In January 2012, Machen and Florida State University's Eric J. Barron met with the Florida House of Representatives Higher Education Committee in Tallahassee to discuss improving higher education in the state of Florida. Machen suggested universities should charge higher tuition for science, technology, engineering and math degrees because of their high cost to schools and brought up students' failure to graduate in four years, in spite of the higher credit-hour requirements of some of these degrees as compared to other undergraduate fields of study. "I just can't get them to leave," he stated.