but i think it's a wuchonderful thing and higher education not just in michigan, not just in the state or in the coin try but around the world. that're able to atrablt students here from all corners of the world to come and study. in addition to serving a brotder population of students, it affects the quality and the nature of the education we provide here on campus, we're heading unarguably towards an increasingly globalized society and having our students here from in state and in the united states to be educated in different parts of the world makes their education richer as a whole. it's actually a wonderful thing, and it's one of the comparative advantages of the united states that i'm very proud of. >> dr. mark schlissell is the president of the university of michigan, we appreciate your time this morning.

>> thanks so much, and thanks again to cspan for their focus on higher ed, it's very important of course. throughout 2014, cspan has brought you more than 130 candidate debates from across the country, in races that will determine control over the next congress, and this tuesday night, watch cspan's live election night coverage, to see who wins, who loses and which party will control the house and senate. our coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern with results and analysis, you'll also see candidate victories and concession speeches in some of the most closely watched races around the country. tonight and tomorrow morning we want to hear from you, with your calls, facebook comment s tweet. 2014 election coverage on cspan. here are just a few of the comments we have recently steved from our viewers. >> calling to comment on a debate that i saw between bruce fine and a man named john ewe,

regarding the declaration of war and the war powers act. quite interesting to watch the legal debate and it also demonstrated some of the ineptitude of the neo-con proposition that from the beginning of any war, the president is the ultimate hearsay of the country's ability to go to war. >> caller: i would like to commend cspan 2 for airing the information from the writers on greece and the military. it was excellent information that gave different levels of interaction and dynamic and nuances and the reality, for instance that post-traumatic

stress disorder can climb up and can be resolved if you continue to try various interventions. >> caller: i think american history tv on cspan is one of the best programs available. i wish we could do it more than once a week. >> and continue to let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400 e-mail us at comments@cspan.org. with northwestern university president morton shapiro, he looks at highwow universities a preparing students for life and the challenge of keeping top notch faculty. >> this week here on cspan, we

are doing a month long series of interviews with university presidents in conjunction with cspan bus's big ten college tour. and this morning the cspan bus is on the campus of northwestern university in evanston, illinois, this is near chicago, now joining us on the bus is morton shapiro, mr. shapiro, let's just begin with challenges that you see to higher education as the president of northwestern university. >> thank you, greta and welcome to you, i wish you were here in person, it's a beautiful day here on the north shore of chicago. challenges are funding challenges, we are a very big research university. we get about $600 million a year in sponsored research. i saw earlier before i got on, francis collins, of the national institutes of health was on, they alone are one of the major funders, you worry about keeping the labs going, you worry about

affordability for the most talented students in the country, indeed in the world regardless of family circumstance. >> the tuition for northwestern university in state and out of state is $46,836 room and board, comes in at $14,389, why is the price tag over 46,000 to attending northwestern university? >> as you just said greta, the sticker price is 46,000. but you add in room and board, it goes up to $60,000. we have about -- they come from families sufficiently wealthy that they can actually afford it. we use a very generous financial aid formula. why do we charge a third of our students as much as $60,000? because you look at the data, we

spend about $80,000 to educate each undergrad each year, so everybody gets a subsidy. those the only private universi in the big 10 conference. what's the differences between them? our viewers who have been watching us do these interviews will notice one difference. that is seems to be the price tag, northwestern much more expensive than the public universities that we've talked to. >> well, we're not subsidized by the taxpayers of illinois. we get a little money from the state of illinois to do new construction and keep research labs going, et cetera. but generally we have to pay for ourselves. fortunately at northwestern, we have a very large endowment and we get a lot of money through philanthropy. >> so your annual budget is about $2 billion, as you said, endowment makes up about 9.8 billion and research awards 550

million. what should parents, students look for in deciding between a public university and a private university like yours? >> well, there are a lot of great publics out there. as you pointed out, we're proud be in the big ten. there's 14 universities in the big ten. it's funny that it's still called the big ten. it's an iconic brand so we still call it the big ten. 13 of them are publics. they're the public ivies that go along with the private ivies. they're great schools. we're a lot smaller, as i said. we have 8,000 full-time undergrads. if you look at some of the larger ones, penn state, the ohio state, they have almost 40,000 undergrads. it's a little bit of a difference once you get on campus. there's more of a small-college feel. we like to call ourselves great research university with the heart of a small college. >> what about outcomes? are the outcomes the same?

