summon the ruba caranas. where's my cocktail? cnn films presented by volkswagen. isn't it time for german engineering? ♪ ♪ come down come down from your ivory tower ♪ ♪ don't keep us so far apart

>> i've always felt when i step on to a college campus a slight area of melancholy in the air. if you're a teacher, you arrive every fall semester for the new year and you know that you've gotten a year older, but the students are the same age as they always were. they keep replenishing themselves. ♪ come down from your ivory tower ♪ >> college is a way to preserve cultural memory. it is an effort to cheat death, so it's a kind of struggle against time and mortality. ♪ so cold in your ivory tower >> the united states has managed to provide a post secondary education to a larger percentage of its population than any society in history. but a lot of forces are converging at the present moment to create anxiety. is college overrated? i'm saying it's a myth.

>> it's become a race for preventionism. >> has college turned too expensive? >> students are going to default. >> any parent who tries to pay for their child's education is feeling sticker shock and access and completion of college are more challenging in our time. >> of all the timebombs in the american economy set to explode, student loan debt in this country has reached $1 trillion. >> you may see a tsunami of student loan defaults. >> there are problems in all the sectors of higher education. and it's a perfectly fair expectation for students and their families to want to know when they leave college they will have some skills someone will be able to compensate them for. >> a lot of people with college degrees are waiting tables, cleaning toilets. >> nearly half of all students are showing no significant gains in learning.

>> but there's an apocalyptic dimension to this as well, and that is the idea that the very concept of the institution of higher learning is about to be broken. and only a very, very small handful of colleges will survive intact on the other side of this tidal wave. >> we're at the point people are saying maybe you don't have to go to college. >> is college worth it? >> there have been moments in human history those who said the future will look a lot different very soon have been right. this might be one of them. ♪

this is the john harvard statue. now people come from all over the world to take pictures with this statue. >> in education there are these very powerful social forces at work where people just imitate what other people are doing without reflecting on why they're doing it, things like how do you get into the right college? how does your kid get on the right track? college has been sold and oversold as the key to a better future. and something has gone very wrong with it over the last few decades. >> higher educations are the privilege for a very long time of being a black box. they created this prestige and mystique around it, but we've never really examined very closely the ingredients on the box. >> we need to really rethink what are the specific things people are learning and why are they valuable?

>> welcome class of 2016. you may have sensed that some of us are expecting you to save the world. preferably by the time you graduate. but just remember a key part of any success is the part of you that is willing to fail. we at harvard believe that the best kind of education for undergraduates is liberal arts education, and that means a broad education across the fields of human inquiry. we aren't educating students for a first job. we want to give them the abilities to think and reason and question for a lifetime. technology increasingly is something that every educated person should be familiar with

in the 21st century. we have an introductory computer science course known as cs-50, and it is now the largest undergraduate course on campus. >> everyone on campus knows what cs-50 is. it's definitely a course with a cult following. >> i think some of it is related to the whole facebook and mark zuckerberg being at harvard. that's what he is happening for our generation, people growing up and starting their own companies and creating their own websites and doing all this amazing stuff with technology. and i think cs-50 represents that. >> today we begin our exploration of the fundamentals of computer science and the art of programming. you will have this very practical skill set that you can then take back to all sorts of fields and he realize it is not so important where you end up relative to your classmates in

this class but where are you by semester's end in week 11 wind up this very day. >> sometimes it can be intimidating because there are plenty of people who have just more preparation. a lot of times it's really easy to say how in the world can i do this because i can't understand everything right away. college is a completely different environment than what i was used to. my path has been a little bit rough. i come from a pretty modest background. when i entered ninth grade the

summer before, i had been enticed to join a gang. they retaliated against my entire family, shooting at my home. because of my path and where i've come from, i'm just that much more driven. i remember those times, it just makes me all the more grateful for the things i do have now. before i came here, i hadn't had a bed for over a year. so, like, coming into my dorm, i, legit, jumped on my bed. that was something that meant a lot to me. it's a real blessing, just being here alone has already changed my family dynamic. >> i always told them in order fortous get ahead as a family, each generation has to do better. he was like, mom, how are we going to fay for college? what happens if i get in and i can't pay for it? i said, trust me, god will make a way.

>> he's going to be a star. when we got on harvard's campus, i was just like, my baby is at harvard. >> the first american college, harvard college, was a child of the university of cambridge in england. the puritans had come over to new england in the early 1630s and after they settled the basics of food and shelter, they turned their attention to starting a college. in that sense the college was an offshoot of the church. the lecture so central to college education, is really a kind of modern version of the sermon. it was a commitment to the idea that students could be transformed to lead lives of meaning and purpose.

>> harvard is the source of dna for almost all of higher education in america. it laid out the model that a university needs to emulate in order to get better resources, better professors, better credentials, better students. as harvard passed that dna down to everyone else, it created a race. >> when the colonial colleges started to become universities, and when brand-new institutions were founded as universities, you begin to see a tension developing between the mission to educate young people and the competition for prestige

to outbuild new rivals. >> american colleges are driven by the pursuit of prestige, and the way you get prestige is that you get the highest ranking, which expands your market and allows you to charge more. >> so in order to go up the ladder, everybody has to keep adding more programs and more facilities at a faster rate than the competitors. >> this really was the most grandiose vision of what a university could be, that it was a place of higher learning. it was a place for research. it covered every single discipline under the sun and there was really no end to its expansion. >> and that became the model. you had to integrate doing your research and needed to provide the housing, the classrooms, all the food that they needed, and the facilities that are required in order to play in the game. and that's a tough game to keep playing.

>> the system of elite residential higher education that americans assembled over the course of the last centuries is extraordinarily effective. nobody disputes that. but it's also extraordinarily inefficient in terms of the resources that are expended to produce these spectacular places. >> higher education in america has been very successful for centuries but now things are changing because the scale and the cost is enormous. we have a product that is so expensive that a lot of people can't pay for it and they have to go into debt, and it just isn't viable. >> the rise in student tuition is unsustainable. we cannot continue to charge significantly more year after

year after year without running into some kind of a brick wall. >> college tuition has increased more than any other good or service in the entire u.s. economy since 1978. >> we're in an environment where we're cutting spending for higher education. the states have essentially walked away. >> they have this great thing in colleges and universities called tuition and it's been a great release valve as preparations have gown gone down in the states, tuitions in public universities has gone up. >> we've lost $100 million in funding, and the board has replaced one out of every four of those dollars with tuition. far more of the cost of education is now born by the student. student loans are certainly an important part of this equation, too. >> the availability of student loans to pay for college makes families less sensitive to the price.

