next, c-span's washington journal recently conducting interviews with presidents at universities in the big 10 conference. we'll show you our conversation with penn state president and rutgers university president robert barche. then telephone scams that target the elderly. after that a senate hearing on intellectual theft and trade secret theft. c-span's washington journal recently conducted interviews with presidents at universities in the big ten conference. challenges facing higher education.

it's about 50 minutes. >> this week, we continue our month long series of interviews with university presidents in conjunction with the c-span bus's big ten college tour. this morning, c-span bus is on the campus of penn state and university park in pennsylvania. and joining us from the bus is penn state's president eric barron. good morning, sir. >> good morning. >> to start with, being an educator yourself and overseeing a university, what would you say are the greatest challenges that you see when it comes to the topic of higher education? >> i think there are a lot of them. no one specific topic. access and affordability. in making sure that students

fully utilize the opportunities that are presented by a campus further their success in life. i think we have challenges and innovation after years of flatter, declining budgets, there are a lot of different challenges. >> let's start with the topic of access.w does how would you define the problems with it.? i think there are a lot of good signs we can be proud of. the number of first and family i students at penn state is growing. 530 million in the last capitale campaign. we have a below averagesylv for pennsylvania and for the nation. student default rates, all thoso are good signs if you dig a

little bit deeper, you see thata there are really two problems that i think have an enormous impact. one of thoseth is that we have t many students going years five and six, and in going years five and six, they're borrowing money to do it. so they're not completing as fast as they can. a large number of them are students that are not as well off financially . and what they end up doing is creating the cycle of working too many hours, taking fewer classes, perhaps not doing quite as well as their talent would allow because they're working. and thenorwa they go forward an take more time to graduate. some of them give up. this is the group of people t t thatie, for which i believe we have too many people that don't complete. and then in years five and six,

they're borrowing more moneyrow because that's what's it takes that degree if they are going to complete. those things say that total cost of a degree, which is, i think, unfortunately reflective of a year five and six. and this notion thatn' you can' quite afford it so, you don't graduate at the same high rate or you take -- you take longer. i think if we can beat back those problems w, we'll drive dn student debt numbers.r stud we'll make our students more successful. if you think about it, a lot off people talk about that tuition increase. okay. and, you know, what are they doing? why do they keep increasing eepn tuition? but the biggest tuition increasd of all is to go a fifth year and a sixth year? . and notut only you pay your tuin housing, but you're not in the job market. so i'd say s a lot of good st s

storistorieser but good universities have to dig a little bit deeper. we've got specific issues that we're going to target. >> as a person who oversees the university then, what are some ways you can decrease the numbers that go on to year five and six. >> there's a lot of things. there's everything from advising and being able to create a map for a student. and if they fall off and miss ae course and that costs them an extra year because that course is a prerequisite and not offered to the next year. that you knock on their door and say, did you do that on purpose? did you realize that's going tot cost you another years if you continue on with that major? so there's parts that are like that. components like that that you can address. but also, for a need-based student, can we use our world campus to give essentially an cd

online semester scholarship? where in the summer you take t a nine credits and we make sure that student in taking those kio credits doesn't have to take on debt? different kindo of scholarships the way to think about it.th and then, we make -- we make up for the fact that they didn't take as many credits during the year. i also like the idea of lookingu at a student and saying, okay, i you're going to work 20 hours a week. andbu at minimum wage job. but we don't want you to work more than 20 hours a week. you work 20 hours a week and then we look at what your famil, contribution is and the scholarships and the loans. and if there's a gap, there's an unmet need, can we deliver a kind of penn state promise that we'll fill that gap? so for all the pennsylvania lara students, additional scholarships on the order of $30 million. and we could look every single one of those students in the eye don't work more

than 20 hours a asweek.n you'll do better in the classroom, you'll finish in f r four, you won't take on that extra debt, and we're going to help you -- we're going to help you fulfill that college education. and my bet is we'll watch the graduation rates otifon the need-based students go up. and we'll see the loan rates go down. >> 202-585-3880. for educator, if you want to ask our guests of an academic nature, especially in the college experience, d by pen 202-585-3882. for pennsylvania residents, 202-585-3883. we're joined by eric barron, joining us on our c-span bus as it continues to travel to big ten universities. can we ask about the jerry sandusky case? give us a status report about what the university is doing in? light of what happened two years ago about the molestation of

