Hasan Pirkul, Dean, Naveen Jindal School of Management – The University of Texas at Dallas

The most important issue in higher education is affordability, according to Hasan Pirkul, dean of the Naveen Jindal School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas. Students are taking out big loans, and they cannot buy a house or start a family, he told Invest:. “It is incumbent upon us to raise endowments for need-based scholarships.”

What have been the key achievements and highlights for the school in the last year? 

This has been a busy year for us. Our rankings continue to improve. This year, we made the Top 2 in the world in research, behind Wharton. We are excited about our research rankings. 

We are also building a third building on our campus that will be ready in about a year and a half from now. It will give us half a million square feet of space. Currently, our student enrollments are around 10,500 students. With this new building, we will be able to grow into the 13,000 range. It’s an exciting time for us. 

What is the status of the growth of applications?

Every year, we are getting significant increases in applications to our undergraduate degree programs. The master’s applications go up and down, but the undergraduate program has been growing every year, and the applications are going through the roof. It tells us that providing a high-quality education at a reasonable cost, together with generous scholarships, is the key. 

I am happy that we have this opportunity to educate first-generation college goers, middle-class families, and children of middle-class families, and that we can give them a world-class education at a reasonable price, making it possible for them to go on and become incredibly successful individuals in their lives.

Where are you seeing the most demand for programs?

Our most recent undergraduate degree is in business analytics and artificial intelligence. Technology, or information technology in general, is now driving all business processes. We are fortunate because we are more of an IT-focused school. I have been the dean for the last 29 years, and my Ph.D. is in computer information systems, but not from a computer science department, it’s from a business school. I understand the nuances that are involved with IT in business school versus IT in engineering or computer science. We have been able to develop programs because of that. We have a strong faculty. We are by far the No. 1 school in America in terms of enrollment in this field as well as faculty numbers and faculty research. 

This is an area of dominance for us. For example, we have developed a computer information systems and technology degree, and that degree has 1,500 master’s and about 1,100 undergraduate students. This is our strength. It plays well because regardless of what business sector you look at, they need students who are savvy information technology users and students who understand the demands of business and business processes because those business processes are all changing and being redesigned. 

The combination of technology and business knowledge places our students at the perfect intersection to find great jobs. We are also practice-focused, so our undergraduate students are required to do internships. You cannot graduate from us without an internship. Last year, we had 1,449 recorded undergraduate internships, and there are a number of them that are not recorded. My guess is about 2,000 internships were done by our undergraduate students in the past year. Similarly, our graduate internships were over 2,200 during this period.

How do you envision generative AI (GenAI)  shaping the next generation of business leaders? 

We are making sure that our students are exposed to all applications of AI, with GenAI among those. We have built-in AI-focused courses in all our disciplines and will continue to do so. GenAI is changing the workplace rapidly. It has applications in HR, marketing, accounting, auditing, and many other applications. 

When this thing first came up, of course, the initial reaction in academia was that all the students are going to cheat. AI will write their papers, and so on. Some faculty members thought we should ban the use of GenAI on campus. We should not let our systems run this. Not only did I not want to ban GenAI, but I also wanted to require everybody to use it. GenAI is not magic. It is another productivity tool, another search tool, and another way to check your spelling and maybe suggest language. But GenAI by itself cannot write a paper for you. It can prepare a paper full of cliches, but to do a real paper, you need to start with an outline. What am I going to cover in this paper? What are the important points I’m going to make in this paper? The proper way to use Gen AI is to start with your thoughts, ideas, and points of emphasis. Once you have the outline, then you go create prompts. This is what I am pushing in my school. I want the students to learn how to use GenAI productively and produce great work.

Are there any specific trends that you are expecting to shape the future of higher education?

The No. 1 issue with higher education is affordability. Costs are going up every year, and we need to be really cognizant of them. The students are borrowing. They’re getting loans to get an education, and then starting their lives under heavy, heavy debt. It takes them years to pay these loans, and then they can’t buy homes. They can’t start families. It is a real challenge. Need-based scholarships are absolutely necessary. Families also need to take more responsibility. Some families choose to take extra vacations rather than pay for their kids’ education. This culture has to change. But since we cannot engineer the culture, we are living with the consequences of this culture. What can we do? Given this is taking place, what can we do in higher education? It is incumbent upon us to raise endowments for need-based scholarships. If a student is admitted to a university but is unable to attend due to financial constraints, they should have access to need-based scholarships. The university should take responsibility for providing the necessary financial support to ensure that admitted students can attend.