of their programs and protect students and to safeguard the taxpayers. since taking office, the presidents objectives for higher education, recognizing both the opportunities and challenges facing our nation have been consistently aimed at meeting the north star goal of quality education for everyone. we must ensure affordability and improve outcome. we have set the course for this effort working with congress whenever possible to make sure that we take action to make continued progress to make sure all americans have the knowledge and skills they need to grow our economy and strengthen our nation. some of this work was accomplished without funding but more work remains that requires legislative action to protect what we have achieved together

and make some key changes to improve the overall programs. we hope that the conversations provides congress with the moment momentum to move forward. we have a commitment to equalizing college opportunities. the laws scope has broadened to assist us to dance with a variety of postsecondary degrees. the administration has been focusing on the investments needed to ensure college remains affordable for the middle and low income families. the kinds of reforms that make it possible for all americans to have the opportunity to succeed. this has meant supporting innovation and breakthroughs in

cost and quality that can accommodate 21st-century learners. we must do all 21st century learners. we must do all we can to build a better and more stable financial aid system that allows individuals to afford college and manage their debt. the subsidies paid to bank that make loans. he wanted to remove banks from the program and have college provide loans with capital directly from the federal government. this resulted in $60 million in savings that we were able to reinvest in aid for other students. finally, all of these efforts must be built for strong accountability to help all

colleges improve we need to ask more from states and institutions and accreditors. we also need to protect the significant accomplishment we've made to reinforce program integrity and crooning gainful employment regulation and in powering the departments. this is where we need congress to act. we want to work with congress to focus on making college more affordable financial aid more assessable and loan repayment easier. a key step toward that is to make two years of community college as high school was a century ago. we need to reinvest in higher education. this means strengthening the program to make sure grants keep pace to afford college costs. we want to make fast for filing simpler, easier and earlier.

the president's budget proposal proposed a single better and more simple way. building on the work that we have done we believe we are putting in the hands of students, families and the public, tools that will help us all understand how the investment we are making in higher education is paying off in society. we believe these tools will help promote strong student outcomes and colleges to improve their performance. as we continue to push for stronger accountability we also want to reward schools and encourage innovation and to help struggling colleges improve. for example through the pell bonus program.

additionally we can build on efforts such as the administrations first in the world program that allows for the scaling of new evidence-based intervention. finally, and believe it or not i am interested in starting our conversation, let me close by saying we are looking forward to working with congress and you'll hear from mr. alexander on these important issues that are interestingly both timeless and timely as we look to take advantage of the opportunities provided and the increasing changing atmosphere. college

credentials, atmosphere. college credentials, higher earning, better quality of life for individuals and a stronger safer, more prosperous nation. we simply can't have economic immobility. now more than ever our work that needs to modernize and expand postsecondary education must ensure that america stays true to our founding values and keeps faith with everyone for the dreams of a better life. our work must help foster a more prostitute prosperous and inclusive society to preserve a vibrant future. thank you so much for listening and now it's in your hands. >> thank you for that terrific to her to to her.

i do want to start i do want to start with something you touched on. we are 50 years since lyndon johnson traveled to his own elmo martyr in texas to sign the higher education act. he was planning to sign the bill outside but he had swept as a janitor as a student and when he said we will leave here this morning i want you i want you to go back and save your children in your chair grandchildren and those who come after you and tell them we made a promise to them that we have open the road and pulled the gates down and the way is open. we expect them to travel it. how do you think if we are assessing 50 years later that the fundamental goal that the president laid out for us how

would he grate us on achieving that? >> i think he would rate us at a b+. we have opened the gates far more broadly for college goers. one can look at that in terms of the number of african-americans or the number of latinos. they just released results in the last month that show that hispanic 12th graders are now more likely for the first time more likely to attend time, more likely to attend college than their anglo peers. i think all of that is very good news. students face learning differences coming to college. fundamentally i think we have begun to think of college not as an experience for bright shiny 18 -year-olds headed off to four years at an institution, but

thinking of college as a lifelong experience for people who are looking for ways to retrain re- skill ups gil, new skill and i think that has maybe created a different scope then president johnston had in mind. i think we have a long way to go and in particular, while college going rates are increasing college completion rates are increasing but they still lag where they need to be. :

