This year—despite one of the most challenging budget environments higher education has faced in years—our college made a bold, deliberate choice: Rather than retreat, we leaned forward. Our engineering enrollment continues to grow, industry demand for engineers continues to accelerate, and the breakthroughs we hope to make in health, energy, manufacturing, AI and national security all begin with exceptional people. The universities that lead the next generation will preserve academic values while becoming dramatically better at recognizing opportunity, making principled decisions and acting before those opportunities disappear.