Republicans call 2025853881, democrats 2025853880 and independents 2025853882. Look forward to your calls and also your participation by social media. You can send us a tweet at twitter cspan wj. You can also send an email journal cspan. Org. Is the cost of College Worth it . Allen writes, it used to be but right now it slightly losing steam. Now people that are caught with a minimum of expectations while being strapped with a new burden of paying back the loan making short money. Its a nightmare. Mark writes, College Education has the highest correlation with future earning potential. Little bit from the write ups from the paper today. The president is on a twoday four stop tour of upstate new york and northeast pennsylvania. Well have more coverage today. The Washington Post writes obama proposes a College Rating system. For decades magazines have rated colleges to help families navigate the Higher Education market. On thursday president obama proposed that the federal government rate the nations schools to hold them accountable for performance and help bring soaring tuition under control. By the 2015 school year, obama says his administration will begin evaluating colleges own measures such as the average tuition they charge, the share of low income students they eroll and effectiveness in ensuring students graduate without too much debt. The president will seek congressional approval which prove difficult to steer more federal aid towards colleges. Student in financial need my qualify for a larger pell grant. The result officials hope will be relief for families from college bill thats are three times as high as they were 30 years ago. Even after adjusting for inflation. Some of the figures here average tuition in fees 8600 or more. This is last year at Public School. Heres another number, 29,000 at private and nonprofit schools. The total annual bill counting room and board exceeds 50,000 a year at many elite schools. Well hear from the president in a couple minutes. Again, he will be in binghamton, new york to do a town hall. Also in scranton, pennsylvania with Vice President joe biden. Two life events well have on cspan for you. One in the afternoon and one a little bit later in the day. Little bit more from the headlines on this, heres the Washington Times write up. Obama proposes federal controls on college cost. The funding formula will improve educational value. Here are some of the reaction from congress. They write that lawmakers are set to debate and reauthorize the Higher Education act which is due to expire at the end of the year. Congressman john klein of minnesota, a republican, agrees with mr. Obamas of promoting innovation on college. Saying it could stifle innovation. Carol from ohio on the democratic line, carol whats the name of your town . Caller syo. Host what part of the state . Caller not too far from stuebenville . Host is it worth it . Caller yes it is. My son is a nurse and my son did music and teaching. Right after 9 11 he worked 2. 5 years in his apartment making videos for music for the schools. I have a comment. There was a poll in louisiana as a republican and 29 of them blamed president obama for the governments katrina mess. I think these people that did that are absolutely ignorant. He was just a senator not a president. Host thanks for calling. Gale on the line from new jersey. Gale is a republican. Is the cost of College Worth it . Caller well. It was about 15,000 a year 20 years agfor my ago for my daughter. Shes a nurse and she my husband was actually disgusted because he felt she concentrated more on the marching papers. She went to a local community college. Also, im quite disturbed. I put myself through a Business School about 40 years ago. I paid for it out of my 100 a week salary. Kids cant afford cost of tuition, why should the taxpayers be paying. You go back to the academic standards of 47 years ago, most of the kids going today are not academically qualified for college. Theyre getting a free pass because of the social justice. The standards are so bad, i. Wouldnt want my kid going to school today. Host thanks for calling gale. So much of the focus is on price of college and what kind of jobs and how much money those jobs are making. Joseph writes, money is important. Dont get me wrong. But its the only measure of College Value is how much money you make upon graduation . Here is president yesterday in buffalo, new york. Today im directing arne duncan to lead an effort. Right now private rankings like u. S. News and world report puts out each year their ranking and it encourages a lot of colleges to focus on ways how do we gain the numbers. It actually rewards them in some cases for raising costs. We should rate colleges based on opportunities. Are they helping students from all kinds of backgrounds succeed. And on outcomes, on their value to students to parents. That means metrics like how much debt does the average student leave with. How easy is it paid off. How many students graduate on time. How well do those graduates do in the workforce. The answers will help parents and students figure out how much value a college truly offers. There are schools out there who are terrific values. But there are also schools out there that have higher default rates than graduation rates. Taxpayers shouldnt be subsidizing students to go to schools where the kids arent graduating. That doesnt do anybody any good. Host the president mentioning debt there for the year 2010 and 2011 from the business insider. Heres a look at debt. Folks go to a public four year college, 23,800 is the average debt theyre carrying. Private schools, four year college, 30,000. More reaction to the president s plan from the hill back to the washington