these boys. where is the university right now? >> okay. well, of course that's an incredible tragedy. and out of that has come a u university that probably has tht strongest compliance and ethics program of any university in the count country. we don't look at we're followinh the rules, we look at whether we're doing the right thing.we h and we pulled together an incredible team. we've looked at over 100 different topics for which we felt we could do improvements and create a greater sense oeafn control. and this is a model institution. and i believe that especially in the athletics arena of ethics and compliance, we're going to see a lot of universitiespe cop

what penn state has done because it's such a fine program.pl >> as far as specifics, what has the university put in place to make sure these instances don't happen again? >> well, just as an example, compliance and ethics is outside of athletics. it's not within thatit i chain e command. it's -- it's a completely independent operation, independent authority and that makes a substantial impact as an you might imagine to make sure that you have individuals that feel free and know they have the backing to do what's right. but, there'scall a dramatically different hr system. there's considerably c more

compliance, focus and training l associated with all youth programs, for example.ho it's extremely comprehensive. >> one of the issues was, people who passed on information and what was done with that information and, you know, how do youfo you -- how have you be the system where there's more communication if there's an incident reported to one person and make sure it gets to the proper authorities?re i of >> there's a full page of different ways in which individuals can report. report anonymously or through a particular process. very hard for something to slip through the cracks at this point. >> how much money has the university spent on this?money >> i don't.sign i have notif added up the amoun of money, but it is significant. >> for those, the legal fees, for paying settlements, does that come out of the general budget?ome port student tuition? where does that money come from?

>> well, some portion of it is covered by insurance. ad some portion of it is covered by athletics.at the myre predecessor made a promise that there were going to be no tuition dollarsn of in there. >> president eric barron of penn state joining us to talk about issues otof academics and education as part of c-span's big ten college bus tour. our first call from you comes from bob. bob, you're on. go ahead with your statement ork comment. >> morning, thanks for taking my call . i -- am actually a grandparent. and i'm concerned about my grand kids. i recently was laid off from my job, and i'm actually 63 years old now. but i was trying to get some help witi h reeducation.

and i was focused on one the on particular thing, gun smithing, actually. and the only way i was going to get it was, the cy wanted me to take in a bunch of fill-in courses to get so many credits.. one of them was literature, nothing to do with gunsmithing. and it seems like they're just trying to sell a lot of these n extra courses. if a person is focused on something that may be machine shop or something like that, se. it's kind of a waste for them to spend their time and moneyon on courses like literature they're never going to use. >> bob, thanks. president barron, go ahead. >> yes, of course, the education that comes out of any university has a particular stamp on it from the faculty that suggests

that if you have a degree from our institution, you have a breadth of critical communication skills and road n critical thinking skills and understanding of a broad number of issues and that not only do you have depth but you have breadth. and this signals a degree from an institution like penn state.p one of the wonderful things about penn state is also that we have multiple entry points for -- that allows individuals to be successful' you're at home, you're not mobile. you canaree -- you're in a care you have opportunities through the world campus. you're residential in the state of pennsylvania. you would like to live at home. we have commonwealth campuses that have lower tuition on the order of $8,000 a year less than the university park campus. you're interested in a particular area that is more

technical. there's penn college. and the penn college education is considerably more focused. so really, this is also a matter of having you pick a university that matches up to what you're interested in. sure and so, you really should seek out those opportunities to make sure that your interest and your objectives match with particular programs. because, obviously a penn state degree signals to everybody a certain scope of activity, a eph certain depth of activity. and so, i would encourage you to look carefully at those programl that are more focused on a erese particular skill set that you'r interested in. >> james is a student from georgia. go ahead. >> good morning. i'd like to hear your comments on the fact that professors generally get paid more if they are good researchers or good writers as opposed to being good teachers. i found that some of the best

