and on the weekend, cspan 3 is home of history tv. visiting battlefields and key events. touring museums and historic sites to discover what artifacts reveal about america's past. bookshelves with america's history writers. lectures in history with top college professors devilling into america's past. and our new series, real america, featuring archival feels through -- cspan 3, create bid the cable tv industry, and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. like us on hd and follow us on twitter. cspan's washington journal recently held interviews with with presidents of universities in the big ten conference. the issues are the high cost of

education, student debt, admission policies and campus security. >> this week we have kicked off a month-long series looking at the big ten universities and interviewing their presidents, giving you a chance to talk with some of these university presidents. this is a cspan bus tour and this month, this morning, the cspan bus is in iowa city, iowa, at the university of iowa and joining us from the bus is the president of the university of iowa, sallie mae son. she has been president of that university since 2007. president mason, begin by telling us, what's the budget for the university of iowa, your an yul budget, where do those revenues derive from? >> the budget for the university of iowa, the total budget for the university of iowa is about

$2.4 billion. largely because we have a very large academic medical center, that's part of our operation, including a very big hospital. it's a big budget, it is absolutely one that has continued to grow despite some of the challenges that we have had, including a very large natural disaster in 2008, a major flood, that impacted us rather significantly and that we're still recovering from, but we are recovering in very fine fashion with nearly a billion dollars worth of construction going on in iowa city right now, the education kbugt which is probably the thing that people are most interested in. is about $680 million and about $220 million of that comes from the state of iowa and the rest comes from tuition. >> an iowa resident is going to pay about $8,000 a year to attend the university of iowa, an out of state resident is going to pay about $27,000.

why that discrepancy between in state and out of state? >> obviously the in state students are subsidized by appropriations from the state of iowa. iowans have always valued education and we are very proud of that. a lot of out of state students need to pay the full cost of their tuition, hence the difference between the in state and out of state rates. >> you have proposed a 3-year -- >> one of the things we have been focused on for the last seven years i have been here, is student -- i was the first generation college student, first student in my family

everybody to pay for college. it was a stretch for us to pay for college. so i have a great deal of sympathy for students who are struggling and looking for ways to attend colleges that don't cost them everything they have. in terms of trying to make college affordable, we know there is a number of ways we can do things, a three-year degree, it's not going to be for every student, but it will be for highhigh highly motivated students. because ill will include summer school. and we'll have a summer tuition grant program that will essentially allow students in this three-year program to attend summer school for free. this will hasten their progress towards a-degree. obviously complete in three years and be able to join the workforce. we have a lot of great graduate and professional programs here that we encourage students to consider. >> so what's been the response

so far from students, parents, faculty. >> well, we have just announced it this week, and we're getting a lot of positive response, we're still in the process of developing the degree programs that this will likely lly apply we want to make certain that it applies to degree programs that are sought after by our students. so some of our degree programs will be likely offered as this opportunity to students in the future. >> if you would like to talk to sallie m sallie sally mason, there's the university of iowa on your screen. 202-585-3380 for students, educators, 585-3882. and we have set aside our fourth line this morning for iowa residents, especially if you

graduated from the university of iowa, we would like to get your perspective as well. 202-585- 202-585-3883. sally mason, we know that you've put a tuition freeze on for a few years. how much influence does the state of iowa and that government have on how you budget, how you function? >> well the state board of rejnts is our governing authority and in fact they have a great deal of authority when it comes to setting tuition and policy and so forth. they're an important governing board in this state, obviously, they're appointed by the governor and they're individual citizens of the state of iowa that have a great deal of

interest in higher education and a passion for helping us maintain a very strong education system here in the state. it's always something -- there's always something going on, i have to say they've been very, very supportive of our -- of the moves towards three-year degrees, of our continued efforts to make colleges as affordable as we can, especially for iowa residents. >> is it worth a college education to come out of four years of college and have $50,000 in student debt? >> well, you know, that's a lot of student debt. i have to say that our students, let me begin with 40% of our students graduate with zero debt. which is something that i'm very pleased and proud about. and then of the remaining students who do graduate with debt, on average their student set might be in the $26,000