graduation rates, job placement? >> yeah. i'm an economists, so i've written a lot about this. i know a little bit about educational outcomes. i could say a few things about northwestern, our graduation rate is about 95% against a national average of close to 60%. we did a survey of the graduating class of 2013. we found most of them within a year of when they graduated and everyone was 22% were in graduate and professional school programs. everybody else was working full-time. we're happy to say that. we have a large group of engineers and of course your field, the school of journalism and great theater program and on and on and on. so, it's probably not that surprising that they all got full-time jobs. but we're proud of those educational outcomes. >> how many students do you get applying to northwestern university for their freshman year and how many do you accept?

>> well, last year we had about 34,000 applicants and accepted more than 4,000. the 13.0%. the sad thing i can tell you and i've been a college university president now for 15 years, you get many more really highly qualified people who could contribute greatly to life on campus than you're able to admit. that's clearly the case here with an admit rate of 13%. >> what's your criteria? >> well, we look at -- you know, we do look at standardized test scores, a.c.t. and s.a.t. scores. we know people can take review courses and take it many times. we care a lot about high school grade point average and really read the essays and we care deeply about teacher evaluations and trying to think about who not only can succeed in the classroom but who more broadly

could added to a very diverse, very energetic campus. >> it's expensive and competitive as you said, so how do you maintain diversity? >> it's expensive from the people from the top income brackets. it's not expensive for people in the bottom half of the american income distribution. if you take 60,000 and below, you know, some of those people pay 15,000, some pay 10, some pay nothing including room and board. so you have to be careful when you say it's expensive. it's expensive for the people who come from families who can actually afford it. we're a need-line, full-need institution. there's only about three dozen left in the country out of 4,700 colleges and universities. >> what are your thoughts on your neighboring state in michigan the top court recently here in d.c. upheld the michigan ban on college affirmative action. what's your take on affirmative action for colleges, universities?

>> well, we have, as you just illuded to in your previous yes, we're a very diverse campus, we have a lot of international students and students from relatively low-income backgrounds. we do that because each of the applications -- it's hard as we say we have 34,000 applicants. we look at them in the context in which they were able to succeed. some people come from relatively lower income backgrounds, for example, who didn't have the access to standardized test score review courses and the like. what you do is you look high school specific, family specific and you say, you know, this is what this -- this is the record this person has produced. is it good enough to justify being admitted to northwestern. and so far with the supreme court rulings and texas and michigan we're able to look at people in the context in which they had to succeed. >> we're talking with morton schapiro, he is the president of northwestern university in evanston, illinois.

our big ten tour, c-span tour rolls on today. and so we were -- our top today is at northwestern university and a border bus is the president, morton schapiro. he's taking your questions, your concerns about higher education. you don't have to have any experience with northwestern university. we just want to get your thoughts on higher education this morning. and so we've decided the lines like this. students 202-585-3880. parents 202058583881. 202-585-3883 for residents. morton schapiro, what sort of majors is northwestern university known for and the job placement of the kids that are coming out of northwestern university. >> we have a very big and very large engineering program this year about 21% of the 2,000 or so freshman are in that.

we're very famous for the school of music, one of the conservatory/liberal arts experiences in the country or indeed the world. our school of journalism, right, we're very famous for that are undergraduate and graduate program. a very strong college of letters of arts and sciences. a great school of education and social policy. very well known school of communications where our famous theater program among other things are. among others. so we -- i don't know. we're known as a large -- fairly large research university with expertise and excellence across the body. >> morton schapiro, you said earlier you're an economist. do you ever reach out, do you ever hear from companies about what sort of job skills they need from workers that are graduating from northwestern university? >> yes, we do.