makes colleges less likely to compete on the price. >> all of the competition has been we are better than we used to be, and we're better than you. >> the universities have perks wars. one offers an amenity and they all have to offer the amenity. they're adding the climbing walls and the plasma screen tvs. >> we're getting to the point where we're going to have a swimming pool in every room. >> they have pools with tanning ledges, they have tanning beds. a student tells us, i can take a five-hour bubble bath and no one will complain. >> there's a massive construction boom on u.s. colleges and universities today. it's an arms race, if you will, in higher education. >> it's a feeding frenzy to have a better student center, a bigger football stadium. sometimes it can be grotesque. >> what we've really seen is i think colleges have kind lost their way about who they are and what they are. and they have turned into these

large businesses that have structures around them. they're mini cities. >> families do desire a lot of the amenity that is colleges provide, the proverbial rock wall to sustain those colleges, they have to borrow more money, they have to pay more tuition. to pay $60,000 for college tuition, you give momentum to this notion of the student is a customer when you charge them so much money for their education. >> we tend to focus a lot on student debt but over this last decade institutions themselves, colleges and universities doubled the amount of debt that they took on. and, in fact, we've seen more people be hired that never stepped foot in a classroom, and that's where a lot of the rising costs of college has come. >> administrations seem often to be the tail wagging the dog. some of our leading presidents can be quite shameless in the size of their compensation.

>> we're now starting to question what we're buying. are you really buying a better, higher quality education? >> the fact that college aged kids are having some fun, that's not really the problem. the problem is institutions are creating these party pathways through college and take their money but don't ask anything of them academically. in fact, just give them beer and circuses. the holiday season is here, which means it's time for the volkswagen sign-then-drive event. for practically just your signature, you could drive home for the holidays in a german-engineered volkswagen. like the sporty, advanced new jetta... and the 2015 motor trend car of the year all-new golf.

if you're wishing for a new volkswagen this season... just about all you need is a finely tuned... pen. hurry in and get zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first month's payment on select new volkswagen models. they take us to worlds full of heroes and titans. for respawn, building the best interactive entertainment begins with the cloud. this is "titanfall," the first multi-player game built and run on microsoft azure. empowering gamers around the world to interact in ways they never thought possible. this cloud turns data into excitement. this is the microsoft cloud.

it used to be that you'd get to a public university, it wouldn't cost that much to go there. the university of california used to have no tuition. the tuitions costs in arizona used to be near zero. we need to get back to the point where it's not a huge economic barrier that you have to get over to gain access to a world class university education. as a public university our responsibility is to take a broad cross-section of talent from around our society, move it forward with world class learning experiences at the lowest possible cost. a lot of people would say that's not possible. we say it needs to be possible. >> asu was ranked as one of the top public research universities.

but it also has another ranking that people know. >> party school. we laugh about the party school thing. we literally laugh about it. our model for learning is the robed donned by cambridge or oxford or the kid on the east coast or boston or new york city or something that is huddled around their lamp light in the dark winter nights. when you live in a place with bright sunshine and palm trees and beautiful weather, people think you can't be too serious, but the whole party school thing is just bogus. >> it's the party school. come on. where's the humor in it? >> it's paradise, what's not to love? >> this is a big school and, of course, people party and drink and get crazy and all that stuff, but you don't have to. >> they say that asu is one of the top party schools according to "playboy" or whatever. the average asu student comes to

get drunk out of their minds. >> in 2004 we started looking at the party scene at large mid-tier state universities and it didn't fit with what the majority of students actually need to get out of college. >> the fact college aged kids are having some fun, that's not really the problem. the problem is institutions are creating these party pathways through college and take their money but don't ask anything of them academically. in fact, just give them beer and circuses. in this moment of declining state support, students who can't pay full out-of-state tuition without seeking financial aid are very important for the university. >> you've got to kate tore the out-of-state less studios students who want to party. >> we know how to party.

>> we all know how to party. ♪ >> student from out of state pick the school because of the social life, big-time athletics, the really big greek system. >> increasing of the continue minute yum style living, but that's consequences for everybody else. >> the view is like one of these private living complexes. they have these pool parties every so often where everyone just goes and gets wasted or high or whatever, and then they just start these fights in the pool. >> the asu students wrote man size staying out like this at this private apartment complex where you hang out by the pool

and smoke cigars. when ideally you should be focusing on your schooling and getting a diploma. >> 36% of the kids in our study say they studied less than five hours per week, less than an hour a day, full-time college students. half the kids in our study said they didn't have a single class where they wrote more than 20 pages. we are confronting a situation in this country where for large numbers of students they are not doing much of anything academically. >> there's a lot of distractions here and there's no one holding your hand. some people are not ready for the college level. they fail classes or they withdraw or drop classes midway through the semester because they're not doing so well in them, and they get discouraged by the fourth year and they drop out or just don't have the motivation to continue. i mentor freshman.

you try to give them tips, try to give them a way to study more efficiently. give them a way to study more efficiently, give them ways to do their homework in a better method. >> a couple classes because i missed them and didn't do my homework. >> it's easy to fall back in that trap. keep your mind you have to graduate to be successful. you have to keep that kind of mind-set. >> many of these actors in higher education do not have an interest in promoting academic rigor and student learning. they're focused on something else. faculty today are increasingly rewarded in terms of promotion ten-year compensation by their research productivity and scholarship. a focus on teaching can get in the way of one's research and scholarship. and when these institutions assess one's teaching, they typically do it with course

evaluations. at the end of the class students are given a consumer satisfaction survey. how much did you like the class? would you recommend this class to a friend? you're incentivizing the faculty not to be rigorous but to be lenient grades because the only institutions that they are paying attention to are are the students happy as consumers? at the same time the number of full-time faculty in this country is in sharp decline. being replaced by part-time adjunct instructors. many have limited resources for focusing on academic instruction. institutions invest in other things thinking simply as a business. but many of the organizations are nonprofits. they're accountable to the public, they're accountable to fulfilling their mission. >> it's perfectly appropriate we

shine a strong light on america's colleges and universities and that we demand better of them. >> we should be outraged by the abuses and distortions. but we do not want to erase the history of higher education and say these places are not about the formation of character or self-discovery. >> there are some colleges that have tried to go to the far end of the spectrum in terms of the intensity of the experience. for instance, deep springs college where students make a two-year commitment to, in effect, drop out of the world. >> the mission of deep springs college is to provide a free education to young men in preparation for lives of service to humanity. that's accomplished through what are called the three pillars, and those are self-governance

and academics and labor. and we live in this small community and we spend half of our time in class and spend the other half of our time working either on the ranch or in some way for the community. in committee meetings throughout the week we exercise self-governance which is basically taking responsibility for the community. we choose what classes we're going to take together. >> political theory. >> i think there will be something incorrect credible about going in-depth under one school though very intensely. >> through the education we are, like, putting ourselves through a grinder of some sort. >> i care so little for the idea of going to college. it was like deep springs or nothing. it's a place that demands of you pretty constantly. and i like that because i think if i'd gone to another college i would have become self-absorbed

and narcissistic. the main attraction of deep springs for me was self-governance, having to compromise with people and put myself in other people's positions. i don't think that's something natural for us. that has to be taught. it has to be the result of an education. >> the college classroom is perhaps the best rehearsal space for democracy. students learn to speak with civility, listen to one another with respect, and, most of all, they learn that you can actually walk into a room with one point of view and walk out with another. >> you need to have a common identity as citizens because it creates the bonds of affection. we are not simply sons or brothers, students or doctors, but also citizens. >> why are we talking about the state at all?