time, senator Chuck Grassley who is a republican, said he sees areas where member of his party with work with mr. Obama to control cost. He urge the president to call on colleges to limit salaries for executives. Mr. Grassley said the key to controlling cost is to help the consumer side of the equation. The more student and parents become savvy shoppers richard in pensacola, florida. Go ahead. Caller i think that the president is doing a good job in trying to get the cost of tuition down in this country for our children to go to college. But at the same time the colleges have to bring the cost down because if they dont and keep trying to get young people tonight to go to college, then they will not want to go. Host thank you for calling. In the Washington Post piece it says that the president s plan relies in part on his executive power to collect, manage and publish data. It is likely to draw significant criticism from colleges intent on protecting their market share and divided congress who will present immediate obstacle that will require legislation on to that last callers point about what colleges can do, College Leaders say rising tuition is the function of labor cost. In the case of Public Institutions declining state financial support. They note affluent students pay full price. They said they is the giving consumers more heres a quote, we will be vigilant in working to metrics which could have a negative impact on the student and families that the administration is trying to help. Tom is on the line now from ft. Lauderdale, florida. Caller its not as worth as it used to be. Its kind of a conundrum here. Government is involved with the Student Loans and it is making opportunity better for people and you dont want to kill that. On the other side, when has government ever been in involved with a Large Program and not mess it up and cause the cost to go higher . Medicine is a primary example. If you look at the cost of medical treatment prior to medicare and then look at what happened to it when medicare came into being, the cost skyrocketed. The same thing thats going on with education. Now the government is making money available. Colleges want to suck that money in. The cost go up and its really messing everything up. Government needs to if theyre going to be involved with something, they got to figure out how to do it in a market way. Host lets hear from mary now from virginia. Cost of College Worth it . Caller the answer to that it has. Some degrees, for example, licensing degrees to be a nurse, to be a c. P. A. If you go to a State College and you live in a state like west virginia, you can get a very good price. You get a very good deal. On the other hand, if you go to a Priority School and you get a Degree Program probably not worth it because you got the same degree and youre carrying debt and i also think youre numbers for most of the physicians come out carrying 200,000. Host i think those numbers 238 for a Public School and 30 for a private. Those represents average according to business insider. Caller its very hard to know what college cost because we dont have a level playing field. How much youre eligible for is not function of you as a student and its a function of your family. Which doesnt make any sense either. Host thanks for calling. Tyler writes college is a death trap. Most degrees is a waste of time and money except for certain professions like medical and law. Tuition and fees, private versus public college. This is last year heading into this year. The average cost 29,000. Out of state residents at public colleges, 21,700 and instate residence at public colleges in their state, 8600. That from the college board. In case you were wondering about the most expensive colleges in the country, here they are according to cbs news money watch. Sarah Lawrence College over 61,000 is the Sticker Price there. New york university, 59,000, harvey mud college, 38,000, columbia, new york 38,000 and wes Lynn University is 58,000. Michelle is on the line democratic line good morning. Caller im calling because i wanted to share with the country something my mother taught me in 1955 when i was five years old. She told me this, i really didnt get it at the time but since ive lost everything in the recession i must tell you i really get the idea today. I think this note should ring out through america loud and clearly. They can take carry your take away your house, take away all of your car but they can never take away your College Education. That is a bank of knowledge that not only prepares you for a job but prepares you for life. It enables you to learn how to do the basic things you need to learn to function in the country. Like how to pay your taxes and how to go and do research on your own. We need to get over the concept in this country that money is our god. We need to take a look at the integrity of the people. We need to advance this dummying down of america thats occurring, that scares me terribly. I have gone from a upper class woman to a woman living below the poverty line. I still been able to work through the system because i have the knowledge that a masters degree offers me. I currently all students, im an educator and i taught students. Education is so much more than a talent or opportunity to get a job. Thank you very much for listening to me. I pray for all the students in america to go get that education and cling to it. Host dan is on the line from lawrenceville, illinois a republican. Is cost of College Worth it these days . Go ahead dan. I dont think we have dan on the lean there. The New York Times piece has a little bit more reaction here. On bus tour obama seeks to shame colleges into easing costs. Couple photos here, the president