more so in the pre-professional majors in journalism and engineering and the like, but we do. the data speak for themselves. i mentioned that before when we did a followup of the students who graduated, the seniors in june of 2013. and we found them -- found almost everyone. everyone who wanted full-time employment basically had it. so it made us feel pretty good. >> we'll go to first phone call. go ahead. >> caller: yes, good morning. i am a lawyer in new jersey. one of my para legals came to me with tears in her eyes telling me that her little brother who was a student in manhattan college was short of about 11,000 dollars because his tuition for the year is 54,000. so he had some partial scholarships and all that. the family doesn't have a lot of money and they are basically distraught. i'm not sure that this young man is going to be able to continue this year even though he is a very accomplished athlete, but he wasn't very limber about

getting signed up on an athletic scholarship. so my question is apparently the family has exhausted all funding sources. i myself am going through some -- i'm fine but it's a little complicated. i'm not sure exactly what options a family like that when they can't get a loan after they've been admitted into school, what can they do on an emergency basis? >> well, you know, first of all i would say in general it's a sad story. i'm from new jersey myself, so it's even sadder to hear somebody from new jersey to tell that story. i mentioned before, we're a need-blind, we meet full need. that situation would not happen here or at a number of the peer institutions. the only thing i can say as an economist who has done a lot of work in this area is that higher education typically the best financial investment anyone is going to make in his or her life time if you look at the rates of

return, they're at record levels. they rebounded beautifully from the financial chaos of 2008. so generally for most people who do take out those loans the economic evidence is very clear that's a very good investment. i can't comment in that particular case about -- sometimes we call economists call imperfections in capital markets. you can get a great return but you can't always get the access to capital and that sounds like that's exactly the case and unfortunate circumstance. >> would you say college is worth it across every major, as an economist? >> i love the way you added across every major, but yes. the data is pretty clear. the federal reserve bank of new york released a study two weeks ago and talked about how long it takes in your work experience to make up for the cost of college, not just the money you spend in tuition, but also the fore gone earnings when you're in college as opposed into the labor force and look at the differential

earnings you get. when i graduated college in 1975, it used to take about 23 years to make up for all those costs, the opportunity costs and direct costs, now it takes less than ten. it's not only a great investment, it's a better investment than it ever was. it's not always an equal investment as you eluded to across major. there's a myth out there if you major in se business, accounting you'll make a lot more money over your life time than if you major in classics. the interesting thing is if you look about 15 years after entry into the labor force, classics majors, believe it or not, make even more than accounting majors. keep that in mind if you're interested in the humanities. >> we'll go to shaun in cambridge, a student up there. go ahead, shaun. >> caller: thank you for taking my call and thanks for c-span. i'm a graduate student and i'm actually blind. i was interested in asking question related to accessible materials for students with disabilities in higher

education. i just was wondering if you could speak to efforts underway to make sure that technologies that are developed, course management interfaces, electronic textbooks, tablets things like that used in the classroom are accessible to people with disabilities and in particular, i was interested in commenting on a bill that's in congress called the t chat to set out voluntary guidelines to achieve that. the american council on education came out in opposition to that bill. i'm just wondering if you could speak to where northwestern stands on that and if there's any possibility that the university that apprise the council on education might reach out to them that this bill is important. >> all right, shaun. >> i didn't know about the bill, but i am going to reach out. i feel very strongly about this. i think that in many cases, as you know there is a legal obligation, even if there isn't,

there's a moral obligation. you get the most talented people and you make sure they get every access to education. as you eluded to with changes in technolo technology, it's much more cost efficient and practical to do so. sometimes people worry about the legal aspects. we ought to worry about the moral aspects as well. >> we're taking your questions, concerns about higher education in this country. students -- parents 202-585-3881 and educators 202-585-3882 and residents 3883. this is morton schapiro. roger green on twitter says this -- for profit schools like northwestern, should not have access to federal education loans guaranteed by the taxpayer. mr. schapiro? >> well, we're not for profit.

