next a conversation with purdue university president and former indiana governor mitch daniels. that's followed by a debate on genetically-modified foods and a look at how bees are being used today by the military. next a conversation with purdue university president mitch daniels. the fomer indiana governor and budget director spoke with viewers as part of our special series on universities in the big ten conference. this is about 45 minutes.

sgl this week we continue our series with university presidents in conjunction with the c-span buss big ten college tour. this morning the c-span bus is on the campus of purdue university and west lafayette, louisiana. now joining us from purdue's campus is its president mitch daniels, the former governor of indiana. thanks for being with us this morning. >> welcome to purdue. >> thank you so much. sorry i can't be there in person. want to start out rather broadly and just ask you to name, what do you think the greatest challen challenges are facing higher education right now? >> to prove that the value we have always associate d with a college degree is still there and that it's worth the money that colleges and universities are charging for it. here at purdue, we talk about higher education at the highest proven value. that may sound obvious, that's the way we buy everything else in life. we look at quality compared to the price we pay.

that's not what's been going on in higher education. higher charges for diplomas that are of more and more suspect quality. so as entirely understandable and appropriate students and families are beginning to look much more carefully at the costs they are being asked to pay and starting to ask the right questions about what am i u getting for that. here at purdue, we take that very seriously. we're working on both the reduction of cost and improving of the quality that we know are graduates have always received from a rigorous purdue education. >> i want to get back to college costs, but let's talk about purdue a little bit. you have frozen tuition for 19 months after 36 years of increases. what did you cut or freeze to make sure students have that sort of break or that freeze? >> it's true that we have frozen

it for the year that just passed, the year we are in now. that freeze will continue at least a third year. and that's simply was a way of, number one, saying to ourselves and our students that we really take seriously the importance of a student's income level being able to access purdue's education if he or she is up to our standards. having drawn that line for ourse ourselves, we accommodated in hundreds of ways. we gathered suggestions from staff and faculty on campus. up to this point, it's not proven difficult. we have not done anything that i consider particularly transformative. we are glad we have been able to make that improvement. two consecutive costs in the room and board and some action we took this fall on the next expense item which is textbooks. >> that's definitely a big concern of anyone in school

right now. i do want to ask you about the larger picture though. why is it that the cost of college tuition continues to rise so rapidly and particularly continues to outpace the rate of inflation? >> not just the rate of inflation, but the rate of even health care. there are multiple causes, but part of it is simply colleges raise costs because they could. first of all, the government was flooding the market with grants and loans. colleges found they could pocket that money and raise their costs to students and their families typically weren't much better off as a consequence. until recently, the market was as the economists would say inelastic and universities found they can raise prices and not only did customers so to speak,

those buy iing the product not move somewhere else, but they assumed a more expensive school meant somehow a better school. nobody had proof around to know if that was true or not. all that was in the mix, but it needed a change. it is changing, i think, rather quickly now here at purdue. we embrace that change. and hope to be on the front edge of it. >> our guest is mitch daniels. he's the president of purdue university as well as the former governor of indiana. this morning if you'd like to call in and join our conversations for students, the number is 202-585-3880. for parents, 202-585-3881. educators, 202-585-3882. and indiana residents, 202-585-3883. first caller this morning is john in louisiana. he is a purdue graduate.

go right ahead, john. >> caller: yes, i graduated from purdue university in 1966 so i'm coming up on my 50-year anniversary. i was just looking at your numbers on your tuition, and i remember when i was there it was $149, i believe, every semester for the tuition. you could have room and board and i lived in the residence hall there is until i went into a fraternity for less than $1,000 a year. . i think it was $700. i managed to make it through by just working. i didn't take out any loans or anything like that. it's just interesting when you see what people have to pay. but my question would be, are they getting more for that money now? i got. a bachelors degree. i spent 28 years in the air force. had a wonderful career flying airplanes.