was a crowd pleaser. He also attracted a crowd at the university of buffalo first stop of a two day tour to make colleges more affordable. They point out that congress is going to have to approve the plan he put out. Senator marco rubio republican of florida saying im strongly oppose to his plan. This is a slippery slope and one that ends with a private sector giving up more of its freedom to innovate and take risks. Heres tom harkin a democrat from iowa in the senate. Hes chairman of the Senate Education committee. Hes applauding the president s proposal. Some higher experts question whether the administration was over stepping its authority. One more quote here. The proposal would be a huge change in Higher Education with the federal government asserting itself as the definer of institutional goals and policy and doing it through needbased Financial Aid. This is from jane wellman executive director of National Association of system heads. Omar on the line now from washington d. C. Here, a republican. Caller i wanted to say, i disagree with the lady who spoke before me about the whole knowledge you take away everything it seems nowadays host keep going were listening. Caller okay. I want to disagree what the lady said before me. They have taken away kind of everything. Everyone does have a College Degree and you just put for the most part, the Younger Generation does have a College Degree and theyre taking away a lot of our jobs out there. You leave school and you 50,000 or 60,000 in debt and its tough to make that back. Its almost like to get a graduate degree. If you will not do that, may be you should take up a trade or be a plumber or some other profession. It a little different than it was 20 or 30 years ago when you had to compete with other americans but now you have to compete on international level. Host thanks for calling omar. We do get the point. To your earlier point omar is making, we have some information on Unemployment Rates based on the level of education. Folks who have less than a high school diploma, High School Graduates 7. 4 . Some college or associate degree, 6. 2 is the Unemployment Rate for folks who have a bachelors degree or higher, the current Unemployment Rate is 4. 2 and the national Unemployment Rate is 7. 4 . We have another piece of tape for you its from david who was at an event. He coauthored a book called is College Worth it. This is from june. He talks about colleges capitalizing on branding and what it all means. Heres a look. [video clip] in five years we doubled the amount indebtedness with pretty bad effects. The major culprit begins with the schools themselves. Theyre capitalizing on a prominent social belief that to make it in the labor force as a worker as a human being, you need a College Degree. Its all but essential. Just speaking from experience and an anecdote is not the beginning of data. I meet people who dont have College Degrees and theres a feeling not only in themselves but feeling of perception by other people if youre without a College Degree, you somehow messed up in life. I think thats not a good thing. I dont think thats america. So schools can raise prices to capture students who can pay full price. The very top schools harvard, princeton and yale, they will have a huge amount of demand who will go so they can jack up the prices and people will pay that and the brand is synonymous with achievement in american leaf. What has happened a lot of second tier schools followed suit. They raised their tuition that most people cant pay. Host heres a question for you, how much are you saving. U. S. A. Today has this snapshot. How much do you save month physicaller your childs college . Here are the numbers. Less than 100 a month about a third of us, 34 are saferring less than a hundred dollars a month. Another 23 say 100 to 200. 14 , 200 to 300 a month. 23 saving 300 or more per month. Compare that with the costs out there. Bob is in boca rotan a democrat. Caller i heard bernard educated himself reading obe a park bench. I do wish i had every penny i spent in college in the bank today. I went to college in the 1970 1970 1970s. Host how did college work out for you . Caller i was going to say, think for below average student, i think that theres better choices than straight colleges. Perhaps trade school, may be even mindful parents to send children graduates of high school maybe to teach english around the world and get that kind of experience, travel around the world. Tad too young for a freshman age College Person to be traveling. Theres other kinds of education and the four year degree. I think the prices today really i would think long and hard before i spent that kind of money. Host bob back to twitter. End tenure and teacher union. Colleges spending tax dollars and tuition to build extravagant work out centers. Joyce writes we need to look at the individual needs and meet the real needs. We over looked the desires and strengths of our students and over emphasize the usefulness of college. Elizabeth writes college is worth it. Diana writes i would have to say with College Education reaching 1 trillion referring to the cumulative debt of college. Sound like a ripoff. Frank is on the line from new castle, pennsylvania. Caller good morning. In so far as the education whether college is worth it or not. Depends on your perspective. If it is to become a well educated person in our society, so the amount of money you spent for tuition you can buy a lot of books. If youre selfmotivated you can get a well rounded education that way. In so far as dealing with it from the monetary point of view, its been my experience, let me purpose this comment with this, i have a graduate degree. My wife has a graduate degree, on