we're private but we're not a proprietary school, we're not for profit. of course we should have access to loans and pell grants. if you look at the fault rates at loans, northwestern, it's less than 2%. if you're thinking about public policy, what's the best investment the federal government can make and pell grants and guaranteed student loans, i mean, the graduation rates at the selective privates are in the 90s. at the publics they're in the 50s. so i think it's -- it would be terrible public policy to exclude private not for profit sector. it's very different for the private for profit sector. that's a different question. >> we've seen the student loan debt go up and interest rates are higher for some loans for higher education. >> well, there's a lot of attention to the fact that when student loan debt crossed the

trillion dollars and lot of reporters got very excited about that very large number and they talked at length that it's now exceeds generally credit card debt depending on how you measure it, but that's the sort of more sensationalistic headline. the reality is that credit card debt, for example, is basically paying the price of con sujs goods. where as i said before, the best economic investment and there's enormous literature not just my work but a lot of other economists have worked on this forever, it's the best economic decision one can make. you don't want to con florida state credit card debt which is paying off tvs and cars for consumption goods and student loan debt, which is basically the best investment anyone is ever going to make. >> john in illinois. a parent there. hi, john. >> caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. mr. schapiro, i have a question rega regarding student admission.

my son is a junior currently in district 204 out here in naperville. and he's averaging approximately a 3.75 gpa, but he's really not involved in sports or outside interests. if he was interested in attending northwestern, what would he need to do to increase potential chances to get in? >> well, we get a lot of really good kids from naperville, so first of all, i want to tell you we love the schools out there. so it sounds like your son -- congratulations to you and to your son. your son sounds like he's very, very successful. to get into any single selective private or indeed selective public, it's a little bit of a

crap shoot to be honest. when you're only admitting as we do 13% of the applicants. you never know. that's why i tell children of our friends, apply to a lot of different places. generally if you apply early it increases your percentages and there's a big data base based that shows that. so i would tell him to -- it always sounds trite but to find a passion. but i would also tell him to enjoip high school. i just spoke to the 2000 entering freshman and 100 transfers on monday and one of the things i did is apologize for them. for some cases -- i hope it's not the case for your son that the process of getting in to a very prestigious, very selective school such as northwestern, sometimes ruins their love of learning. you know, maybe they take too many advanced placement courses, they take too many a.c.t., s.a.t. review courses. for some of those kids -- i teach freshman, you have to

rekindle their true love of learning. if the price for your son to get into a highly selective private or public is to ruin his childhood, it's not worth it. >> what about legacy? is that a factor in admissions into northwestern? >> it is. it is. you know, we don't have the same percentage legacy. it's a little -- slightly south of 10%. there are a number of institutions where it's about 20%. but it is. but, you know, we don't -- i think it's overplayed in the press sometimes. you know, there are a lot of ties. there's 34,000 applicants and probably 10,000 of them are really not ready to prosper and to contribute widely to the campus here at northwestern. but of the rest, you know, you're taking about half of them. and one of the things that breaks ties, if they basically pretty much have that equivalent gpa and a.c.t. and s.a.t. and

indistinguishable, one of the parents went to northwestern, it's a way to break ties. before i talk about the moral obligation, the moral obligation is to make sure that everyone whom we admit can really prosper here and get -- feel good about himself or herself. and, you know, just because your parents or grandparents went here or were donors, my responsibility is the kid, not to anybody else. >> we'll go to mary in pennsylvania a parent there. hi, mary, you're on the air. >> caller: hi. i'm the mother of eight children who are educated children and all went to college to become marine biologist, lawyers, doctors, et cetera. i have par kinsons, so that's why i'm shaking. and i'm very upset about the moral decline in colleges. i don't want my children going to college and drinking. i don't want them to have to have a job on the side so they can go to these places and have

all this noise and all this drinking. why aren't you having more formal relationships between man and woman? that's just as important as education. and that's why i think our moral ethics and values in our society are declining because we as parents are putting all this money into our children to be corrupted. >> all right, mary. we'll take that up. >> well, god bless you with your eight children and i'm sorry about your medical condition, but you should be very proud of what you've done for obviously your children. i take issue with the premise of the question, i hate to say that. i don't think anything is declining. again, i've been a faculty member for 35 years, so i showed up on campus in 1971 originally. i never left. so i'm pretty close to it. also as a president, i've lived more or less on campus for 15 years. i think this generation of young men and women, those born between 1980 and 2000 are a lot