>> >> that the students come to college with. to have support mechanisms and the other thing to recognize is the fact that too many students are leaving high-school with a diploma but not the skills

to move right into college work. so this gap that talks about the developmental education is psychologically a huge barrier for far too many students. and the third leg, i think affordability from the institutional point of view with a national policy perspective since the beginning of the great recession to either the federal government and tried to make them more a sensible

but the research is pretty clear that the bulk of the burden has fallen on families to the low income students. there are a couple of reasons they have awful trade-offs of the great recession and i think anytime a state legislature has to choose between basic social services and benefits and higher education there has to be a discussion and there are decisions frankly i worry more about the investment coming out of the great recession and there is the sense that it did not break. the problem is baja it is

cracking and people are under the edifice. >> you made a good deal of news yesterday the colleges that declared bankruptcy last month that could cost 3.5 billion if all students received that debt relief. what is that authority and what about this president the you have established? >> and we have statutes and regulations that determine those conditions that students can claim to assess the claims. the decision renounced yesterday applies to one portion of the students that were enrolled in specific

programs where we have established that corinthian had falsified place their rates so they depended on those they have a claim in this case under a california state law but they can also bring it directly to us. so our decision yesterday took that subset of the population and invited them with their student loans. >> what are the administration is top goals? >> we are still working through our own document to engage with the house and senate to get good collaboration on that.

but we certainly want to simplify the loan programs and that access to the federal financial aid system to protect the pell grant program to make sure that the purchasing power remains high. >> so with your idea is, of one is the idea to get colleges and universities to have a sheriff risk for the loans that go into default. >> i think we have always thought of colleges and universities need to share in accountability for outcomes so risk sharing is

one of the ideas in the overall bucket that we are keenly interested to engage as pardners. >> a thing in particular? day regulate the accreditation and process to become the accredited institution with federal stallone's? >> the president in the "state of the union" also addressed this and i think what we regard as the twin problems of accreditation and one is that we think there needs to be more rigor in the accreditation process and also more flexibility. so we are working on a set of proposals.

>> day you have a and advisory commission? is a tour the altman solution? >> we are still working it out. >> with two years of free community college you receive a pretty stormy reception. are you tweeting it to get off the runway? >> bell legislative process is one but at the same time we have been heartened by these conversations at dulles local levels and we want to tackle this so we have had a series of those

conversations. so we have been very encouraged with the spread of the idea that in the 21st century universal public support just started pre-k to go deep into college that is the way we will continue to provide access and create opportunity and have the affordability question as well. >> so with that discussion and there is a lot of focus to simplify the income based repayment system and you talked about that. those say that discussion is to narrow at unprecedented levels of debt we hear the drumbeat there should be access to debt-free higher education and that should be

the goal and we should find a way to finance that. what is the administration think of that goal is that a reasonable or counterproductive? >> it certainly is on the table so we are talking about thinking about it. rethink affordability does not necessarily end up at zero so there is a lot of distance to be made up from where we are and zero to make sure we are focused on that. >> you talk about those unintended consequences is that what you are suggesting ? >> honestly i have not thought enough about it. >> that we have significantly see an increase in spending but yet debt continues to rise so is

there a treadmill of there are more federal aid? direct that is why it is important as we think about the american college promise proposal one of the key elements is the hideous those states would maintain funding levels so there isn't that type of policy going on. and we do think that the state's need to do more and the federal government is not in that position. >> on a positive side mostly public institutions do interesting things to use the data to improve the completion rates such as like arizona state or florida international or central florida.

