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The Chuck ToddCast

Interview Only w/Paul Glastris - Why America’s Colleges Are FAILING Their Students

The Chuck ToddCast

iHeartPodcasts

Government, News

4.02.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Chuck Todd speaks with Washington Monthly’s editor-in-chief Paul Glastris about the broken system for ranking colleges and the areas in which higher education is both succeeding and failing to prepare the next generation.

Transcript

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0:00.0

So joining me now is somebody for many of us of a certain age in Washington is that I would deem an institution.

0:11.0

It's Paul Gloucesteris, the editor-in-chief of the Washington Monthly.

0:14.5

Many of us count the Washington Monthly as one of the first magazines that published us.

0:21.1

That would be me.

0:22.8

So when I started seeing, could I do this?

0:26.9

Could I write long form after all of my sort of wire copy years at the National Journal and doing the hotline?

0:32.7

And Paul was an extraordinarily generous editor and a great mentor to a lot of writers and reporters around

0:40.7

Washington. So this is a real treat for me. Paul, it's good to see you. Chuck, what a pleasure.

0:45.4

Thanks for having me on. And I remember that story well. It was by John Kerry, I think.

0:49.7

Yes, yes, it was. And so I have you on because you did something that I love, and it's something, frankly,

0:58.4

that I remember the Obama administration wanted to make a bigger deal out of, which was,

1:03.0

how can we create a list of best colleges for bang for your buck, essentially?

1:13.8

You know, what's going to provide you the education that you need without making you have to go into debt for the rest of your life or to do blood

1:20.8

oaths to people that maybe you don't want to give blood oaths to because you want to get

1:24.8

into this Ivy League university, that Ivy League

1:27.6

University. I will note the irony that you once worked at U.S. News and now you have a competing

1:34.1

list. But this is, and look, I want to talk about the future of journalism and sort of, and where

1:41.4

that goes, too. But talk to me about the decision to do this list and for the

1:47.7

Washington Monthly. And how would you describe it? And what what motivated you to do it?

1:54.2

Well, you're right that that I used to work at US News and the US News college rankings paid my mortgage.

2:02.4

All of us, right?

2:03.7

There was always a kind of undercurrent of concern about the adequacy of the numbers.

...

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