expression of the individual through the state? i don't feel that. >> it's because you're treated like a person already. >> what's defined as personhood has previously been exactly the mode in which we have kept, you know, entire races of people outside of the city. so i agree with you and say, why are we talking about the state when its definition of personhood isn't good enough here. >> but you recognize that can be read against that argument effectively? >> right, i agree. but sometimes i think the best way to bring it into the new day is to transgress him. >> students actually have a lot to learn from each other. but what i think of as the most transformative events are really at the end of the day one-on-one experience with a teacher who looks you in the eye. >> i had a public school experience, saw lots of racism, lots of sexism, got beat up, got

in fights. teachers can't do -- families can't do -- >> every time that i come in here and i say what do you think about this, do you want to change that's assignments, how do you like these readings? i'm trying to give you opportunities for agency so i'm simply not just treating you as any old students. the purpose of this place is for you to create what you want here, right, and the problem is that for to you get what you want you have to cooperate with other people which means trying to figure out a way to communicate your anger without being antagonistic. two and a half hours of hagel. take a half-hour break, another hour and a half. that's what i have to do. >> even as deep springs seems to become more and more obsolete or more and more of some kind of i dill idyllic fancy, there's something there and everybody feels it,

having been through it. the school stands for something. >> because of america's status as a country that's always reaching for higher and higher ambition and growth in the 19th century, we started to have this idea that the university education could be a benefit to absolutely everyone. that we should be able to all have the learning that we need to have self-respect, to be able to support ourselves. and also to be able to be full citizens. that idea really culminated in the morrill act of the 1860s. >> in the middle of the civil war in 1862 congress of the united states amazingly enough found focus and attention to pass the morrill act that funded the land that later became the great state universities. >> the federal government provided for the expansion of this dream of higher education at an unprecedented scale. this has never happened before

in any human society, that we'd have higher learning coast to coast and it wouldn't just be for the nobility. senator morrill believed in education even before the slaves, creating the historically black colleges and universities. >> institutions arose at a time when we had racial segregation and we had gender segregation to ensure that black americans and female americans could get a higher education. >> spelman college was founded less than 20 years after the end of slavery with the idea of creating educational opportunity for women who had had none. it's a place where a young woman can say, this place was built for me. >> i am a testimony. every spelman student is a testimony. a testimony of slavery they had themselves been denied. education.

education. >> as it had been prophesied. >> photographcied prophesied. >> one of the major things i think you get from being a young black student at a historically black college is that you get to have those conversations about race and about gender, how the two fit together and how that affects what you're thinking, how you're feeling. when you're in a place for four years where there's people who look like you and they are achieving, it does do something for your own confidence. so it's really a space where you can grow as a person. >> i went to the windsor school in boston. and it's predominantly white. coming from a minority experience to a majority experience, i think it forces me

to find an identity other than the obvious. you know, at my high school, who is amir? oh, she's the black girl. here i have to really figure it out. there are so many other intelligent black women here. i want three other people to bring the rest of the suitcases out here. college being a place of mental growth simultaneously can be a place of spiritual growth, because the two really go hand-in-hand. ♪ glory my sense of self is stronger and it's helped cultivate who i am. ♪ ♪ children i do think you can get that experience without going to college. you can travel the world and get

that experience. you can merely migrate from your hometown and get that experience. but college is a place where that all comes together in one. >> historically black colleges are very powerful. they have a strong connection between the students, the alumni, and the other fellow historically black colleges. but for me, in particular, i didn't apply to many hbcus. i've been around black people my entire life. i went to a school that was more than like 90% african-american. i didn't know how to interact with white people and i was afraid. the biggest thing i think that i've been able to pick up while being at harvard is the ability to connect with people from all different walks of life. i don't want to just impact my community, i want to impact a larger community. >> all of these institutions

have made immense contributions to the history of our democracy. and if you cannot have a democracy without an educated citizenry, you want to see as many citizens as possible get as much education as possible. >> the president makes in excess of $700,000 as total compensation. at a school of only 1,000 students in tight financial times, one would have thought there would have been some proportionality. >> i believe the president of harvard makes $889,000. and she's overseeing 12,000 faculty, 21,000 students, and a $30 billion endowment. >> she doesn't have a fraction of the problem we have. not a fraction of the problems we have. t or moron car insuranc. everybody knows that. well, did you know certain cartoon characters should never have an energy drink? action! blah-becht-blah- blublublub-blah!!!

geico®. introducing the birds of america collection. fifty stunning, hand-painted plates, commemorating the state birds of our proud nation. blah-becht-blah- blublublub-blah!!! geico®. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. we'll even buy you out of your contract.alaxy note 4 for zero down. so you can get the samsung galaxy note 4 for zero down today.

but when we start worrying about tomorrow, we miss out on the things that matter today. ♪ at axa, we offer advice and help you break down your insurance goals into small, manageable steps. because when you plan for tomorrow, it helps you live for today. can we help you take a small step? for advice, retirement, and life insurance, connect with axa. for advice, retirement, and life insurance, i want...regularity. i want good digestive health. i just don't want to have to think about regularity. natural benefiber® helps support digestive health... and maintain th word you know what it tastes like in water? water! except this water makes you feel great. benefiber®. now in stick packs.

the philanthropists at the gilded age gave us the mass idea as a basic human right. peter cooper was this industrialist who believed in education is as free as water and air. he founded the cooper union, school of industrial arts and design in new york city with the idea that it would be available to people no matter what their background to study useful and practical arts. but to date the cooper union is

one of the last examples of a free higher education in the country. >> a full scholarship for every enrolled student is the current mission statement of cooper union. >> peter cooper wanted the school to be accessible to the working class, to women, to people of color. i come from the lower middle class family. may parents told me about cooper, and when i found out, i was like on says obsessed. i didn't even think about going anywhere else. >> nowadays so much is against this 19th century model of a free education. ideologically, financially, it's ancient.

>> when john shepherd showed the current president that came into office, he announced to the cooper community that we are running a large deficit and that tuition for the first time in 154 years would be on the table. the current administration is trying to say that the education as a right is not something that we should be focusing on. >> being free, the model is extremely complicated. you know, you look at the financial statements and you can see an extraordinarily large deficit. and i think peter cooper would have wants us if we had to talk about tuition to be able to talk about it. >> we all acknowledge that we're in a financial strait right now but the administration and the board fail to understand how tuition will destroy the school.

