account. one of the things we are encould you remembering is the moving to work housing authorities around the country and a lot more flexibility as many of you know. together, in working with housing authorities like georgia going ft. benning and doing what he is doing out there and the naval bases and any large inilations like this. are the groups up on the stage. have they looked at the overlay for example of moving to work housing authorities and how close they are to which

installations and then whatever the figure is of returning veterans and more. are they coming back, some of them or many of them to the sites where many of them trained and stayed over the years through gifford assignments. >> i will take a stab at that. there seems to be a pattern of soldiers returning to the area where they were deployed from. you have odd clusters of homelessness. on the moving to work authorities, we have hud taking it from another angle. where there the largest clusters and homeless vets approaching those local businesses and housing authorities and helping them to stream line their process.

i think you are absolutely right. this is equally about the country and taking on this mission. there have been amazing local leaders who haven't been in a high density area who just stepped into this. i think your point is a good one. there could be other groups of pousing authorities who try to enlist. >> i'm with the state of maryland. i just finished the work for the state and i'm now with the department housing community development. i believe that there is a lot of wonderful programs out there to help veterans and i am also a marine corps wife myself. i found in talking to the service members and the families, they don't know how to access the services. and they have a lot of services

that are available and don't know about that. the other comment is that the service members coming back are thes coming back from vietnam or so. they don't go to the veteran service organizations. they are not at the traditional places where wie do outreach. how do we reach the younger service members and do we have practices or ideas because we do have a lot of privacy issues from the department of defense for medical and other reasons and we can try to help before they end up in the spin down and homelessness. >> when i hear your question, this is your question. the nchb is looking at homeless veterans and homelessness which

would be the prevention piece. when i hear what you just asked, i see that as a much broader concern. it's more about easing the reintegration and process which does not mean high risk of homelessness or imminent risk. . the most immediate answer is that if somebody is in a crisis mode or feel that things are not adding up and they need help coping or finding somebody who can be their mentor, anybody has been in comment. i have six of my own. they have a several service for crisis. they connect with the suicide prevention. if you go on the website, we

have a list of every state that help with veterans in crisis. there is no easy answer to what you asked. we have veterans in access a. >> as a follow-up, the veterans have to know that there is a number. what do we do to proaccount and help them and find them? they may not know about the serfs or numbers. whether it's facebook campaigns or other things, there is new ways we can communicate and if we have ideas and how the best ways are to get proactive. >> the singular challenge, they are not reaching people and the one thing i see in the space and you nailed it.

they are not going to the american legion hall, but meeting on facebook. very much a virtual meeting space and a community of veterans that is an online social media oriented way to help. we need more that was and we have to make it easier for people to get what they need. there is not an answer yet. >> tried to touch on this last night and the clock hit 31 seconds and i had to wrap them. it really is an issue and that availability in the country. that has been going on for a long time. we are hanging our hat really on

the classic tools of developing affordable housing and to those of us doing veteran-specific housing and they are competing for the same resource. depending on where you are, it's oversubscribed 10-1 and depending on how the state plans priorityitize, it's impossible to live. you can't get enough points. we dress up the developments and that comes back and hammers you sometimes. it's really at the macro level as a country and not producing enough housing. that's what the conference is investing in for decades. you are looking at veterans. great amount of services.

moveing for virtually no specific resources in the community. now the tremendous infrastructure and the body have the veterans and vast majority and made of up service. i believe there is an opportunity to meet and talk about all of this. they are in that and we are housing developers. we are not a beneficiary of the perdiem, but it has been built up around. and that wonderful resource not

be crater and that gets transitioned in a way to support the permanent housing components and maintain the deep services where it's necessary for the high need and high service requirement. the second thing is that veteran population around which that is developed is aging. i just did a check and went over to aarp for an interview, our average is 78.6 percent per are over 55. they are getting older faster and their needs are really sh t shifting and the grant per diem was set up to be and how we service the aging population. that's not really been focused on. that's who the group is turning out to be. that's a different group than the recently separated.