i'm just wondering what are those students today getting that i didn't get when i u went there paying less than $1,000 a year to go to the school. >> you're asking exact lit right u question. one that didn't get asked much until recently. the great equation of life really is value. we seek it in everything we do, everything we buy. the equation, of course, is quality over cost. so we're working on the cost in ways i describe. in higher ed, at least at purdue, we accept the responsibility to prove the value of our product. we teamed up last year with the gallop organization and produced the index. it's the largest single survey ever taken. it will be taken at least another four years of college graduates. for the first time, we have real rigorous measurements of how they are doing in life. not just in terms of their

paycheck, but in terms of their well-being and health and so forth. and we believe it's part of our job to know how our graduates are doing, what people are getting for the experience of a purdue education and to try to learn how we can make that quality higher and higher over time. so not surprising, i hope boilermakers stack up very well compared to other graduates. our job is to drive the quality up, keep the cost down. >> next we'll go to dan in west lafayette and is a parent. >> caller: good morning, mitch. the benefit of having one of the problems of keeping the tuition the same year after year after year is the fact that the money

for your basic staff, your clerical and boot staff and service staff, they have had a substantial raise in five years. but cost of parking has increased greater the amount of raises that these folks have had. what plan do you have to bring these long-term employees that have been there 25, 30 years up into the real income brackets they ought to be at? >> well, we hope to do better. there were raises this year. we expect we'll continue to do that. try to at least people help keep up. i have to tell you, our first responsibility is to the students who come here and their participants and family. we're not an employment bureau. as much as we love those who work here and want to support them. our first job is to try to be effective and efficient in everything we do. and that will continue to be priority one. but i personally favor those

dollars we can apply to a higher personnel cost being ko concentrated those at the lower income levels. but there are all kinds of competing priorities. the need to attract and keep the best faculty in the world, that sort of thing. you're raising a really good point, dan. one that we think about a lot. our job, really, is to reconcile all these priorities and always keep students first. >> i promise i won't go too far into the political weeds. before you came to purdue, you were governor of indiana for eight years. i'm curious what you have learned from being a university president and your feelings on higher education policy? >> i am probably learning more than anybody on this campus. there's no short answer to that. but i guess i have learned what i always suspected that today's students at least here at purdue

are incredibly purposeful, highly u motivated and very, very smart and well prepared. or they wouldn't have gotten here in the first place. so we're completely dedicated to their success in life. as i said earlier to delivering that at a price they can afford that a student at any income level can afford. and then monitoring their success later so we can be better tomorrow than today. >> elwood, indiana, james is on the line and he is a parent. >> caller: good morning, i have a question relating to the relationship between purdue and iupui. my daughter went to purdue for an engineering introduction as a high school senior. when she mentioned going to iupui for engineering, she was told not to go to a community college.

that seems like a disconnect because purdue used to be very, very well known. but you don't see purdue banners anymore. what happened? >> right, james, well, first of all, you're quite right u. indiana university, purdue university at indianapolis is not a community college. we have one of those. it's a full fledged university. a lot of research happens there. it's a combined and unique joipt venture, so to speak, between or two big ten universities. i don't know who told your daughter that or called it that, but that was erroneous and misleading. we do recognize that indiana university has the supervisory authority at iupui, but i have heard a number of complaints lately that the visibility of purdue's very extensive

offerings there has become harder to spot and we'll raise that with our friends from iu. >> a question from twitter now. what's driving tuition increases more, availability of cheap loans, lack of supply or slashes in state funding? >> i think they all played some sort of role. here in indiana, this state is in the top quarter in terms of sustain i sustaining of higher ed spending over recent years. plus here in indiana, we have one of the top few student support that a student grants for programs anymore. but there are places where higher ed spending has been cut by astonishingastonishing perce. there are bigger issues. the caller mentions the effect

of all the money that's flooded in through grants and loans. that's been documented to be playing a part. there's also been a so-called arms race to provide nonacademic offerings. who can build the biggest climbing wall. i believe that's probably run its course. we're in favor of great facilities, good food, what have i learned? i generally start with the food. college food is supposed to be terrible and all the same, but it's unbelievably good and varied right now. so bringing some sort of moderation to some of that nonacademic core spending is an essential part of an answer. >> next caller is in greenwood, indiana. jim is on the line. >> caller: hi, mitch. >> hi, jim. >> caller: i'm a tour guide at the state house. you were always very friendly with the visitors.