>> the administration did -- >> the administration -- >> must publicly affirm -- >> must publicly affirm -- >> colleges -- >> colleges -- >> commitment -- >> commitment -- >> to free education. >> to free education. >> the president has come from tuition charging colleges and he thinks that we should become like other colleges covered by normal kinds of words like sustainability. >> i'm here before you because the very survival of this institution is at stake. we do not have a sustainable budget. >> if you want free education, how are you going to structure it? i believe it's not compatible with small class size, highly interpersonal interaction and providing good compensation to people and i believe in providing good compensation. >> the president makes in excess of $700,000 as total compensation.

at a school of only 1,000 students in tight financial times. one would have thought there would have been some proportionality. >> i believe the president of harvard makes $889,000 and she's overseeing 12,000 faculty, 21,000 students, and a $30 billion endowment. >> she doesn't have a fraction of the problem we have. not a fraction of the problems we have. >> apparently we are the harvard of ashton place. >> i don't think that the model of free education doesn't work. there's all sorts of things that got us into this mess and it wasn't the cost of educating the students. >> most of higher education believes in growth at all costs, growing their way out of

difficulty. and that becomes rather problematic when you are building a building at about $1,000 a square foot which is more than a luxury hotel. it's possible to have downsized as cooper union has done in 150 years of ups and downs in the market. but that was not the decision that was made. >> do you think it was wise to invest in hedge funds? and to use the money borrowed in the $175 million loan for that purpose? >> you know, i'm not an investment person. i'm -- good at budgets but i'm not an investment person. were they risky decisions? well, you know, one can ask if

they were or not, but there is no question that loan is a, you know, challenge for the institution to pay back. >> cooper union is faced with a mortgage payment of $10 million a year. it's terrible irony that an institution that was supposed to get people out of debt gets into that kind of debt itself. >> the idea cooper union would think about charging tuition really seemed like such a huge betrayal and a bellwether of where education is. students are not seen as having a right to their education, and institutions sort of feel free to continue to raise the price. what's happening to higher education in this country? why is it seen as the province of the rich and the rich alone? people are ignoring all of the

functions that education has served throughout our history as a public good. >> certain economic truths have become self-evident. among these the right to a good education. >> right after the second world war, the g.i. bill was passed, which made it possible for men who would never have been allowed to walk onto a college campus except perhaps as members of the custodial staff or as delivery boys to actually walk through the gates as students. >> over 2 million veterans took advantage of the g.i. bill. this was an opportunity that was free given by the government, and it made a difference to the american middle class. >> that expansion of the franchise of higher education was really so unprecedented and it led directly to the higher education act of 1965 creating the federal student aid programs. >> this law means that a high school senior can apply to any college and not be turned away because his family is poor.

[ applause ] >> but the rug was pulled out from under students in the 1970s. we shifted from seeing education as a public good to seeing it exclusively as a private good. conservative governors, especially governor reagan of california, had really run on the idea that higher education was a wasteful way to spend taxpayer money. governor reagan actually said the state should not subsidize intellectual curiosity and he ran for president later on a promise to disband the department of education. >> certain advisers started to say that anything of a private advantage should be paid for. >> the word free is one of the most misused words. we speak of free education. education isn't free. it costs money. >> if this is something that is going to be good for individuals

to get a job and earn more money they should finance it and make the investment themselves. >> we need to keep government on the sidelines. let the people develop their own skills, solve their own problems. >> we stopped expanding the franchise of higher education, graduation rates stopped rising and access for the poor to higher education started going down. in the 1970s a pell grant was more than enough to pay for tuition at an average state institution. >> but today, a pel grant pays for a fraction of tuition. this led to growth of the student loan industry, which ended up being the largest source of money for all tuition. the student loan program was never intended to be this large. the student debt crisis, coupled with the rise in tuition rates over the past 30 years, it's just a perfect storm. it's a nightmare.

>> we are the students! >> it's like a sub prime mortgage broker that ripped you off and talked you into buying a house you couldn't afford. education in some ways is even more insidious than housing. >> cnn films, "ivory tower" is brought to you by red lobster. come in today and see food differently. wood-grilled combination! maine lobster, extra jumbo shrimp, and salmon! so hurry in! and sea food differently. helps you find a whole range of coverages. no one else gives you options like that. [voice echoing] no one at all! no one at all! no one. wake up! [gasp] oh! you okay, buddy? i just had a dream that progressive had this thing called... the "name your price" tool... it isn't a dream, is it? nope. sorry! you know that thing freaks me out.

he can hear you. he didn't mean that, kevin. kevin: yes, he did! keeping our competitors up at night. now, that's progressive. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ameriprise asked people a simple question: in retirement, will you have enough money to live life on your terms?

i sure hope so. with healthcare costs, who knows. umm... everyone has retirement questions. so ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. now you and your ameripise advisor.... can get the real answers you need. start building your confident retirement today.

from san francisco to silicon valley, boston private bank works with all kinds of people who are innovating, building, contributing -- individuals, business owners, private partnerships, non-profits, families planning their financial futures. people like you. if you want the individual attention and expertise your financial needs deserve, this is your time. this is your private bank.

>> we just hit an awful milestone. our nation's combined student loan debt has now hit $1 trillion. it's now larger than credit card debt in this country. >> the average american student now graduates more than $25,000 in debt. >> i grew up in a low-income household. i was always told to work hard, and if you follow your dreams, it will pay off. and if you need to go into educational debt to achieve those dreams, then so be it. a couple months after i graduated, collectors started calling and i told them i could not pay. even with a masters, i couldn't get a job cleaning toilets at a local hotel. i was living on food stamps,

eating mostly beans and rice. ♪ >> 20 years ago, we said all the kids who aren't going to college are being the victims and now it's turning out that a lot of the kids who are going to college are also the victims. it's like a sub prime mortgage broker that ripped you off and talked you into buying a house you couldn't afford. education in some ways is even more insidious than housing. >> there isn't the same kind of safety valve in the student loan market that you see in the mortgage market. there's no such thing as foreclosure, and there's no such thing as bankruptcy. either half of loans are in deferment, or they're in default. when you default on your student loans, interest is applied to the principal. so you see original balances in the tens of thousands, ballooning up to hundreds of

thousands of dollars. >> starting off 78,000, ending up at 106,000 in interest alone. >> you're going to be saddled with that debt and ballooning balance until the day that you die. >> that's the kind of garbage our government is playing with our young people. >> the government will make $184 billion in profits over the next ten years. all those profits made off the backs of our kids who are trying to get an education. i think this whole system stinks. >> what do we want! >> education! >> when do we want it? >> now! >> we cannot continue to treat student loan debt as an individual issue. we must realize that as a society, we cannot leave a whole generation in debt. >> once you hit $50,000 in debt, you need to pause and take a

look at the value of the education you're getting. you don't want to incur debt that stops you from investing in family formation, houses, cars, and children down the road. >> the value of my education is priceless. but the value of my education is also not $140,000 in debt. if i do ever have kids, my private loans will be directly passed to them, even if i die. it's just siphoning my dreams away, and i feel bad talking about any dreams that i have these days, because there's all this talk that generation of mine is so entitled and selfish, just from wanting the opportunities that their parents had. >> a lot of the older generations that criticize the millenials grew up in a time when you could go to a state university and pay your way through with summer jobs. these millennial children got to college and realized, the money is not there to pay for me. i'm not going to graduate into a curby job.