and surely these thins being discussed and talked about how they can make that informational piece, it's a way to connect folks into housing. all of that is true. we need so much affordable housing and we have this wonderful resource of service network that built up out of per diem and how to reuse that to apply that. then we have a pool of vets who are not defined as homeless anymore. they won't qualify for that because they are not technically homeless. in a higher cost or lower cost markets narks is not a big problem. in the higher cost markets, what do you do with somebody who is on $900 a month va pension and there is not a voucher for the

other one? something that will pick up that piece and i can't give you the numbers, but it's a huge batch. the last piece is that it's the nuclear weapon in the arsenal. it's a terrific resource. there is not enough of it and we are leaving behind all of those that can't get sustainable housing. too old or too damaged. what do we do about that? the va has a place where all that supports services. we all know that is not possible at one fte for every 25 veterans.

that's another issue. we hope we are all thinkers. >> you had a lot of points there. they qualify that for credits and you killed it. we couldn't be a half mile from the grocery store even though we were joining a medical camp. you got closer. those types of things happen. you can't change the deal to chase points to be able to win the award that you don't end up for what you tended to do. your point about changing the populations i think is relevant. we see this in the senior properties. building the project years ago and all the projects are still there.

it's a lot different and we have to be cog cent as the populations are building support for veterans. we are looking at a much more frail population than would be with returning vets other than the injuries you might have. i think that roseanne is the universal design that helped more than way as the population is aging. they are staying in the housing that don't move on. >> you have an administration and homelessness among veterans and they put a lot of tools at the disposal of communities to do that.

maybe not enough tools, but this is a very complicated question. they have a lot of facets to it. we are starting to come up with some answers. these answers are also transferrable. we know for example on the issue that the homeless population is aging overall. the reason is because we are all aging overall. the whole demographic is shifting and these are huge issues we will have to deal with more broughtly. we have an opportunity to test out the strategies and the panel is people who have been testing them out. please join me in thanking them for what they do. . >> sunday award winning author and passion for u.s. presidents

and the great american pastime, baseball, resulted in a dozen books. including 1920, the year of the six presidents. 1960, lbj versus jfk versus nixon and the fixingf with you e-mails and tweets. sunday at noon eastern on book tv's indepth on c-span 2. >> bill gates said he is concerned about public trends and higher education. a move towards funning constrain constraints. he spoke for about an hour at an event from public and land grant universities. >> thank you. last year when we were talking about who should be the key note speaker at the 150th anniversary celebration of the moral act, we

agreed on a first choice, bill gates. someone who would not only help rec night and celebrate the last 150 years and challenge us and work with us in the decades ahead. with his wife, bill cochairs the bill and melinda gates foundation that works to expand opportunities for people around the globe. their foundation is a leader in efforts to improve global health and alleviate poverty isy and expand opportunities for women and with significance today, increase access to and success in education. their efforts which span the globe are unprecedented and truly exciting. the work of the gates foundation is built on a simple premises. all lives have equal value. that powerful statement resonates with all of us. it is rooted in the same

philosophy that extended educational and economic opportunity to millions. the gates foundation is involved in many of the same endeavor that is the land grant universities are. in particular, improving educational out comes and expanding outcomes across our country and addressing some of the grant challenges globally. such as eradicating disease and ensuring security and developing new sources of sustainable energy. through not only the funding, but also the thoughtful approach to philanthropy, the gates foundation is a valued partner of american universities and others committed to improving the human condition. we could not have a more committed and passionate ally in the pursuits. i know all of us respect and admire greatly with what bill gates devoted his wealth and life to.

we are delighted to welcome him to this celebration. join me in welcoming bill gates. >> thank you. i am grateful forever your invitation to address ow this special day. to express my gratitude, i brought this with me. this bag is helping lift 10 million people out of poverty. farmers in central and west africa grow black eyed pea s. they are hearty and protein rich. weave ils destroy half crop after it is harvested. or they did until receipt cases

developed this nylon back that costs less than $2 and keeps out the bugs and increases poor farm family incomes by over 25%. that bag is a good example of the many partnerships our family has with aplu members across the country. the american public colleges and universities do the finest research in the world. you create knowledge not just for its own sake, but to improve people's lives. on behalf of the foundation, i want to thank you for that. today i want to focus on the one thing you do that is even more important in that research. that's providing great education to almost five million students.

