On Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, President Docking testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The hearing, “The Future of College: Harnessing Innovation to Improve Outcomes and Lower Costs,” had three main focuses: examining how innovation in higher education can expand opportunities, improve student outcomes, and make college more affordable, according to Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI).
President Docking’s testimony opened with him explaining the current issues facing higher education. These include rising costs and programs that do not adequately prepare students for the workforce. “America’s higher education system,” Docking said, “long the envy of the world, requires significant innovation”. Many colleges throughout the country have been closing, including Siena Heights, Adrian College’s cross-town neighbor.
President Docking, along with partners Kevin Harrington and Connor McCarthy, created Rize, a platform that Docking said “could reshape higher education”. Rize is a system that allows higher education institutions to share classes with other institutions in the program. This allows higher education institutions to add new courses and majors with significantly reduced startup costs compared to the previous method. Docking said, “That’s a start-up cost of $15,000 to $20,000 versus $500,000, a complete transformation of the financial equation”.
Rize’s class sharing also allows institutions to provide majors that they may not have had the specialization to provide before. “We already had a strong business program, but lacked that specialization.” Docking testified, “Lasell University in Newton, Massachusetts, offered it—and through our consortium, they shared the five courses we needed. Within months, we had a fully approved Supply Chain Management program”.
Rize also offers benefits from the student perspective, including small class sizes, real-world learning experiences, and continuous improvement through annual reviews and course updates. Docking also stated that, “we expect tuition to decrease by 30 percent over the next several years as we fully leverage the benefits of this model”.
President Docking concludes his testimony by highlighting that institutions across the country are collaborating in brand new ways to address the issues confronting higher education and that positive changes are already underway.
As the United States government seeks to improve and modernize the higher education system, Rize and President Docking may play a vital role in that process, although no definitive statements have been made on the matter at this time.