what do you find promising? what can you do to encourage more institutions? >> you mentioned a few of them better very encouraging in addition to the work of the individuals with university of lyons has gathered together a large public universities not only working on individual institutions to innovate and improve how they can work together but in addition to that there are states experimenting with performance based funding to help promote success to provide more resources to institutions from the first-generation students. >> if you want to start lining up so was there

ruling in your favor? >> we are on track to go into effect we are interested in how that turns out that we're doing the work to crunch the numbers and they will be reporting the numbers. >> the chairman has been very critical to expect congress to stop it? >> no prediction of. [laughter] any indication in privately they would try to block this? >>. [laughter] we have not heard that. >> the department web site says it is available for entering the 2015 school year. >> as most of you know, in

december we put out the framework document asking for comments and we got a lot. so we have been working off of those comments and running models to look at our own data and our own tools and we feel we are on track. we're still on the timetable to provide to students and the world before the beginning of the 2015 academic year. >> will there be other legislation? does that supersede we we're doing? >> i don't think so. the administration takes the position transparency is very valuable and more information in the hands of consumers is a good thing. >> if you want to line up

for questions but you mentioned there is a mistake before. they have the idea of the on-line freshman your you pay only if you pass the final and the thought is ultimately with half the cost of of full load of courses that is of positive experiment does that lead to the two-tier educational system for those affluent students? >> i think that is a concern. but backing up a step i am very excited by the experimentation and going on with the delivery models their business models their education and gets the bad

reputation there is a lot and the job for the institutions and philanthropic partners is to do that type of evaluation we would need to answer the question. to be cheaper but not cheap and -- cheapened arborvitaes a it to be rigorous first in the world program with $50 billion for a project that seeks to innovate and we want to be sure we do that evaluation to make sure there are not unintended consequences. >> does anybody want to ask a question? >> i am with "congressional

quarterly" and i would like to ask about leadership at the department. a la cite the assistant secretary of post secondary education had acting secretary since 2013 but that obama withdrew the nomination that was pending. but i want to know about that dash and what you see happening and how important that is in the discussion as to move forward with these conversations. >> it is no secret we have been frustrated by the inability to confirm a number of the key appointments and confirmations have ben slow and we would hope congress would understand the need to have a full squad on the field as we move through the next two years.

>> one other thing that is over the horizon but not immediate but with the policy center a few weeks ago arguing that looking at the endowment of the private university per student it exceeds the public appropriation in the same states. they have a limited if you look at harvard it translates into a subsidy of $48,000 per student per characters out the other day and had the donation from one donor receiving $350 million donation from another. also this century foundation has talked about it so taxing above a certain level for them to offset the tax

tax, have you looked at the issue the way the endowments are exacerbated? >>. >> that is interesting and may need to keep in mind the broad diversity of higher education and just the private and not-for-profit sector with a endowments there is such a range we need to be careful of those conclusions. that said, one of the things we have seen is the institutions with the very large endowments already on their own have taken up the cause helping first-generation students to

create income muffles threshold below which students have packages or free tuition and altogether. one of the problems is that information has not been broadly available. so to understand as a student my income ranges $60,000 harvard education compared to university of michigan that we need to crack that open and we think some light will help the problem. >> on the other hand, look at the most important sign of the workforce and there is the enormous increase that the vast majority of those students have been channeled into those institutions with the open access for your college of

the most selective schools are as white today with their student body as 20 years ago and they give the most resources with the best outcomes but ultimately is higher education in developing into the two-tier system at the risk rather than breaking down these divisions of society? >> i do think it is diverse and we have to keep our eye on the problem and challenged those the the eight institutions and reward them when they do more. the second social science researcher of enormous significance we have to double down the education problem man to we have to think probably about the whole range of subsidies from a variety of different

sources. >> looking at that question of the public subsidies. as the part of the overall accountability as a nation to use the tools that we have to hold them accountable and reward them we have to look at the whole range of subsidies. >> when you think about this tracking is it ultimately the answer to be prayer the increasing those resources available better under resource like community colleges or to find ways to get more first generations? >> if you look at the bulk of students of all stars go

they go to comprehensive coalesces read need to invest where the students are. with the diverse student body is bringing them. with the continued strength of public but this is the first your ever were a the majority of population is not white. >> thank you very much. [applause]