teachers i have are the -- are at the bottom of the department head and don't do as much research or publishing as some of the teachers who spend less time with the students. is that going to change any time soon, do you think? >> okay. well, i would say that this was true in many universities uni a may be true in some universities today. but true in many universities that were major research universities. if you go back quite a while in time. but today, teaching skills are highly valued. and you don't get tenure. you don't get promoted if you're not very good in the classroom and you're not interacting well with students. and, in fact, we've moved from c model where we made a decision,

okay, this person was a great researcher, we're going to w -- we're going to reward that individual to one in which we want it all for you to get tenure and promotion. at the same time, we're also recognizing thatake we need to e advantage of the strengths and skills of different individuals. so you're watching a lot of universities move to a point where they also have faculty that are what i would call mission faculty. so they are superb teachers, and we put them in the classroom, and their function and their job description is basically to bes in that classroom and be superb teachers and work on the oposal scholarship of teaching while s they're doing it. they may be writing proposals o. how to improve the delivery of the curriculum. and also other faculty that areo more oriented towards research.b and i think what you discover is probably i the individuals thato it all and do it all very well

are the ones that will be more highly paid. >> 202-585-3880. for students, for parents, 202-585-3881. educators, 202-585-3882, and foa residents, 202-585-3883. from new york, here's frank. go ahead. let me push the button first. frank, good morning, go ahead. >> caller: what's the average salary of a professor paid?ch and the second question, what io the salary of the head coach of your football team'ket. >> okay. so here's the way to look at it. we're driven by the market.es clearly driven by the market. we benchmark against a set of universities that really solid e

top quality universities. and we work hard to have our faculty salaries be competitive in that marketplace.mi we work within the market. and so, you know, it is true.uly we have a football coach that t makes millions and faculty that make quite a bit.could quite a bit less. we could do this all very differently. i we also know that our football program is paying for largely all the other sports.th and penn state is an institutiot that wants all the gifts of all of our students to be something they can hone and take advantage of and excel in.

we're one of those few programs out there for which no tuition dollar, no university dollar crosses into athletics.an so, yes, of course, that prograi is important to us and it's l important to us that successful and we're competing in the marketplace for talent. we work to hard to compete in the marketplace for faculty. i would like it to be different. i don't thinkk you can operater outside the marketplace in today's higher education. not for faculty, no the for staff, not for athletics. >> milton is a parent from philadelphia. hi. >> caller: yes, i'd like to make this comment. i think it's ae pr scandal that ncaa gave most of the privileges back to penn state in light of this sandusky scandal. what kind of message does that send to other universities down the road that may engage in to inappropriate behavior. you do something

and they penalize -- what kind of message do we send our kids? you get a punishment, then maybe we'll let you off. that sends a horrible message to our college students.ther and it also sends a horrible in message to other universities that may engage in inappropriatt behavior, but then they get to get a slap on the wrist down the line. they get rewarded for it.t: that's my comment. thank you. >> yeah. you know, sandusky wasn't -- a sick man and he fooled a lot of people, i think. and that's rather sad.pped and the ncaa stepped out of their process in creating penalties for penn state. a lot of people are uncomfortable with the fact that they stepped out of their process in order to do that. personally, i think that no matter what the ncaa did, penn n state would've stepped up to look at, okay, this is never

going to happen again.t thin we're going to put in those, i don't think anybody needed to tell us. we were to put in those effortsp on utcompliance, and we would'v put in those efforts at -- at a stronger, ethical background. but so what the ncaa is saying, and it's really the presidents s that make up the ncaa.ha what they're saying ist that pen state as an institution has done so many remarkable things to handle this problem, that they shouldn't punish our students '' any further.s. if you look carefully, they didn't give us back the money penalties that were there. what they did was say why are we punishing a student athlete? why are we making sure that a student can't have a scholarship to come to penn state when we bl of the highest graduation rates of football