$27,000 a year in debt. we try to determine how much is true need debt and how much might be due to life sil. and about half of that is need-based debt. that's what the students need to borrow to be able to attain that college education, that college degree. is it worth it? at that price, it's absolutely worth it. i can remember graduating from college in 1972 with about $3,000 in student debt, which at this time was about the price of a car. an average car. and again, our students are graduating with a debt level for the most part that is very manageable. i worry a great deal about the cases that we hear about in the news a lot, of students who are graduating with significantly more debt than that, we have great financial counselors here, we encourage every student and

every family, even before they even roll to sit down with our financial advisors and our financial aid officers and work out a plan that will allow them to go to college, not incur debt that honestly will be impossible for them to deal with once they graduate. that's just not the way we should be doing higher education today. >> sally mason, what's the career track for a college president. you majored in zoology at the university of kentucky, got a masters at perdue, and got a phd in cellular research. >> i certainly came up through the ranks as a professor, once i got to college, the joke in my family, of course no one had been to college before, once she

got there, she never left. as far as my family's concerninged, i'm still there. it's a joke that i'm still in college, although it doesn't cost anybody any money anymore. and that's a good thing. but my college track is what would be considered typical for a college president. i moved through the ranks from professor, to administrator, including serving as a department head, eventually dean of a very large college. and dean of provost university and now having served for the last seven years as president of the university of iowa. my big ten roots are strong, perhaps that comes from my mother's roots, from going back to indiana. >> sally mason, your job, how much time is spent fundraising, how much time is spent being the administrator, et cetera, et

cetera? >> yeah. well the job of a college president today is very, very different from what it was probably 50 years ago and we do a lot of fundraising, we're in the midst of a very large capital campaign, the large elson in tlarge -- largest in the history of the university of iowa. we're in the process of raising $7 billion. we're about $1.3 buiillion on t way to that goal of $7 billion. a lot of that money is providing tuition for opportunities that will provide the excellence of the university of iowa continue well on into the future. it's a joy for me to connect with so many alumni, thousands of alumni all across the country and around the world who have a passion for the university of iowa and who have been so generous in giving back us to. i spend half of my time

fundraising and the other half of my time in administrative activities, in national activities, i try to remain active in a number of national organizations, that are important to higher education, and certainly important to the university of iowa, it's important for us to be connected to the rest of our country and to the rest of the world. >> 57% of college students today are women, 26% of college presidents are women. any response to that? >> we have room for improvement there. yeah, i think that -- you know, i often tell the story to young women that i have the opportunity to interact with today that when i was coming up through college and i was a sophomore in college, taking organic chemistry, i was one of three women in a very large organic chemistry class, and

there were 200 students in the class, we were very obvious. we had to sit in the front row because the instructor would know if we were there or not there. today you wouldn't see that, today the organic chemistry class would be more broad in terms of diversity. diversity is something that a lot of us focus a lot of our attention on. the number of women as college presidents today there,'s room for growth there, there's still lots of students i think that we miss sometimes with women and the talent that they can bring to the workforce in virtually every profession. and higher education is no different. it's great to see the number of young women purr u suing higher education today, that excites me a great deal. we actually have some wonderful engineering programs here at the university of iowa. i'm very proud of those

engineering programs. having spent a number of years as provost of iowa university. a lot of our students are actually women. if i look at the activities of these young women, our retention rates and our completion rates as well as our placement rates for those young women who are attaining those engineering degrees are very, very high, p upwards of 92% to 98%. i think that's tremendous, i think that bodes well for the future and i think our country will be well served, once we continue to grow these numbers, whether it be minorities or whether it be women in these underserved areas. >> this is your chance to talk with a major university president, we have divided our lines a little bit differently, we're going to put them up on the scream, students, parents and educators, 202-585-3880.

f and the first call for sally mason, president of the university of iowa, comes from an iowan and the parents all in west liberty, iowa. hi, paul. >> caller: hi, good speaking with you this morning. i have a question regarding, my son is going to be enrolling at iowa next year in engineering, so fall of 2015. i was wondering if engineering is going to be included in that three-year program. and i'll take my call off the air. thank you. >> great, great, good question. we're going to work on that because i firmly believe that there are some portions of our engineering degrees that we can do in three years. he's highly motivated and i bet he is because he's already thinking about this and he already knows what he wants to

do. he's going to be a hawkeye, he's probably on a good track to complete in that three-year period, we'll do everything we can to help him, including allowing him opportunities to attend summer school for free. >> dede tweets into to you, president mason, does iowa project out a decade or more what jobs will be in demand in the future and adjust programs accordingly? >> if i'm hearing your question correctly, you're asking about jobs in the future. and one of the things that we think about a lot here is how do we best prepare students to what we best think the nefuture migh be. but as we look forward, one of the things we know from our students is having that opportunity to earn that degree in a chosen major is great. but let's go a little bit further. let's offer, and one of the things that's very, very popular