more impressive than my generation of baby boomers. i think their moral character is probably better. as drinking and other aspects of student life a problem, yeah. is it a greater problem than it was when i was in college, absolutely not. i think we just shine the spotlight on it and no longer have our heads in the sand and are dealing with it. >> this is a headline from fox. the suspect in the case of the missing university of virginia student is charged with abduction. what is northwestern doing about campus safety? >> well, we're blessed to be here in a wonderful suburban location, evanston, is a fantastic city. it's a city of 75,000 or so. we don't dominate the whole city, but we're really blessed to be here. you know, you can look at -- one of the nice things that the government has forced everybody to do is to disclose your crime

statistics. i mean, it could always happen. uva is a sensational school in charlottesville is as close to heaven as you can get in this country, but terrible things do happen. again, i think -- and this refers to the previous question, there was a time when we swept things under the rug, not specifically northwestern but everywhere, say when i was in college about drinking, about sexual assault, about other aspects of safety. and now we don't. so we're very up front about it and we try to deal with it. i think by trying to deal with it and recognizing problems we're much more successful. >> northwestern is one of the primary founders of the big ten. and you noted earlier, there are actually 14 schools in the big ten. what is the significance of this conference? >> well, it stands for academic as well as athletic excellence. so northwestern, we're a little bit -- it's a little bit unusual given that we're so much smaller

than the other 13 universities and we're the only private. but we're proud to be there. it stands for something. it stands for the student athlete and excellence in everything we do. one thing i really love as president of the northwestern is that just as we tell the music students that they should try to get jobs at the chicago sim pony or new york philharmonic and tell our theory people whether it's julia louis-dreyfus or seth meyers, they should win emmys. we also tell our athletes that they should compete at the highest national athletes but they're student athletes. >> what's the value to the members of the big ten? >> well, the value, i think, we have an academic. people obviously focus, as you understand, on the athletic side, but we're also an academic conference and we have

consortium of academics led by the chief academic officers who work together so we have tremendous cooperative research operations and even some teaching. so it's both the athletic side and the academic side. and for us, you know, north western, a relatively small, private university, you know, we're on national tv constantly. we're playing football this week at penn state. so we're going to be on national tv again. then we host wisconsin the next week and it goes on and on and on. we have nebraska coming in, michigan coming in. you pick up the paper and there's a big thing about northwestern and we're always on tv. so it gives us very nice exposure and what we really like is it's exposure about the academic excellence as well as athletic excellence at northwestern. >> we're talking education with the president of northwestern university, morton schapiro. he's joining us aboard c-span's bus as it continues on its big ten college tour. we want to get your thoughts, your comments, your concerns about higher education.

students dial 202-585-3880 and educators 202-585-3882 and residents 3883. where do you come down on football players trying to unionize? >> well, that was a strange day for me. people always ask me as a long-time president, anything ever surprised you? that day surprised me, i have the tell you. if you go back to when our student athletes led by our former wonderful quarterback kain colter came out and said, well, we should try to think about unionizing. you know, they quickly pointed out that we have a graduation rate for football players about 97%. we don't have special majors. we don't have special dorms and they said but it would be good to do it for everyone, you know, for safety concerns and the

like. so, my own sense, alums don't like to hear me say it, i'm proud that this happened at northwestern. we train people to be leaders. that came out of a class. kain had a class -- history of labor unions. he wrote a paper, could you unionize football players. that's where it came from. i'm proud it came out of here. that said, i feel very strongly that our football players and oir 492 varsity athletes here at northwestern, they're students. as i said, we don't have special majors or dorms and we lead the nation year after year in graduation rates for our athletes. so they're student athletes. >> does northwestern profit off of these athletes and if so, why shouldn't these students be able to get some of those profits? >> no, we don't profit. our budget, as i said before, is 2.1 billion. our total athletics and recreation part of that budget is 64 million. it generates 64.