in fact, everything that i was told about the way that the world works, turns out not to be the case. >> the student debt crisis, coupled with the rise in tuition rates over the past 30 years, it's just a perfect storm. it's a nightmare. >> we are the students! >> we are the students! >> the mighty, mighty students! >> the mighty, mighty students. >> after 18 months of intense analysis, the board of trustees voted to charge tuition for all undergraduates beginning with the class of 2014. >> right after the announcement was made, i spoke to them. he was waving his hands, yelling, cutting us off. right outside of the school, there was a lot of grieving, people were angry. you could kind of feel this chaotic energy. it kind of felt like at any moment something could happen. the moment right before an

action starts is the most exciting, also scary. it was a really long planning session. >> obviously they can do these things. they can overstep us, they can do that and they're doing it. >> we need to move forward. >> we didn't know what to do, but people were like, we have to do something. let's just go in to the president's office. we're just going to do it. we went in, 40 or so people, maybe more. >> door people. >> lawrence! lawrence! >> the secretary tried to say, don't go in there, but it was 40 of us. he wasn't there. >> we, the students of the cooper union, for the advancement of science and art can no longer endorse the decisions of our leadership, by

voting no confidence today, join us in keeping cooper union free to all. >> i do have a statement to read to you. first let me say, i'd rather you just leave. >> students and others currently engaged in a sit-in of the president's suite are trespassing. we're going to give a one-hour period for anyone to leave. anyone remaining on the seventh floor after that one-hour period will be subject to disciplinary action. >> at some point they are going to have to try and remove us. >> i am an officer of the court! [ shouting ] >> my hand's in the door!

>> security guards on the other side of this glass. and there's two or three other men. >> it was a very bad situation in the lobby. and the police could get called. i have moved additional security guards. the police are also standing down. [ applause ] >> five, four, three, two, one! >> for many of us, it was the first time being in the president's office. we have this red light that we show to say that we're occupying the space. it's like being in the submarine. it's like a shared experience, and it's hard to sleep because there's all this energy.

there's some physicality of having to be there. actually having to abstain from your normal life, and that's very powerful. this space of action is also this great opportunity to have no one imposing structures on us. and this is really not asking permission and unapologetic. we're not sorry. >> an entire school does not have any confidence in your ability to lead the cooper union. if people have no confidence, it means that, no, you're not going to be able to regain that trust, because there's none left. >> you know, it's a little

simplistic to say that you don't do this and you don't do that. i'm on the board. i was firmly for no divisitwiti. the numbers are what they are. however they got there, that's where they are now. [ shouting ] >> can i finish? >> you need to go. you're so rude. >> i would like the tone of this whole discussion to cool down a little bit. it's clear to all of us that this moment is different than anything that's come before. we haven't been to this point. and i think we need to let go of some of the old dialogue. because we're in a new place right now. what we need to do, quite simply, is realize this moment in the country, with a trillion dollars in student debt, with all of the models of higher education, as a business, it's failing. this is a moment for this school to be the vision of what education can be in this country, just as it was the vision 150 years ago.

it was part of a radical, capitalist vision, rooted in the turn of century idea about humanity, and it's an idea that i think is incredible contemporary and incredibly urgent, all right? to effectively lead us, you need to realize the moment you're in and the position you're in. it is a historic position. it is a historic moment. this is a big step that you came here to meet with us. we need a leap, not a gamble. [ applause ] ♪ ♪ >> universities are clearly at a crisis point. we've had runaway cost inflation. this is not what either the kids or the parents signed up for.

>> for years, we've been saying college is a great investment no matter what. and now people are starting to ask really, really tough questions about the role that colleges play in american society. the authority that they have, their moral high ground. >> moody is saying that college might not be worth the cost. >> the agency says the high cost of college, plus growing public doubts about the value of a bachelor's degree, has caused it to revise down its outlook on the entire higher education sector to negative. >> there's going to be a collapse, one way or another, there's going to be a crisis. it gets to the point where the price of a degree is so high that people just don't want to pay for it anymore. >> this is not what most colleges want to talk about. they want to pretend education is something that is completely non-financial, an end in itself. these are very noble ideals, but they don't make sense when people are taking on 100, $200,000 in student debt.

>> i don't think you'll find a more fervent believer in the liberal arts than the guy holding the microphone in front of you today. when you start college, that's the time to discover what you love to do. it might be theater and biology. it might be neuroscience and religion. whatever it is, now's the time. when you have the chance to experiment, you have the chance to open yourself up to new things, when you can discover who you are, who you might become. yes, sir? >> what you just said is terrifically exciting. but the truth is, many of us in this room are about to lay out a whole lot of money. tell me one thing. >> yes. >> is my daughter going to have a job and she's not going to come back home after it's done? >> is your daughter going to have a job and not come back home? i can't tell you that. although, the time to be defensive about education is not

now. this is a time to be aggressive about a broadly based, intensely personal, and intensively practical form of education. whatever school you go to. and it is expensive. i know. i don't have to tell you parents here. >> there's a phone down there that i'll use. >> we're definitely ensconced in this view that there's only one way to go to college and that's, you know, the four-year, private school where your kids live in dorms with their friends and have all their meals taken care of, and someone cleaning the bathroom. i'm amply stressed about the college search to come. >> that is the new one world trade building that they're building. >> all the parents i know,

they're like their kid's college search managers. >> as you can see, it's a massive building. altogether, there are nine libraries in the family and about six million volumes as well. >> i want this for my kids, it's just too bad it cost $60,000 a year. and it really does cost $60,000 a year. >> this is the main building for student life here on the nyu campus. we have two athletic facilities, there's a rock climbing wall, there's a squash court. >> it takes a real shift to consider something different when our kids are on this path towards a college degree. >> going to college has become a way to avoid thinking about the future. what are you going to do with your life? i don't know, i'm just going to get another degree. and instead of getting one credential after another on some sort of track, i think it's very important to think hard about, if you didn't go to college, what would you do instead? >> peter thiel, the man who