players? okay. so let's notally punish those students, especially when you see what penn state has done.t i so the penalties they removed were the penalties that punished students and student athletes. that's what they ended. and in my view, that's entirely appropriate -- on many differe fronts, but primarily on the front, on the front that we are a model program and in many different ways, we're leading the way.ed and it is not because in my view that they realize that something happened and now that -- what i happened is less significant.nk i don't believe that's the way they're thinking at all.ng a they're looking at it and saying, okay, we stepped out ofs our wprocess, this was too significant an issue.more it was a national issue, penn state stepped in there, and did more than just the right thing.i and like i said, we would've done it anyway.e i'm convinced we would've done every single one of those things anyway because we -- we don't

want something like that to happen. >> from pennsylvania, an educator, this is dan, go ahead. >> i'm sorry, i am not the educator.ons on y first, i'm sorry, i always forget your name, sir, but congratulations on yousirnc posn and since you just started. and also i'd like to congratulate you as a penn st e alum alumni, has come up the ranks. and i think because of that, you have at -- measure of a vested interest in what the school's about. a member of the college of medicine. a becausust like to say that lack of attention to this campuu because of its geographical suld distance from the main campus has resulted in someen things tt need attention. and i would leave it there and

in your discretion. and if i might call you or in the future through your office, i would appreciate that very much.t: >> so -- >> i'm not sure i -- that i -- t wonder if you could help me with the question. i wasn't sure i quite heard that at the end. >> he talked a little bitra abot pus an the geographical distance between main campus and other qualm puss. that may be something very e toy unique to your university and how you deal with those issuesl. >> it is. we have 24 locations. and a medical school, two law schools, a penn college that is more technically oriented. and university park in the center of the state.ok a and a lot of people look at this and say, this is very unusual, how does that function? what i look at it is -- it is, one, an opportunity to provide a lower cost to education to many

students. so, and you can see that.in t 40% of the students in the commonwealth campusesst are fir in their family to go to college.ther and they're largely living at homevi and having access to an education from a university tiei that's in then top 1% of all universities in the world. this was a wonderful opportunity. they also have a much closer connection to their community, which is also incredibly valuable when you think about student career success as onedif your objectives. so, yes, there's some distance issu issues -- it's a successful english task wherever you take o it. so i think those distance issues are less significant to us e isw because what we believe is we're truly delivering opportunity toh a huge number of students. and you just think about that number. 40% of the students in the

commonwealth campuses as being first in their family to go to college, and then you realize that penn state is truly fulfillingis t its mission of mg sure that we're educating the residents of the state of pennsylvania. >> here's alan. alan, good morning. >> caller: good morning. i have a question about d unique unstudent loans. specifically, the fact that and bankruptcy protections are removed uniquely from student loans and no other type of loans is a very large problem after graduation for a lot of people. and, you know, it's sort of, i don't know if it's ironic or troubling, but the -- the lobbie association of financial aid administratorsst t typically los against students on this topic.r either sideways or against. and i find that really disconcerting.

do you have any thoughts on that?at >> you know, i don't know about that particular lobbying effort that you're talking about. and obviously, you know, we're paying attentiony i to the rul. but this is the way i look at it. we need to drive these numbers down. the 200 so if i take the class 2007 entering class, so now i know what they borrowed in years five and six, those students at penng state borrowed $23 million. to go years five and six. and you can see their loan rates going up and some peoplewe c tso disappearing. we can save an enormous amount of money if we can get those students to graduate in four years or less. they're in the job market and being successful, and we actually drive, drive those numbers down. if you think of all the different ways in which we can enable a studentt fa to not falf

the map, to make sure they have their courses in order, to advantage students perhaps with the world campus to be taking m classes coming out of high school and coming in with the credits that allow them to go through this system even more quickly s. there's some evidence that if you add financial literacy to st part of the training for the studentsof w and they have a se of what they might be paying per month when they graduate, that they borrow less.king because some of that borrowing is actually because they're n working on a particular style od living that g they want to havev they go,e okay, that's not wor it to me.are thin i would rather have another roommate. and so, i think to these are t things that the universities really have control over. i think, you know, it's time tom pay attention to them and look at this as an opportunity to