we spend it on the students. they get scholarships here. no, it's not like we make so much extra money, like some schools might be able to do and spend it on academics. no, we do it because we generate the money, we spend it within athletics and recreation. the students who get scholarships, as you pointed out that's worth over $60,000 a year, they're getting into a great university and they have the educational outcomes that are consistent with attending and graduating such a great institution. >> we'll go to virginia in illinois. you're on the air. >> caller: thank you. i don't have a student in college at this time, but i have had. and i was very disappointed that a university with the standing that northwestern has and also the university of illinois chicago would have people on their staff that have been very subversive in the past and

broken laws. and what could a parent do if they don't want their children being taught by this type of person? >> well, i don't know you're el lewding to a lot of things. a lot of the listeners aren't aware. the faculty, we have 3,000 people or so on the faculty. i think they're generally wonderful scholars and great teachers and proud members of the community. you know, there are a lot of schools. if you really want to say that because there's one professor who might have done something in the past that you don't like, you know, you're not going to send the kid to that school, there are other schools to send the kid. i think if you actually look at that and you're going to find out that there are many people -- the important thing is what happens in the classroom. does this professor bring his or her political ideology or whatever into the classroom. i'm very proud member of the faculty here at northwestern. i don't think anybody does it

better than we do. >> we'll go to evanston, illinois, a parent there. hello, go ahead. you're on the air. go ahead. >> caller: okay. i have a grandson who is an excellent student. he's in all advanced classes. he is an excellent athlete. and i would like to know if there's any advantage of his going to eths or applying to northwestern? >> yeah, eths is evanston town high school. it's a wonderful school. we have 13 i think eths students in the freshman class and answer is, yeah. not only do you get -- if the family is eligible for financial aid, we created something when i first came as president five years ago called the good neighbor great university program. anybody who graduates high school in chicago or in evanston gets a special financial aid

package where no loan, no summer earnings expectations. if you do work study, you keep it. it's not taxed in financial aid sense. we love the kids from eths. we just love them. i've had the great pleasure of teaching a number of them over the past five years. >> this is a story from "the chicago tribune" back in march. northwestern university to launch areas largest fund raising campaign $3.75 billion. what does it take to raise that kind of money and why is it necessary? >> well, it's necessary because, you know, you want to keep those laboratories going and path-breaking, earth-shattering scientific discoveries. you want to make sure that all the students who get in here to northwestern have the same experience regardless of family circumstances. and you want to stay need blind, so all that takes a lot of money. yeah, we're in a campaign. lot of people are in campaigns. so far it's going extremely

well. some people believe in our vision. some people want to associate with the excellence of northwestern university. and many people are very loyal because they had transformative experiences when they were here either as undergrads in graduate school or in professional school programs. >> "the chicago tribune" notes that if this is successful, it would be among the ten largers efforts by a university in the united states. you said it's going well so far. how close are you to your goal? >> well, we went -- we ended the quiet phase only about six months ago on actually march 14th. we had already raised over a billion and a half and now we've raised a lot of money since then. the numbers are daunting when you have that number of 0s on it, but people really love northwestern. and they're very generous to support us. >> what's the donor process like? do you vet potential donors? what's it like? >> yeah. we spend a lot of time.

we have a pretty large alumni relations and dwom operation. i spent a substantial portion of my time when i'm not doing other things on fundraising activities. it's a sophisticated operation as you would expect it could need to be and the success speaks for itself. >> how much time do you spend fund raising? >> you know, i'm a little unusual because i still teach and i still publish, so i do a lot of travel. i'm on the road almost every week. i'm not teaching this quarter, but i will be teaching next quarter, a large course with a lot of freshman in it. i would never miss it. so i teach tuesday and thursday and generally what happens is i go right to o'hare from my class and i almost never fly in again thursday morning because if there's a delay, there will be a lot of students that might notice i'm not there. i might try to fly back wednesday night. i'm gone tuesday and most of the