now that you're at purdue, i still talk to people and i guess you're the same way with folks up there. i had a father from california who came to purdue and just casually stopped by your office. you were not in, but he said you followed up and called him back. and a lot of the students seem to be meeting with you personally. how do you find time to meet all these people on a one-on-one basis? >> well, jim, i made it a priority. i did in the last job when i felt that i worked for everybody in the state and they deserved a chance to see their employee, so to speak. it's really about learning, how to do the job well. somebody asked me to make a new year's resolution when i first got here. i said, okay, i want to meet 5,000 students face to face this year. i know i surpassed that by some number. i have dinner a lot with students in the evenings that are not otherwise occupied.

go to the gym several days a week and anywhere i can run into them. it's fun, of course, it's really a wonderful aspect of the job like this to be able to get to know so many young people, but it's really about learning what's on their minds, what's going on in their lives, how this university can do the best job of preparing them in life. so i just -- i have always considered it part and parcel of any job i had. you have to mark off enough time to make sure you're going it. >> let's go to austin, texas, where laura is on the line and she's a parent. >> caller: hello, thank you for taking my call. i want to ask a question that's probably going to be a little bit of a curve. right now, the university of texas violates federal immigration law by allowing illegal immigrants slots at the university. i'm wondering what purdue university does to follow the law and make sure educational

slots chrks are a limited resource, only go to legal residents and u.s. citizens? i mean, education is expensive. and in this country, if you don't have an education, you are not going to succeed or not succeed easily. and even if if you have an. education, i have four degrees and i'm unemployed. i can't find a job. i'm worried for my son. i want to make sure that other universities take this seriously. those slots should be going to u.s. citizens and legal residents. and i hope that purdue takes federal immigration laws seriously enough to make sure that that happens. i'd like your comments on that. thank you, sir. >> yeah, want to thank you, laura. we do take our legal obligations in this area u and every area very seriously and do everything we know how to make sure that nothing -- no mistakes are being

made and nothing is slipping through at any point. i have to tell you, however, that a significant percentage of the students on our campus are international students. they are here fully legally of course. we consider this in the global world our students will lead and are about to enter. we consider this a valuable part of their education. we try to keep it in a reasonable proportion, but a student coming to purdue university is going to meet people from virtually every country on earth. can be a very enriching part of the academic offering. so these decisions, as we see them, are not one dimensional, but they do start with abiding by the law. >> earlier this year purdue announced the creation of a competency degree program that lets students progress at their own rate as they master skills. i was wondering if you could talk about why that's so important and what kind of

students you're hoping to target with that particular offering. >> we're still living in higher education with vestiges of the system that's been around literally for a millennium. many people believe that if higher ed is going to prove its value and continue to justify in an internet world young people picking up moving for three or four or five years and spending a lot of money to do it, we're going to have to divide u better ways. for some disciplines, it doesn't make sense to work on the old calendar, lock everybody into two semesters to four years. if a student can prove that they have mastered a given subject matter, they ought to be able to move ahead now and take an exam then.

so our entire college of technology is transforming itself to operate on that basis. students who are smart enough and diligent enough will be able to do two things. one, move through at their own rate and possibly more quickly than before. two, demonstrate along the way proven competences. no employer will have to guess what that grade in a certain subject meant. the student will have demonstrated mastery of a specific skill or topic and the employ employer, if they want, can go look at the test or the project that proved it. i have to tell you, simultaneously, we have another endeavor going. on here to change those degree programs that can be to three years. and the pioneering school, i'm happy to tell you, was the school of communications. here at purdue among the alums