the moral act created a system of public colleges to promote the liberal and practical educa industrial classes. there were two breakthrough ideas contained in that single sentence. first, that higher education should be both liberal and practical. that it should address societies needs, and second, that all people should have the opportunity to obtain it. these two ideas amounted to a brand new vision for higher education based on the conviction that a bigger, more diverse group of well-educated people would be an asset to our democracy and a boon to our economy. this vision powered america's

economic diynaism for more thana century. recently, education advocated have been looking at the international competitor, and what we see is that other countries have seen what the u.s. did well. we built a system of great colleges and in many respects they are copying what we did. in some respects on areas like completion rate, some of those countries are doing better than we've gotten. what that says to me is we need to double down. we need to take this phenomenal asset that's benefitted the world and make it even better. there should be no doubt about our starting point. we are still by far when it comes to research teaching and learning at top universities the very best in the world. however, two major trends in higher education are guiding us down a path that mainly away

from the historical commitment to equity and opportunity. first, there's the financial constraints. in the past generation state funding for time students has fallen by 25%. i don't need to tell you that this is something that you face every day. the fiscal crisis has accelerated this trend. in just the past five years, my home state of washington has cut funding for higher education by 17%. as the result of this in the steadily rising costs of running your constitution, the financial burden of college has been shifting to students. they now pan average of $45,000 out of pocket for four years of public school.

federal money has bridged the gap for a while. the federal spending on higher education has gone up quite a bit. one of the faster growing items in the budget. the stimulus package helped the state budgets for a couple of years and now those dollars have come to an end. unfortunately, it's unlikely to continue that path. it's not on a sustainable trend. in fact, if we look out to 2014, there's an $8 billion funding gap just for the pell program alone. that's one trend that's troubling. a second trend that's troubling is the sort of trap of moving towards higher and higher statist or exclustivety. they just you on how selective you are.

more by the inputs coming in. they look at credential faculty. the amount you spend on various things and sort of subjective impressions of academic representation. these measures are standing in the way of having real measures of effectiveness that we really need to root out what best practices are and continue to benefit from the be work that all of you do. i understand this is hard to get around. one symptom is that acceptance rates at many flagship universities now hover around 50%. that doesn't count a large number of student who is don't bother applying because they know that the bar for admission

has continued to go up and up. in sort, few peerm of those who want to attend the universities are getting in and those who do get in are paying more. this is a big challenge. it can't continue if we all have a goal of fulfilling that mission providing broad education. we have to look at how we can reverse both spirals. we have to let in as many people as can be successfully educated, and they have to get that education at the lowest possible costs. private universities can boast about their selectivity if they choose to do so, but as public institutions, your prestige comes from a commitment to equity, opportunity and excellence. it's not a point of high statist to keep students out but rather

high statist letting them in and taking student who is haven't had the greatest high school education, who don't have the highest s.a.t. scores and giving them a high quality education. today is a great day to pause and look to this group for leadership. you can steer your universities out of these trends by making innovation a priority for the sector you lead. 150 years ago your predecessors start eed a new conversation abt the purpose of higher education. you start the conversation now about the changes required to keep on serving that purpose. for example, we can move beyond the question how can we get a lot more public funds? unfortunately, in the near term there won't be much additional

money. the rising share of both state and federal budgets committed to health care broadly defined leaves very little room for flexibility. the mathematics are quite brutal. whether there's more money or less money in the long term, we should also focus on the challenge of figuring out how to use it best. particularly, the money devoted to financial aid. how do we take it and get better results for students. i think there are two principles worth keeping in mind. the first is that aid should be structured to provide incentives for both institutions and students. incentives to raise completion rates. incentives to raise income and employment of the graduates. if we look just at completion rates, the six-year graduation rate for apl institutions is just over 60%.

the four-year rate is a little bit less than 40%. behind those statistics are a lot of stories of students who aren't succeeding. who end up with a lot of debt. tracking those students, understanding what's going on with them should be more important. perhaps aid should be tied to institutional practices that create this strong incentive to adopt the practices that have been seen at the best institutions to boost graduation rates. what if students felt that financial incentive to reach important milestones on the path to graduation. we really can't be agnostic about whether aid subsidizes failure or success. the goal of success, a degree in the shortest reasonable time for every student who puts in the necessary work. without just screening the most

prepared student and without sacrificing quality. policy ma policymakers are starting to look at what some of the incentives for completion might look like. i hope you'll join them. you and your students will have to live with policy changes that are coming. those changes will be more effective if you contribute your expertise early in the process. a second principle, i think is value for financial aid is to a make need-based aid a priority again. in the past 30 years, the percentage of aid money going to students without demonstrated financial need has tripled. this is somewhat a consequence of the upper state spiral giving the top students scholarships is a great way of persuading them not to pick other institutions. it also means that money is being spent on students