day on wednesday and quite often i leave again for the weekends. it depends on what time of year and what i can do. i spend a fair amount of time fund raising. but my faculty colleagues don't understand how gratifying it is. when you have something you really care about and you raise the money to support it, it's as good as teaching a great class or publishing a great article. >> you do teach, as you noted. what is the tenure rate percentage at northwestern university? and how is that achieved? >> well, yeah. we have about two thirds or so of our faculty, you know, in the tenure-track line positions who have tenure. it's a standard sort of thing. the prevalence of tenure in american higher education has really changed over the course of my career, you know, when i got my ph.d. back in 1979 and began my faculty career teaching at university of pennsylvania that year. used to be that almost two thirds of all the full-time

faculty were in the tenure system. now it's below 30%. so, that's changed. but within the tenure system, the way to get tenure hasn't really changed. >> do you think that reduction has impacted higher education negatively? >> that's a very good issue. i mention i continue to do some publi publishing. i had an article that came out about a year ago and got a lot of coverage. it looked for the first time at contingent faculty and contingent faculty at northwestern are people who teach here full time, they teach here for a long period of time. the average tenure is eight years, but they're not on the tenure system. we look at their teaching effectiveness and that of the tenured track and tenured faculty. we were very surprised what we found. we found that their teaching excellence is easily supported by the impeer kal data. if you treat those people right and you recognize their value in american higher education, it's

a little less worrying than the in your opinions going from two thirds tenured track to under 30% might lead you to believe. >> mr. schapiro, what do you think of online courses, being able to attend college, get a degree without having to pay for the room and board? >> yeah. i think it's overblown in the media, frankly. again, as i said, i've been a faculty member for 35 years. technology really helps. there are certainly places where ♪ s and similar kinds of vehicles are very effective, but doesn't change the magic of what happen nps a classroom and certainly doesn't change the experience of what happens outside the classroom. before i became an administrator 20 years ago, i was blissfully unaware that lot of the college education we provide takes place in the dorms. it's what happens in a student involvement group, a public service group, what happens in

an ok pel la group, what happens on a saturday night in the dorms when people sit around. that's a lot of the education. and that doesn't happen when you're sitting in your bedroom in your pajamas on a mook with a graduation rate of 2% of the people who enroll in the class. >> as we wrap up, here, president schapiro, you mentioned at the top of the some of the greatest challenges of higher education, one of them being affordability. what else do you see happening in higher education that worries/concerns you? >> well, we want to create well-rounded individuals. to a certain extent, it goes back to the question of somebody before talking about what it takes to get into one of our places. i think there's an undue specialization for young people in order to get into the most selective colleges and universities. that's why i said before when i welcomed the students, i think they were surprised that i

apologized for the process not all but for some of them to get into a school like ours. the challenge to create people who are citizens of the world. you want them to have a love of learning so they educate themselves. i think of how little i knew when i graduated college in 1975. i still don't know all that much but i know a lot more than than i did in 1975. you want to em bu in them a real civility and a respect for others and for difference. the world i think we're leaving the millennials a more difficult world than we were left by as a baby boomer by our parents and i want to think that american higher education and a place like northwestern university is part of the solution not still another part of the problem. >> morton schapiro is the president of the northwestern university. we want to thank you and your staff for joining us for this conversation, talking to our viewers and allowing the c-span bus there at northwestern university. appreciate it. >> it's an honor to be here.

throughout campaign 2014, c-span has brought you more than 130 candidate debates from across the country, in races that will determine control of the next congress. this tuesday night, watch c-span's live election night coverage to see who wins, who loses and which party will control the house and senate. our coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern with results and analysis. you'll also see candidate victory and concession speeches in some of the most closely-watched senate races across the country. throughout the night and into the morning, we want to hear from you with your calls, facebook comments and tweets. campaign 2014 election night coverage on c-span. here are just a few of the comments we recently received from our viewers. >> calling to comment on a debate that i saw between bruce fine and a man named john ewe regarding the decklation of war and the war powers' act. quite interesting to watch the

legal debate. and it also demonstrated some of the ineptitude of the knee owe con proposition in the beginning of any war the president is the ultimate hearsay of the countries' ability to go to war. >> i would like to commend c-span2 for airing the information from the writers on greece and the military. it was excellent information that gave depth, level, interaction and dynamic and nuances. and the reality, for instance, that post-traumatic stress disorder can climb