we're very proud of is founded the c-span. we all have benefitted for decades. he's a boilermaker. and how fitting that the school that he allowed us to name after him was the first to step forward, five of our communications majors so far, can now be completed in three years if the student is ready to put in a little extra time, a little extra work in the summer. >> related to the points you just made, i take it then you don't believe that it's still necessary for a student to go to college for four years? >> in some cases, it is. we have one of the finest engineering schools on the planet. it will be -- there are a few who manage, but most of those degrees are going to take four years. often here in that field of study is coupled with a work experience. the index tells us it can be one of the most valuable parts of a

college education is to have some sort of an internment or extensive work experience in the area of study. so there are plenty of degrees here that will take and should take at least four years. but there are others, which again with a little extra work in a semester or two, possibly some work done over the summer, online education offers a lot of new possibilities here, can be finished in less than four years. if we can do that, two good things happen. one, the student and their family gets a higher education at a lower price. secondly, they get out in the world and have an extra yearover or more to earn money and build a future. >> another parent on the line. betsy in colorado. >> caller: hi, mitch. i am a former hoosher. thank you for bringing your business skills to purdue.

it's fantastic to see the progress. i have a 12-year-old so if you could just hold those rates now, that would be help fful. i'm looking for ways to inspire her to want to come to purdue. tell me about innovation and technology and things that would get my 12-year-old excited about purdue. >> first of all, i hope all young people -- i hope all the 12-year-olds in america are interested in technology and in science. this is where our future will have to be built. we really need every young person possible at least conversing with these topics whether they build a career in technology or not. secondly, we need more women. we're working hard on that in engineering and the scientific discipline. so really excited if your 12-year-old daughter is looking that way. you know, here at purdue, we have a long tradition in

engineering and in science and one of the proudest in the world and students come from all over the world because of it. we have made a strategic decision to invest even more heavily in this area. we think it's our responsibility of the nation that needs at least 10,000 more engineers alone not to mention scientists of other kind. if we're going to be competitive and have a higher standard of living for our kids, then the ones we enjoy today. and secondly, it's what we think we're good at, doing more of what you're good at is a good business principle. so by the time your daughter is ready to be a boilermaker, we'll have a stronger, larger and more prominent engineering and science program specifically then we do now. >> our guest is mitch daniels, the president of purdue university and the former governor of indiana. our next caller is darsell in north carolina and is also a

purdue alum. >> caller: good morning, president daniels. i was wondering what have you done since the late '70s, early '80 with day veridiversity issu. i was one of the first people of color that i guess we should have had a part of illinois's near chicago because i felt we were somewhat mistreated. two items and issues i'm concerned about the university. what are you doing with mental health issues to make sure that students are healthy because of your rigorous program? second question, which most participa parents want to know, placement for alums after they u graduate. how long can we use your

service? when i was there, you had the 6-point system and now it's transitioned to the 4.0 because i did some other investigations and going to universities on the east coast what a 6.0 system was. but that was really integrity of students who go there and their mental health. i was in your upward bound program in high school and sort of transitioned to the university life, but i found it was dilt for me because i was gregarious and wanted to get along with everybody on the planet. i know there were some problems there. i can say i'm a semiproud boilermaker because i do name drop. but i'm really concerned of the mental health of students

attending. >> thank you. it's a very important and legitimate concern. college life, especially at a rigorous school like purdue, lots of change since you were here. much more extensive and i think sophisticated mental health and counselling services being part of it. one thing that hasn't changed is it's a very rigorous school. another issue that people raise about higher education is grade inflation. there are colleges out there where the average grade is so high, what does it take to get a b? that's not true at purdue. the average grade here has barely moved since apparently you were a student. i tell our students that's a great thing. when you emerge from this school with a solid record, the world will know that you earned and you learned something, which it's beginning to doubt about the diplomas given at too many