with our students is entrepreneurship, let's offer ever student an opportunity to couple an entrepreneur ship degree with whatever degree they might be attending. we see students with that entrepreneurial spirit as well as the training we can help provide them with, often decide they can make their own careers, we know the health care industry is going to continue to boom and we have great strengths in health care here at the university of iowa, training a lot of students for the health care of the future. but the students who have that little extra creative edge and want to go on to do something perhaps a little different, perhaps a driver for future technologies and kinds of job opportunities that might be out there. we think that experiential learning and entrepreneur ship,

one of the top 25 entrepreneur ship programs exist here at the university of iowa and we have grown that program so that each and every student here if they want that opportunity can have it. watching students start their own careers is exciting for us as administrators too. >> out of that grew, the iowa flood center, which is what? >> yes, thank you for mentioning the flood center. we're an educational institution, i have to say in 2008, i had only been president for nine months when the flood hit. and it was certainly one of the worst natural disasters in u.s. history, to watch what happened to eastern iowa during that time. our campus sustained nearly a billion dollars worth of damage, including 2 million square feet of feet impacted by that, three major buildings destroyed, but

during that particular event, i have to say that our world famous hydrology group, was the best opportunity they could think of to begin to study natural disasters like floods, and create flood centers, the iowa flood center is not only known across iowa and even around the world, for its research on floods and flooding. they're doing ground breaking things on technology, to help us better understand how and when and why floods occur, and obviously helping us understand how we can try to mitigate and keep these things from being the kinds of natural disasters that do to us what happened in 2008. if you come to iowa city right now, we look like a city of tower cranes because we're in active and full flood recovery. one of my highest priorities is to make absolutely certain that we fully recover from that flood so that we can begin to grow. >> sally mason is president of the united states of iowa. and allen is an educator in tack

home ca tacoma, washington. >> caller: i'm actually an advocate for student loan.org. so my question is regarding student loan debt. now the purpose of the call, have been very unwilling to discuss this issue at any length. so i'm glad to maybe put you on the spot a little bit so i apologize in advance. but i'm not sure if you're aware, almost half of the people out of college are unable to pay their loans, and by my estimates, the lifetime default rate across all students, all colleges for federal student loans is well in excess of 30%. and you know the other big numbers, the againg a

numbers, the againg greging a gat debt. systemically, this really comes down to the fact that student loans are the only type of loan in this country to be specifically exempted of standard bankruptcy protections, statutes of limitations and other critical protections that we just assume are there. and candidly, i have to say that the schools almost never provide adequate warning to the students, in other words the students never know these things before they sign for the debt. >> all right, allen, we got a lot there, let's get a response from dr. mason. >> thank you for the question, because i do think it's an important issue. we're fortunate at iowa that our student loan default rate is about 2%, it's quite low, but there's certainly great examples out there of abuses of student loans, and by abuses, i mean really people not knowing exactly what the student loan

business is all about. there are also predatory lenders out there. we try very hard here on the front end, when students are enrolling here for the very first time to sit down with them and their families to make absolutely certain that they know what they're getting into if they decide to go the route of a student loan. and in fact we try to steer folks in some cases away from certain types of loans that we don't think are really good for them in the short or the long-term, to make certain that they're not getting into situations that would ultimately lead to a default and ulgt matly affect their lives negatively for a good long time. so it's -- it's absolutely an issue that we should be paying attention to, we should be looking very hard at the default rates at schools out there and making certain that the institutions are doing everything they can to help the consumers, in this case our students and their families making certain that they know

exactly what they're getting into, when they do the student loan that they need for college. >> jenny in rainbow city, alabama, parents line, go ahead, jenny. >> caller: this is for dr. mason, i wanted to comment, i have a son who graduated from the university of iowa, he got a degree in international relations, he was one of their best model students, got an outstanding award from harvard and he went to china for three years because the economy was bad enough that there were no jobs for people his age in this country and that was fine, i didn't want him to go to communist china, we told him that china was not what he thought. all people are the handiwork of god and all people are great, but not all governments are

equal. and the government in china is very, very a lot like hitler, stalin and -- >> jenny what would you like sally mason to respond to? >> caller: what i would like him to respond so to is that the college taught him that all governments were created equal. he was taking pictures of a tourist area, there was a battleship in the background and a citizen turned him in for taking pictures even though it was a tourist area and nobody said no pictures. he spent seven hours with three intelligence people interrogating him. >> jenny, is in a specific question or do you just want her to respond to your story? >> the education there was not accurate as to reality. >> all right, we got it, thank you. sally mason.

