Ask 100 people which college they’d dream of attending and you’ll probably hear the same answers over and over again: Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford. We say we want equity in higher education, yet we obsess over a small number of colleges that most of us will never get into. In this thought-provoking talk, Cecilia M. Orphan discusses the problem with prestige in higher education and asks us to redefine a "good university” as one that makes an excellent education available to everyone – as Regional Public Universities do.

Dr. Cecilia Orphan is an associate professor of Higher Education at the University of Denver and Director of Partnerships for the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges. As a first-generation, working-class student at Portland State University, she realized that regional public universities (RPUs) do vital work to serve their local communities and support marginalized communities. Now, they're the focus of her work. From 2006-2011, she directed the American Democracy Project, a national civic engagement initiative involving 240 RPUs. She lives in Denver with her husband, Jacob, and her mischievous cat, Oso. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx