they read plato, when they get out, they'll have skills that will get them a job. i think that probably would be true, but when tuition so high that you're investing -- even if it's not in student loans, even if you're paying it out of your trust fund or something, you're still investing something in the six figures for your college education. expecting an 18-year-old to do that with no payoff doesn't make any more sense than expecting an 18-year-old to buy a ferrari. a ferrari, will that improve your life? yes! it would improve mine. [laughter] but it's a big expense item, and if it doesn't somehow pay for itself, it's not the kind of expense item that an 18-year-old ought to have. that's doubly or tripoli so if it's on borrowed money. >> we have time for one more. right here. >> if your predictions prove correct, are we going to see large american corporations -- merrill lynch, citibank, procter & gamble -- looking to hire smart high school kids and training them and giving up a

college degree entirely? >> you know, you might. the reason why you don't see more of this, there's sort of an economics of it. if you hire somebody and train them and then you leave, you don't recoup your investment. and, of course, in the old days we had apprenticeship systems that made sure they didn't leave until you recouped your investment. student loans are almost a form of involuntary servitude or indentured servitude now. but not -- so that's an issue. but i don't think it's at all unbeatable. and be i think that there is a growing interest, i mean, one of the places pushing certifications, for example, is the manufacturing industry which has got a consortia of people pushing stackable certificates that show people have skills and training people for that. so i think you will see more of that. whether it'll get to the point where it substantially displaces college degrees, i would like to see that because i think it would be good. but i don't know that it will. you see some of that now. mcdonald's has hamburger university, right?

you go there, you learn a lot, and it's valuable to them. >> thanks very much, glenn reynolds. [applause] thank you all for coming. [inaudible conversations] >> we'd like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback, twitter.com/booktv. >> i would say that i'm working from 9 to 3. most writers who say that they write for seven or eight hours a day are exaggerating. you just can't.

you sort of lose it after a while. you certainly lose it when you're working on a novel. because thenings of your imagination -- the edges of your imagination start to blur after, i would say, best case about three hours. but even when you're writing a nonfiction book, you know, you maybe put in three good hours of pounding away, and the rest of it's research, looking at e-mail, making another cup of coffee, that sort of thing. fiction usually begins with a theme for me. you know, identity, redemption, art, fame, things like that. but the whole process really picks up steam when i start to ground some of my thoughts in a character who will become the protagonist. and that character becomes sharper and sharper to me. i think all writing is

affirmatively good if only because it leaves a piece of yourself behind. i mean, let's say you're blogging all through your 20s, and let's say almost no one reads your blog. but 20 years from then you will have children, and you can show them what you wrote. and they will understand things about you that they might not understand otherwise. i mean, what i always say is writing even this its most basic form -- a letter, a poem, a note to someone -- it confers a kind of immortality. we've all had that experience of loving someone, of losing them, of opening a drawer and finding a card that they've signed or a letter they wrote and thinking, oh, still alive. still alive this some way. so i think, i think the more writing, the better. >> any regrets about anything that you've written?

>> you know, i think regrets are things that a good columnist -- and i like to think i was a good columnist -- get withs out before she publishes -- gets out before she publishes. in other words, you spend a fair amount of time at the computer backstopping yourself. when you're writing about your family constantly, and even when you're writing about events, part of your brain is thinking how will this feel in ten years, how unequivocal to i want to be about certain things? so i think you do a lot of -- i wouldn't at all call it censoring, it's more taking the long view. and because of that i don't really have any regrets about anything i've written. ..