>> i'm sorry, i'm trying to understand her story. it sounds to me like her son had an experience perhaps overseas that might not have been the best. one of the things that we try to do at the university is to help our students have that first international experience with some supervision, with some folks who are very, very skilled at helping them understand the different cultures, the different parts of the world that they might be going to and i think the study abroad experiences that students can get today, especially at the -- at most of our universities in the country today are just amazing. they're wonderful. i did not have that experience as a student myself, but i would encourage every student who can to try and take advantage of a study abroad, to immerse themselves in another culture, to learn what it's like to be in

a very, very different situation, with a different government, with different people around them and perhaps a very different language being spoken. and maybe not one that they fully understand. that first experience is one that allows our students to grow up in very, very interesting wayless and quickly, that the experience is always life changing and it's one that i think with a little help, i think on the front side, with the first experience that they are, will allow them then to navigate the world better once they graduate and in many cases go on to jobs that will take them around the world and into different cultures. >> is tenure a good system and should it be kept as is? >> you know, tenure is an opportunity for faculty to really show what they can do as well as an opportunity to make certain that they have the

ability to do the kinds of things that really are necessary for all of us, freedom of speech, the freedom of ideas, freedom to do work that perhaps isn't necessarily going to be appreciated by everyone. and in the particular case of, you know, i earned tenure a long time ago in biology and i worked very hard to do so, i worked very hard to prove that i could do everything that was expected of a faculty member and then some. and it was, to me it was a real honor and a privilege to be able to say that i had accomplished that goal at a point in my career when i was still quite young. and it is really all about hard work as much as anything. and the reward for hard work is to know that you have a sense of job security, that you have a sense that if you were to do some research that turned out to be controversial, that in fact that research would still be

disseminated out into the public and valued obviously by groups that wanted to look at this research and not have to worry so much about that. >> i can appreciate that and i can see the pluses and sometimes the minuses as well. >> myelo is calling from jefferson, iowa. >> caller: thank you for having me on and i would like to say there's been some serious questions and really good ones, but i have been an iowa fan my entire life as long as i can remember. and i'm 63 years old, and iowa city is awesome, all of the facilities are just a great place. but i have a very serious question, and i would like to know if you have any inside information on how many, not if, but how many points will beat the iowa state cyclones

tomorrow. and if you could ask kurt france the coach to pleaselet mark wiseman run the ball a little bit more. thank you very much, and ma'am, we want to say that we're proud of you very much in iowa here, and it's just been a pleasure, thank you. >> sally mason. >> you just experienced -- >> go ahead. >> well, you've just experienced something that i love about my job and that's hawkeye fans, they're great people here in iowa and all around the country and we have a rivally game, i was with the football coach earlier this morning in fact at an i club breakfast, and we didn't try to predict the score, but i did ask him, and my fans will appreciate this, and i did ask him to not make this quite so dramatic. and a little less drama for our football games could be a lot

better. and i certainly will pass that on to mark wiseman to run the ball a little bit. >> i'm surprised mylo didn't ask a question. but how important are sports to fund raising, for revenues for the university. if you were at the breakfast, my guess is maybe you were looking for potential donors? >> well, at the university of iowa, we're one of the fortunate schools where athletics pays for itself. and again, a testament meant to the fan base that we have, the loyal fan base that we have, the support that they give to our athletics department. our athletic students were on scholarship here, and there's 500 or more of these. they pay the full tuition back to us for every one of those student athlete scholars that we have and that contributes

obviously to the bottom line of the university when it comes to our academic mission. we don't pay any ftaxpayer dollars, no taxpayer dollars go to athleticses at the university of iowa. we're fortunate to be part of the big ten conference and the revenues that we're able to get from ticket sales, from tv contracts, all of that, we're able to pay for everything that we do in athletics. on the fundraising side, obviously, it's a big plus, on the fundraising side, many of our hawkeye fans are not only loyal to our athletic teams, but they're loyal to our academic teams as well. we're lucky to have some amazing, amazing donors that have stepped up in a big way. i want to mention two that are quite unusual for us that support our medical operations, we have a great diabetes center