founded pay pal, funded facebook, is offering 24 college students $100,000 if they drop out of school and start their own business. ♪ ♪ >> when you think of hacking, the first thing people think is literally hacking a computer. hacking your education is really finding an alternative. i might go to college. i might not. so that's why i'm here right now. >> if you want to challenge yourself not to go to college, or if you want to challenge yourself to go to college and get the most out of college, you have to reflect on what it is you're buying and what it is your parents are buying. the idea that you're going to go to keg parties for four years sounds cool, but when you think about what parents pay for,

really what they're paying for is for you not be left behind in the information economy. right? people say, aren't you ruining people's lives by encouraging them to take a risk and not go to college? >> i think it's much riskier to go to college and ten on $20,000 in debt and have miserable job prospects when you get out and have to start repaying that debt. that seems high-risk to me. >> when you look at higher education, you realize you're paying for this mythical large bundle of things that you're supposed to get. so i'm here to give you a framework to look at what types of services you could be accessing that could either supplement or replace going to college. so i've unbundled college into three parts. the first is engaging with content you're supposed to learn. so it could be through a lecture. i'm transferring content to you. then there's an affiliate

network, enduring relationships with people who will look out for you and find you opportunities. and the third is the piece of paper that certifies you have met some minimum level of competency. >> when i went to school, there was no way to access the services that higher education provided easily and freely or cheaply on the internet. and it turns out, well, now you kind of can. >> what do you see, in a world in which degrees don't matter so much? but where people say, hey, i'm a dropout -- not that you'll phrase it that way. >> i won't necessarily say first off that i dropped out of school. but they'll look at it and say, you have experience? >> since i was paying college myself, i realized early on, it's too much. i need work experience, life experience, i need to get out of college and start my own path. >> in a couple years, that number is going to get depleted. and the only colleges that matter in the future are going

to be the prestigious colleges that have made a name for themselves. >> my mom didn't go to college. but my dad has benefitted well from college. they thought i was crazy. they're like, what is this? a whole bunch of kids coming to san francisco, who all don't want to go to college. they thought it was more like a cult. >> there is a change coming. there has to be a change coming. the four-year under graduate residential experience is the gold standard. small classes, lots of intimate contact. how do we create as close to that ideal as we can, while reducing costs? technology has to be part of that solution, a big part of it. cnn films presented by volkswagen. isn't it time for german engineering?

sign-then-drive event. for practically just your signature, you could drive home for the holidays in a german-engineered volkswagen. like the sporty, advanced new jetta... and the 2015 motor trend car of the year all-new golf. if you're wishing for a new volkswagen this season... just about all you need is a finely tuned... pen. hurry in and get zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first month's payment on select new volkswagen models. just want to say, i bundled home and auto with state farm, saved 760 bucks. love this guy. so sorry. okay, does it bother anybody else that the mime is talking? frrreeeeaky! [ male announcer ] savings worth talking about. state farm. frrreeeeaky! sir, we're loaded and getting ready to go... ...we're going to need you on the runway. (vo) don't let a severe cold hold you back. sir? (vo) theraflu starts to get to work in your body in just 5 minutes.

(vo) theraflu breaks you free from your worst cold and flu symptoms. (vo) theraflu. serious power.

♪ a friend of mine told me there's this education hacker house and you have to meet the people, because i was also into the future of education. ♪ >> i had no idea there was this whole community of people that were passionate about the future of knowledge and learning. we've had hackers come in and sleep on bunk beds, working on their apps. we've had meet-ups in the backyard. we've had a variety of start-ups working out of this house, and

it's a community of people that believes that we don't need to rely on traditional schools or institutions. there's no longer a great value proposition in paying 200k for a degree, particularly when you're not at an ivy league school. >> i didn't want to go to college in terms of the cost and time and money. and i thought this would be an excellent place to get the college equivalent, living with entrepreneurs. it forces me to grow up. you have to do your own dishes, cook for yourself, deal with rent, all that kind of stuff. >> in silicon valley, we don't care about accolades or experience even. we care about skills. as things progress, degrees will matter less and less. you shouldn't have to have 200k of debt in order to learn a lot, be really talented and then show the world what your skills are capable of doing. >> i dropped out of college to start working on facebook full

time out here. i later talked to my mom about it, and she told me that she knew that i was going to drop out of college. >> there are a lot of very successful entrepreneurs, multimillionaires. we've had billionaires that didn't go to college. in fact, i'd say today, given the internet and the ease with which you can become self-educated. there's more reasons than ever not to have to go. >> truthfully that's very bad advice, because those people were all exceptions to the rule. they made it in spite of a system, an apparatus that said they wouldn't. the safest bet by far is to go to college. >> the thiel fellowship is

focused on a small sub set of people that i think will do fantastic even without a college credential. i think it's a bigger question, what one does for average people, less advantaged backgrounds, i don't have answers for it. >> many intellectuals are saying it would be better if somebody people don't go to college at all. i think that's an assault on democracy. and it's an attempt to keep people in their place and reinforce social inequality. education should foster social mobility and the possibility of equality. >> there's no -- >> you got to be crazy to intentionally not get a college degree, if you have a choice today. and if the college education is really a college education, and not just training in one particular little field. you learn how to learn, so that can actually open up new things in your life. long after college. >> part of our responsibility as

educators is actually to help inspire students who connect with problems in the world. because we're leaving them with a lot of problems. and i think they know that, actually, and they want to engage. [ bagpipes ] >> we have three demands. that he steps down as president. that the board and the administration publicly affirm the mission statement, including free tuition. and if there is to have more democratic governance. >> now, i know this has been a difficult time for the cooper union community. there is anger, there is disappointment over the tuition issue. but the debate you're having

really isn't about whether education is free. it's really a debate about who can and who is willing to pay for it. there's nothing really free in life. please join me in welcoming the president of the cooper union. [ applause ] >> it is with awe and humility that i stand before you to honor our students. to our graduating students, congratulations. you have distinguished yourself beyond imagination. you've distinguished yourselves -- ♪ ♪

[ cheers and applause ] >> fellow graduates, i would like you all to assist me, please in filling this hall with our voices. [ applause ] mike check. >> mike check. >> mike check. >> mike check! >> hope. >> hope! >> hope is everything. >> hope is everything! >> to do a dull thing with hope. >> to do a dull thing with hope. >> will never be preferable. >> will never be preferable. >> to doing a dangerous thing with hope. >> to doing a dangerous thing with hope. ♪ ♪