universities. when you have that kind of school, there are a lot of pressure on our students. we try to learn more about that, take that into account. here's one other thing. i have talked to thousands of them. boilermaker alums, they will tell you that routinely that when they arrived, some professor would tell them, look around, you won't all be here. the school was proud of its rigger and saw it as a duty to weed out student. s. we don't look at it anymore. it's harder to get into now than it's ever been. we have the most qualified student body, in terms of grades and test scores and so forth. but we take it as our responsibility to see every student succeed. so whether it's the counselling you ask about or all sorts of activities we have to spot students who might struggle and bring whether it's tutoring or

other tools to benefit them quickly, that's the way we look at it now. we just announced this week we have the highest graduation rates ever. we have the highest so-called per sipt rates from say freshman to sophomore year ever. and so trying to be as supportive of our students while still rigorous is the purdue way. >> another call from west lafayette. ron is calling in and he is a parent. >> caller: good morning, your leadership skills are extraordinary. so proud to have you with west lafayette. >> ron, not as proud as i i am to be here, but thanks for saying. >> caller: do as much as you can to hold the cost down. i know it's difficult. i know it's very difficult.

but do what you can. >> well, ron, we will. and i want to say on this subject. there's a lot of attention and it's completely appropriate on cost and the way they are passed on to students and their families. it's really important to say that another reason to be really careful about costs here is so we can invest money in making purdue stronger all the time. i talked about the growth of the computer science college. it takes investments, by the way, to change the way we teach and to make it possible for students to finish in three years or to switch to a competency-based degree. so we plan to make those investments here at purdue and have an action plan to do so. we're out to double the number of our students who study abroad. it wasn't very high.

it hapt historically been too high and we have made a huge jump in the last year there. so it's partly about keeping the doors wide open to families of all income levels. it's also partly about investing to make sure we are a university of the future. if there's going to be a shakeout in higher education, which there are signs it's already started, we intend to be one of those universities who takes these challenges seriously and meets them head on and makes the changes necessary to absolutely 10 o, 20, 30 years from now be able to say, come to purdue, and you will get value for the money you spend. >> i want to ask you really quickly about sports. as "usa today" reports, purdue is just one of seven schools to not report subsidizing athletics if you're looking back at numbers from 2012. i was hoping you could talk to us about why that's so important

and how purdue stands out among other schools. >> i'm a huge sports fan. probably as big as you'll find in a job like mine. it does enrich the life of the campus in so many ways. i sure get out and support our student athletes all i can. but i did say to the trustees when they approached me about this job, i did say to the athletic department and the community, there are three things that here at purdue come above the line. one is standards of conduct. we have to have the same high standards of character and conduct for the star wide receiver as we do for any other boilermaker on campus. two, a student athlete has to mean it. real students taking real courses getting honest grades. and three, pay for yourself. only 1 in 60 undergrads is skilled enough to be on one of

our athletic teams. and it wouldn't be right, in my opinion, to ask the other 59 to pay more money to subsidize the athletic department. having met those standards, we want to win. our teams are really competitive across our 18 sports. we have a football program on the rise. we have a basketball team coming that i'm real excited about. top ten women's volleyball team. a lot of good stuff going on. it does start with character and genuine student athletics. our athletes have had a higher grade point average than the student body at large for years here. and then as you say being self-sufficient and finding a way to do this without needing subsidy from the nonathletes opinion. >> next up is jonathan who is a student in west lafayette,

indiana. >> caller: good morning, thank you to your service to purdue so far. i look forward to continue to read after i u graduate in may. my question is in relation to shared governance at purdue. a lot of the big ten schools there's a strong diverse in the ways students have impacts. my question is, how is purdue enhancing that? such that 30,000 undergrads only get one to help. >> well, the voice of the students are important. i u said earlier i have met thousands. i'm sure i will be talking to many more. one answer is i consider it a part of my job. i hope i'm fostering that same interest in all the people here at purdue's faculty, administrators and others. we do have -- not every place

