being able to deliver this curriculum in a in a learning environment that suits whatever the particular preferences are of the learner.
Shanxi: Yeah, you’ve already mentioned some of the benefits of distance learning options, but is there anything else you’d like to add that parents should consider or note when they’re making this choice?
Jason: Well, it’s not self-paced, right? So, I wouldn’t want your listeners to get the idea that this is a rigorous program, and it’s instructor-led. There’s real-time participation and accountability for class participation. The method of instruction is the Socratic method. And it is immersive.
And so, your learner will go through the curriculum and be challenged, but also come out of it rewarded and with a degree and a quality of education that would be comparable to any similarly situated or offered program in any other university setting - and perhaps exceeding that because we are drawing from among the most elite faculty across the country in terms of leading the instruction in this course of study.
Shanxi: That’s awesome. And plus, your students have a financial incentive to pass.
Jason: Well, exactly. And yeah, exactly. Thanks for that follow-up, because that’s exactly right.
We want to create the right incentives and reward effort. And so, you know, the cost structure isn’t meant to be a barrier to entry. It’s actually intended to, one, be accessible and affordable, but also reward effort because we want people to successfully complete the program.
Shanxi: Yes, definitely. I know it’s because it’s still such a - since it’s still early days for the institution, are there any specific services and products that you want to highlight specifically for the homeschool community?
I know, for example, a lot of homeschoolers are interested in dual credits, those kinds of things. Does any of that exist at this time?
Jason: Not at this time, but it’s definitely on our roadmap. If your listeners have younger children that, you know, maybe two, three years away from making this choice, that might be an opportunity that’s afforded to them as we, you know, mature a little bit. But for now, we’re laser focused on really delivering quality secondary education for those, for our university and college age students.
Shanxi: Okay, sure. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, I was just interested because it sounds amazing. I mean, you have a lot of potential and you’re just getting started.
Jason: So yeah, and right now we have our - I think I mentioned in my opening remarks - so we have our freshman cohort that’s going through. It’s our first class. And so we’re still building the subsequent iterations and classes and expanding our field of offerings as we go to serve an even wider potential future cohort of students. But for now, we’re focused on these matriculating and graduating high school seniors and wanting to put this opportunity in front of them.
Shanxi: Well, thank you so much. This is really exciting. Is there anything else we should know about the institution? You’re coming to the conference in March - anything else?
Jason: Yeah, we’re excited to be at the conference. We’re looking forward to meeting as many homeschool families as we can. We’re very optimistic that this is a university and college experience that is uniquely tailored to the right set of families and learners that are interested in continuing to pursue this learning style. You know, a learning style that’s immersive, accountable, accessible, affordable, but free of the distractions that are afforded with modern university and campus life.
And so, if that describes, you know, any learners who are or families that are listening to your podcast now, I encourage them to check out the Ricketts Great Books College because we’re building something that’s very special.
The degree will be, you know, and the quality of the education would be comparable to, you know, the most prestigious universities in the country, as evidenced by the fact that that’s who makes up our faculty.
We’re borrowing from lecturers, from the most prestigious leaders in their respective fields, and engaging in the time-tested Socratic methods of instruction, really in an immersive way, such that you can be confident that your learner will leave with a four-year degree, a bachelor’s degree, and have been trained and immersed in the classical canon, classical Western thought, and really be prepared to accelerate their life journey and their professional journey.
So (we’re) absolutely looking forward to meeting as many folks at the conference as possible and hope all of your learners will go to our website at Great Books College and check us out, and certainly, come with any questions. We’d love to serve your students.
Shanxi: Well, thank you so much, Jason. It’s been a pleasure.
Jason: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Shanxi: Thanks so much for listening. We hope you are encouraged in your homeschool journey.
Please continue the conversation with us on our website, midwesthomeschoolers.org, or email us at podcast@midwestparenteducators.org. We’re also active on social media if you’d like to connect with us there. Thanks to Kevin McLeod of incompetech.com for providing this royalty-free song Wholesome, which is licensed under creativecommons.org.