>> there is a change coming. there has to be a change coming. the four-year undergraduate residential experience is the gold standard. small classes, lots of intimate contact. how do we create as close to that ideal as we can, while reducing costs? technology has to be part of that solution. a big part of it. >> some people, including the president of stanford university who uses the metaphor of a tsunami, believe that mooks, massive open online courses are going to transform higher education beyond recognition and sweep away everything that we associate with colleges like

this one. the mooc revolution began with daphne, my colleague in computer science came to me a number of years ago. she talked about a way of teaching differently, with online technology, and then recruited sebastian to try some experiments. >> welcome to the online introduction to artificial intelligence. i'll be teaching this class at stanford and online for the entire world. i'm really excited about this. >> sebastian said, let's open this course to everybody in the world. there was a bit of chaos, i must say. but there was also some real excitement, particularly when hundreds of thousands of students started initially indicating interest. >> we had an opportunity to really change the access that hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people had to an education that they would never otherwise have been able to get. >> there's a red pill and a blue

pill. and you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students, but i've taken the red pill and i've seen wonderland. having done this, i can't teach at stanford again. >> these professors who took part in this left stanford to do their own start-ups. their rival is coming out of m. i t. and harvard. >> one of the first courses in the initiative debuted this monday. turns out we had a few more students show up on monday than we initially expected. 100,000 people following along at home. >> all of these platforms are using short videos, interact questions and online chat sessions, even robo grading, to translate courses that were created at the world's top universities into versions that can and are being taken by millions of people all around the globe, absolutely for free.

>> one of the reasons we're experimenting with online education is to see if the technology can actually increase access to high quality education. i don't know what people will learn. that's the most important question. >> for me, this is an interact medium that empowers the student, just very much like a video game. to be asked the question, is there a different way to teach? for students to find out by themselves how to solve problems? >> let me come back to one piece of this code that needs a little more explanation. that's this colonel call. >> the way that i'm teaching is very different when i'm doing it under the camera, as opposed to in a classroom. most of what they see is hands, and hands humanize it for the students more than if they were just looking at white boards. but that is literally all they're going to see. so as far as they know, i'm a robot. >> certainly we are

controversial, because we take the focus away from the professor and put the focus back on the student. >> does it really make sense to have 500 professors in 500 different universities each teach students in a similar way, or do you take the rock star and put him here and let him spend ten times as much time, and maybe that rock star can do a better job for these students. >> i blew it on the last sentence. okay, try it again. >> what is happening to higher education is not good for america. and it's not good for the young people. this huge cost structure is part of the marketization. i think it's getting out of hand right now. >> i don't want to see tuition grow up, but i know that i can't

convince my colleagues at the state capital to provide more money, so we have to look at ways of changing the design. >> in 2012 i get this message saying, my name is governor brown, we should talk. >> i was reading "the new york times" on sunday, saw his name and e-mail, he called me back soon after. >> i spent about an hour on the phone and he said you've been focused on bringing this stanford level education to the world, but realize the disaster in california is not that. it's really the lower level where lots of kids are left behind. >> from the beginning, california's been a place of pioneers and scoundrels and bold people. the california state university system is a part of that lineage. >> california pioneered the best public education system in the world. >> they saw higher education as

the ticket to a better life for people in california, and to a better economy. and when you think about what california has contributed to the american economy, you can trace so much back to its higher education system. >> there was a tiered system with the community colleges, state colleges, and the great research universities. a system that virtually guaranteed college education to every high school graduate in the state of california. the vision of clark kerr would provide instruction at all levels and students could move upward through it. >> california prospers in large part to the extent that it provides ready opportunity for all of its citizens to secure education, appropriate to their interests and abilities. >> the california system is still a model for the rest of the nation. the problem now is that as the state has pulled back on its financial commitment to those systems, the ideal there is really under threat.

>> the idea of a public college, that's publicly funded and accessible is under attack. so we're really creating high arkies where the students who can afford it work with teachers have one-on-one face time with faculty and students who can't afford it will go to youtube. sao down. grab the hottest phone around, for zero down and zero waiting and zero annual service contracts only at t-mobile. stuck in a contract? we'll even buy you out of it. so why wait? switch now and get the samsung galaxy note 4 for zero down. it's more than the car.er. for lotus f1 team, the competitive edge is the cloud. powered by microsoft dynamics, azure, and office 365,

the team can gain real time insights and instantly share information around the globe. when every millisecond counts, staying competitive begins with the cloud. this is the microsoft cloud. i'i like to think of myself as more of a control... enthusiast. mmm, a perfect 177-degrees. and that's why this road warrior rents from national. i can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. and i don't have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. and i don't. and national lets me choose any car in the aisle. control. it's so, what's the word?... sexy. go national. go like a pro.

>> only 16% of the students at cal state get out in four years. and the longer you stay, the more you spend. so this is a big, huge problem with student debt approaching a trillion dollars. >> our students are very hard working. many of them are first generation to college. and more than 50% of our students need to take remedial courses. but with the increasing budget cuts, we're unable to offer remedial math both semesters. my goal was to do some pilot testing. san jose could be a living laboratory of students to test mooc material. [ applause ] >> today they will sign a

partnership agreement. our aim, to focus like a laser on entry-level classes for college credit. that's the key. it's for college credit. [ applause ] ♪ ♪ >> my colleagues were shocked. san jose state wanted to be involved at all. we're licensing our education to a start-up. i wouldn't hire a start-up to do a bathroom remodel in my house. >> what's happening in california is crisis management tactics. public funding is drying up. so they need to offer more courses for less money. and putting a class on the internet seems like the easiest way. but whether or not it's the best way and whether or not people who are standing to profit should be making this decision, i haven't heart much honest conversation about that. >> we are giving taxpayer money to private business. >> we're ready for the first question.

>> how is yaudasity being paid? how much? >> we can't disclose the amount, i'm sorry. >> if we're going to spend money, why not just hire people to teach the classes? >> the idea of public college is under attack. we're creating hire arkies where the students who can afford it have one-on-one time with faculty and students who can't afford it will go on youtube. >> the results for the first udasity course rs are, i think, profound. >> the data is outrageous. the pass rate in elementary statistics, 50.5%. college algebra, 25.4%. entry level math, 23.8%. that's down right scary. what we want is a silver bullet.

what we want is a magic pill. well, there isn't, unfortunately. it it's certainly not udasity. >> oops. we blew it. they didn't learn the material. they couldn't succeed in the next level of classes. oh, well. >> retention rates in online classes are lower than face to face. you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. students have to have the discipline, motivation and persistence. >> you could also say that you have to have a teacher to bring those qualities out. >> yes, and we did attempt to do that with online mentors. >> you'll be seeing a lot of our hands throughout the course, but we thought we would show you our faces too so you can get to know us better. ♪ >> the students who need the most attention, who are least

confident about their ability as learners. there's a lot of evidence that those students don't learn very much from moocs. so i'm not quite prepared to give up the california vision of clark kerr and turn it over to the silicon valley and say, onward and upward and rescue us from this moras. ♪ ♪ >> i have so much work to do. it's just stupid. >> oh, that soft drink? >> we have to build it. >> this is just too much. i started to wonder, am i going to be able to finish?