does, but we have a student on the board of trustees at any one time. that goes back a few decades now. and i got to tell you now having been inside the board of trustees, that student input is invaluable. there's a perspective that a current student brings that even the most vigorous and diligent board member cannot have. soed i have lots of interactions with student groups. tonight i will be with 100 of our campus groups, getting their input. i'm sure we can do more, and we'll try to find ways to do more, but we do take seriously the thought and the feedback we get from students here. it's one of the most important elements of our overall decision make i making. >> i do want to ask you in

january. a student fatally shot and stabbed another student there on campus. i'm curious if there are new safety measures if place that students on campus this fall are seeing in light of that tragedy. >> a host of them, we immediately after the event commissioned faculty led group. they produced a host of suggestions from improvements to our alert system, our alarm system. a lot more locked doors. operating on many fronts to make what was statistically one of the safest places in america safer. the thing i have to say is the murder was sentenced last friday. the prosecutor, the judge and the murder himself all stated in unequivocal terms this was a

premeditated act, not an act of insanity. and those are -- if that's going to be an extraordinary rare event, i don't know how you can reduce the chances of such a thing happening to zero. in this case, it was one life lost, horrible tragedy. just glad it wasn't more. given the nature of this particular perpetrator, he just had had one thing in mind and unfrptly he plushed it. >> we go to brookfield, wisconsin, with a purdue alum. >> caller: good morning, president daniels. . . my question today was how do you differentuate running a state and a university. i'm curious the differences in stress are, that kind of thing. >> first of all, i u don't use terms like running. i didn't imagine i was running the state of indiana.

i was possibly trying to make -- it's government operated, and i think we did a lot to improve that. but the state really is the sum of the energies and the activities, the businesses, that it's citizens start and lead and operate. and i always saw the job there as try ing ing to create the conditions where the important part of life, private lives of people and private sector could flourish. it's a little like that here too. i'm not running this place. i'm trying to make its institutional apparatus work that our faculty can do the best teaching they k the world changing research that they do and that our students have the maximum chance as we have been discussing to learn as much as possible and go out and be successful citizens.

there's a difference, of course, when you try to lead for results or manage, let's say, for results in the absence or the apparent absence of competition. you have to find other ways to motivate and measure and then reward people. but in the end, there is a competition and higher ed is starting to see it now. if it didn't until recently, you can see it now and that competition brings improvement. it will here as it does elsewhere in life. >> another question from twitter now. one of our followers writes, would it be better to go to trade school or community college over a university degree? why take on so much debt? >>s that very good question. i personally believe that there are many, many young people for whom this is possibly a better option. or at least a better first option. there are some important and

necessary, and by the way, good-paying jobs in society that don't necessarily require u a four-year college degree. what we know, i think, to a certainty, though, is everybody who wants to be a productive contributor and self-sufficient person in this world, every young person needs not only to finish high school, but to go beyond it. it could well be to learn a skilled trade. it could well be to go to a community college at least as a starting point. the value, i think, young people need to embrace is learning will be lifelong and may take these different pathways, but they better count on it not stopping. but rather being renewed and refreshed and extended later on. >> a couple facts about purdue university if you were watching at home and curious. enrollment is 38.788.

that includes 29,440 undergraduat undergraduates. one more question for you i would be remissed not to ask. it is political season around here. any chances you have your eyes on the 2016 field? >> i'm sorry the question was? >> it is political season. any chances you have your eyes on 2016? >> my eyes, no. only as an attentive citizen. no, i got my hands full and thoroughly thoroughly absorbed and stimulated and trying to build the best value in higher education on the great foundation that i found on arrival. so the answer is no. >> one more quick question from twitter as well. from your research, what is the

typical salary of a graduate from your university? >> well, it's higher -- it depends how many years out of school a person is. what we know from the purdue index now with some accurate measurement is our graduates significantly outearn the average college graduate. we know they have less debt. by the way, today's students have significantly less debt than they did two years ago, and we hope we can keep that trend going down. we know our graduate who is had any debt at all, if they graduated, had almost never have had a hard time paying it off. the students we have to worry about is those who started purdue, had some debts and didn't graduate. some of them -- and it's just a few percent, but some of them do have som