here that is -- we were able to name this center after them and hire a world class director for this center with the ultimate goal of curing diabetes. and similarly, in our vision inch group, the winn institute for vision research led by dr. ed stone was funded again by the general generosity of steve winn, he's committed to helping our researchers cure blindness. we have great support that spills over to the academic side and it makes my job a lot of fun. >> you're also chair of the big ten counselors and chancellors there's been some movement that one of your fellow universities, northwestern, about unionizing student athletes, what's your take on that? >> you know, i would hate to see

that. i really view our student athletes as students first. our student athletes here perform well above, not only the sto school average when it comes to school and the national average. they take their studies and their academics here very, very seriously. we need to be able to provide a great environment for our student athletes and make sure they have all the support they need, whether it's support for academics, whether it's support to keep them healthy. i'm all for making certain that we continue to add to benefits for them, that we provide the highest quality opportunities for them, but i really would hate to see them think of themselves as employees rather than as student athletes. i think that really is not what i look to college sports for. >> robert is calling in from

tampa, robert, you're on the air. >> caller: good morning dr. mason, thank you for the opportunity. my question to you is could you speak as to why universities are intentionally gouging nonresident students? it encourages larger student loan debt as one of the reasons for higher student debt. >> sally mason. >> i'm sorry to hear that you think that we're gouging out of state students, what we're doing is charging the full cost of education because the taxpayers of the state of iowa who have made huge investments in the infrastructure here, they are done so because they want iowa students to have opportunities in iowa, we're able to provide them with lesser -- obviously lesser tuition needs than we are for the out of state students. we have to really in good

conscience provide -- our out of state tuition although it may seem high, it actually seems quite reasonable. we provide a half a million dollars worth of financial aid a year. if you're an iowa student and you meet the minimum requirements, the basic requirements that the board of regents has set for admission to the iowa public universities. you're automatically admitted. we take every student who apply who is meets those requirements. then we can select from out of state students, and we try to help them as well with with financial aid. we have scholarships for all kinds of students, our donors have been willing to provide scholarship dollars for iowa

residents and noniowa residents. we have put together a package to make this doable for our instate students, but also for our nonresident students as well. i hope people understand that. >> i want to ask you something that our viewers across the nation have heard of which is the iowa writers workshop. what is that and how do you get it started? >> yeah, thank you for asking. the iowa writer's workshop is world famous, as it should be. we have had the best creative writing programs here for a long, long time. we have the only unesco city of literature in 2008, we're proud of that designation, we are embedded in what is known as the creative corridor here in eastern iowa and we're proud of that as well. again, the writers drive a lot of that, we have had tennessee

williams, we have had writers who everybody has heard of come to our workshop, and we have writers on staff that people would know the names. we're also very well known for an international writing program, which was an offshoot of the writers workshop, when paul engel, one of the original directors of the iowa writers workshop, retired from his job of directing that workshop, he and his wife decided to start the international writing program, which every year brings international writers to iowa city, we have had several writers -- several of the writers from around the world who have part mated in that program, have gone on to win nobel prizes in literature. we're very proud of the roots and the traditions of the arts, the humanities, literature, here in iowa, in fact, we're so proud of that because we were the first institution to ever grant an mfa degree.

in essence, it was invented here, and it was in part in response not only to our creative writers, but also to our artists, that painting painted by gant wood, grant wood was on our faculty many, many years ago and he was the source of giving academic credit for artistic work. >> and sally mason is the president of the united states of iowa. we appreciate you joining us on our big ten tour, ma'am. >> on the next washington journal, mike duncan of the american -- coal and action plan have become high profile issues in campaign 2014. after that karen white of the

national education association, she wloox at why the nea plans to spend about $40 million on the midterm elections. washington journal, live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on cspan. cspan's campaign 2014 coverage continues with a new jersey senate debate between incumbent democrat cory booker and republican jeff bell. it's the first and possibly only debate between the candidates as a poll has listed the race as solid democrat. and on wednesday more campaign coverage between incumbent mary landrieu and republican congressman bill cassidy and gop challenger retired colonel rob mancas. the majority winning the election. if a candidate fails to get 50% of a vote, a runoff will take