♪ >> we are here at the end of graduation season with 2 million people will receive a college degree or certificate they have worked on over a period of several years. let's congratulate our graduates. they're accomplishments are perot when nearly three-quarters are not the traditional student attending residential college four years full time after high-school. the majority juggled life and jobs will they were working to get their degree. nearly one-third was a first of their family to go to college which means they could not draw on the usual

family support to navigate the complexity of higher education. nearly one-quarter have attended colleges along the way more than two-thirds graduate and with that more than $1 trillion a student at out there today that is crushing those in the 40 percent that a tent college but did not complete their degree the so-called nontraditional students represent the majority of america today and they are america's heroes. but as they walk across the stage tour except their diploma i am thinking about 800,000 more of their fellow students who began with them in college but will not make it this far. 40 percent of students to begin june not complete their degree. we have to do better. our economy depends on it

with the urges to need more college-educated by 2025 will require education and at the current rate colleges and universities with a shortfall of at least 11 million workers for the a geeks' amongst us with the growth rate with productivity and a mood here knows a college university that aspires its degree production of 4 percent per year? there is another reason but in this country college education is a decade to do get a job to volunteer

success in college is a dividing line in a way that it produces privilege only those that go to the half of the income distribution will complete a degree by age 24 almost 90 percent of their peers are in the top quarter will want to finish their degree the economic development there needs it in a sustainable way but the good news to have success for all students over the past decade with those innovations that secretary

mitchell alluded to when in the two in four year colleges that increasing the rates improving the way to launch over the highly structured to agree to use technology to support grey faculty to get a personalized education in ways to pay attention and to do quality that comprehend diversity with their efforts around the profile. so impressive is that body of evidence under the high impact practices there is no if the rates are above-average. no excuse of going after the 4% compound annual growth

rate. and to close the attaining cap have is why not. [applause] moi said tonight good running i will cheops those excellent remarks first with a different point the fact eliot even here reflecting on these issues the pro-active role we're not

aware that everyone is accustomed foundations are not batting cage the reality is that we share the same objective that our partners in the various sectors have expressed. we need a more affordable and equitable and high-quality post secondary education system with the attainment rates that would significantly improve our economic and social well-being. i like everything bad day and had to say about cost and affordability we appreciate of leadership from the gates foundation from the data systems but what i would like to do is offer a few rows

observations. one of the things said david tells us is it needs more capacity the demand for talent is growing ever stronger but we just cannot serve the number of students that we need to we need to find better ways to serve more students and to serve them better. our conversation around regulation the play is an essential role to protect the rights of students you should be at the center but the goal should not be about reducing the burden on the institution. in fact, institutes should not be at the center of the debate. students should the regulation conversation to reduce the barriers to innovation because those in it -- are one element

getting in the way of greater student success. we'll be necessary to focus on three areas. the first is to create and expand transparent pathways to credentials to look at the wide array of providers to experiment with new ways for students to earn credentials to direct federal funds to those sister -- serve the students best next to assure that colleges affordable transparent and aligned with the detail man goals especially for low income and underserved populations it should be easily accessed with a wide variety of education providers and it should measure quality to measure student learning with new and existing for alligators must be able to

assess quality based on student learning publicly available information will protect students and taxpayers against waste fraud and abuse higher education is at a critical juncture i have been around for a while now and i first worked on the reauthorization and i played the role to some degree in every reauthorization -- reauthorization and since then. in my view nine is as consequential as the next new technologies with competency based learning to changes to the demographics have created major opportunities as well as challenges. the new legislation must be yes for were thinking as a student population it seeks

to serve. the stakes are high and we will have to move quickly it feels like the current law is designed for the landscape. when it was first passed in 1965 america was the unquestioned world leader in post secondary education ever since then we have failed in that space but now we are not so sure. and other nations have passed us. innovation is taking place in ways we did not anticipate and the world has changed. to be clear the world is not waiting for us to pass this reauthorization is moving ahead of us. technology is moving ahead of us beyond the scope to have a tremendous impact it is a critical part of what

defined the success but he your things are different and we must change to reflect that new reality. thank you for being here and three look forward to the rest of the conversation. [applause] ♪ >> senator alexander is on his way up and will be here in about three minutes so we will take a quick break and will be back in five minutes.