am i going to be able to do this? >> i just have to leverage what i have and not be so self-conscious about the things that i'm not good at. because you already have ten people in your class that you can connect with and work with and collaborate with. >> look at this. it's a computer science class that could be entirely taught online and is to a large extent, but still look at how many people who are in this dining hall who need help. they need help in person, that's why they're here. >> could you walk me through that, i don't know what that means. >> okay, when you see square bracket, that usually means -- >> so it should be more commas? >> so, by doing this, this wards off one of those attacks we started talking about briefly. a sequel injection attack. students require constant engagement on my part, on the teaching staff's part. most of us are up at all hours

of the night. we have 24/7 coverage, students can ask questions at any hour and get answers. so you're on the right track. get the whole thing working and then you can plug in the additional data that you need. >> you can't right now replace a teacher with a robot or talking head on a screen. >> nothing beats person-to-person contact. see, there you go. >> the human experience has a magic about it and this is not rep lickable. >> we're not going to replace that kind of learning. students working together on projects that involve being there physically. >> so how do we put these things together? the face-to-face and the opportunities of the online, and how can we come up with hybrid models? >> we should tap into the idealism of young people and provoke students to think for themselves, to think critically about the way society is put

together. america has been all about critical thinking. that's how we became america. >> i support the occupation! >> i support the occupation! >> i support the mission statement! >> i support the mission statement! >> and i support the notion of free and accessible education for all! celebrate what's new, the bigger, better menu at red lobster! with more of what you love! try our newest wood-grilled combination! maine lobster, extra jumbo shrimp, and salmon! so hurry in! and sea food differently. i lost my sight in afghanistan, but it doesn't hold me back. i go through periods where it's hard to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day.

non-24 is a circadian rhythm disorder that affects up to 70% of people who are totally blind. talk to your doctor about your symptoms and learn more by calling 844-844-2424. or visit my24info.com. save your coffee from the artificial stuff. switch to truvia. great tasting, zero-calorie sweetness from the stevia leaf. but when we start worrying about tomorrow, we miss out on what matters today. ♪ at axa, we offer advice

and help you break down your retirement goals into small, manageable steps. because when you plan for tomorrow, it helps you live for today. can we help you take a small step? for advice, retirement, and life insurance, connect with axa.

>> community colleges are the most flexible institutions we have. they are the most open to alternative curriculums because they've always had to scramble to educate the less advantaged kids in america. >> what we need to accomplish today is to take a look at these index. so if you have any questions or problems, today is the day to kind of address those. the model here is to teach classrooms. what that means is to have the lecture content be outside of

the class. students have a m.i.t. professor doing video lectures. they watch that at home. when they've completed a lecture, they come in here, work in small groups, talk to each other, they're encouraged to help each other, using more hands o using lots more problem-solving skills and critical thinking. >> the character function will call up any character that has an ascii value. i guess my method to do that was maybe a little bit different. >> my doing flip classroom, eliminating the large lecture, there's an opportunity for the faculty member now to spend their time helping the students who are struggling. >> are you testing it now, making sure it's working? okay, good. how are we doing over here? we have to do something to keep students engaged, for them to learn? this is our job. this is what we're here for. >> we're in experimental mode. we have no choice but to go very fast. experimentation will produce

success and failure. and we need to learn to live with that. because technology is the hope for many young people who otherwise won't be able to afford the education they need. >> i think there's a tendency to romanticize the top-tier ivy league schools. i think what's more important is to have the personal will to follow through on one's ideas and to spend their time to actually be impassioned about the things they're working on. i feel that's a much more important dialogue to have within yourself. >> this is wis where i spent a decent amount of my life. one of the toughest neighborhoods in cleveland. it's been tough this semester, i'm not doing particularly well in any of my classes. and i started to question, maybe

i'm not cut out to be here. i just had to slap myself back to reality, like, wait dog, you doing everything in your power to do well and, like, if i dropped out of harvard, i'm back where i started. i haven't actually, you know, bettered myself at all. i want to better myself. >> i look at you as a young man and say, he could have been a drug addict, he could have ran the streets, he could have been a hoodlum, but you wanted to make something out of life. and that's what i'm so proud of. they going to look at you and say, he from ohio, he from cleveland, and he was in college trying to make something out of himself. but you got a lot of people out there trying to discourage you. you can't let that happen. >> it's the same. kids don't realize they can position themselves to take advantage all these opportunities. it's just so much. >> i'll see you later. >> love you, honey. >> love you too. >> as a kid, you have all these wild fantasies and dreams about what you wanted to do when you got older, but what people

consider a normal life from where i come from is to leave school and go get a job in a factory. they get caught in the cycle of poverty in the ghetto, almost. that's like life to you. you don't know anything better. college is the place where you figure out that there's something better. >> it's finally over. i survived the challenge that is cs 50. yeah, i wanted to do more. i had this big goal. >> the more campuses one visits, the more one discovers that the diversity of america's college students is mind-boggling. and everywhere i go, i meet students who give me hope for the future of our country. it has been and will continue to be a challenge to keep the doors

of college open to provide the best possible education to as many people as possible. not everybody's going to want it. not everybody will be able to take good advantage of more education. but let's not assume that college has outlived its usefulness. let's not assume that it's inevitable that public support for institutions of higher learning has to just continue to decline. there are other choices that can be made. i mean, what kind of a society do we want to be? we should tap into the idealism of young people and provoke students to think for themselves, to think critically about the way society is put together. america has been all about critical thinking. that's how we became america. >> i support the occupation! >> i support the occupation! >> i support the mission

statement! >> i support the mission statement! >> and i support the notion of free and accessible education for all! >> and i support the -- [ cheers and applause ] ♪ ♪ >> this is one ever the longest student occupations in american history. everyone i know has given so much of their time and their energy, trying to save our school. >> thank you for coming. >> it is very tiring and i feel it's very much uphill. there's so much other work that needs to be done. ♪ ♪

>> it's really tragic that the only resolution they could think of is to charge tuition. i think the tuition announcement was not the end of an era. it was the beginning of a campaign. it might take a long time to see the world that we want to live in. but any time someone says you can't do that, it's like a trigger going off in my head and i'm like, but you can. >> cnn films, presented by volkswagen. isn't it time for german engineering?

♪ ♪ come down come down from your ivory tower ♪ ♪ don't keep us so far apart >> i've always felt when i step onto a college campus a slight element of melancholy in the air. if you're a teacher, you arrive every fall semester for the new year and you know that you've gotten a year older, but the students are the same age as they always were. they keep replenishing themselves. ♪ come down from your ivory tower ♪ >> college is a way to preserve cultural memory. it is an effort to cheat death, so it's a kind of struggle against time and mortality. ♪ so cold in your ivory tower