drive down the amount of borrowing that students are doing.o help of course we should look closely at what loan policies are and attempting to help our students to be, to not have to pay too high an interest. ove but i think the thing that we have the most control overr is taking on the objective of . driving down student debt. primarily by getting them to graduate earlier. >> penn state president on our c-span bus as it continues its tour of big ten universities f e across the united states. with us for another 15 minutes, anne, parent from georgia. >> caller: hello, yes, my name is anne from georgia, and calling about penn state.pportu years ago, i'mni a senior citiz now. years ago, my son had the opportunity to attend the great college.so and it's unfair that the event

occurred. he goes to that -- i guess you d the president, how long you been the president there? they could not help him. and as a result, my son left penn state walking because his life was threatened. and that's why i was calling. thank you. bye. >> president? >> yeah, i'm not sure what i can add to that. i don't -- it's so difficult, io individual student cases to understand exactly what the situation is . i don't think it makes sense for me. me typ >> do students have -- >> to add something about -- >> do students have some type ok advocate on campus to help them with issues they may have academic or financial? >> yes. there's a huge focus here on helping students with financial

aid, scholarships, work study, and we basically have 75% of our students that get some sort of financial toaid.. very active office, working very hard to help people be successful. i know the caller was calling, i believe, from georgia , and, of ging to course, this is out of state tuition and that makes it a lot more challenging to meet that unmet need.sk >> ft. worth, texas. chris is up next. hello. >> caller: i'd like to ask president barron about the deteriorating conditions for teaching faculty. there's been a dramatic explosion over the past 20, 30 h years. and administrators and their staff while faculty rates have increased have not kept up with% that. faculty, nowwidehe 70% nationwide, i don't know about penn state.e pove

and they're underpaid tremendously.rtat sometimes they're living at the poverty level. and i was wondering what he thinks about that situation. >> well, there are a lot of different models out there. unfortunately, the recession sent a lot of universities into. a mode where they didn't want to commit long-term to faculty. and so they hired people part-time to fill classes because if they received one more budget cut, then it didn't make -- it didn't make the base faculty vulnerable, and they were more capable of managing st the budget. this was probably the saddest storyer for higher education ist that the long-term impact that the recession and cuts in state support have actually at many different institutions altered

the composition of the faculty just purely as a budget reality. i will say that at penn state that the student faculty ratio is 17-1. this is a very competitive rate. and we work hard to deliver in e the classroom. and as i said earlier in the program, we work hard to be competitive in salaries. this is a university that -- that's, you know, is between number eight of all publics and number 14 of all publics, and it moves a little bit in individual years. but we're really aspiring to make sure that a student that h graduates from penn stateas hasn exceptional education experience and is very successful in the wrld. and this is one of the reasonsh i think, why business magazines always list us as one of the top places to recruit.

and we just had a job career fairad. and we had over 500 companies there at the job fair. and more than 9,000 students that were participating in an ot awful lot of students getting jobs. so this is our objective.we a q and we're not going to sacrifice that quality that we know helps make our graduates successful t for the rest of their life. we're not going torest sacrific that quality because of a se. capability, i guess, to go have people teach by the course. that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. there are many times we pull in expertise for particular reasons. but i think that 17-1 student ou faculty ratidlo speaks very louy about our commitment.univer but,si truth be told, a lot of universities under considerable budget stress and not knowing dt whether the next year's budget

would continue to go down and they became risk averse. and moved to a mode of temporary faculty because they couldn't provide the commitment to keep them long-term.id lon >> quite independent state for the class of 2013. of for those seeking employment, that was about 70% of those pent state grads secured employment full-ti full-time. 17% went on for more education. good morning. >> good morning. everyone week we keep hearing callers call about the massive student debt and the amount of c studentos loans. but i don't really hear anyone asking about the cost. my son went to madison, and the rates used to go up one year it went up 19%.co you know, and the cost of living is going up, i don't know, 3%, 4% a year. why is the cost of college goinn up double digits every year? that's my question.

>> and president barron, if i h canos add, can technology remov some of those? perhaps a student taking a course online versus having to attend? are there other ways you spoke o about innovation earlier. i wonder if technology can help drive down cost.rk >> yeah, certainly, we work at that. deg residential students, it makes life more flexible. and online degree coming out of penn state is significantly reduced tuition compared to a full residential education, especially at penn state. but the issue is really a tricky one because a lot of institutions and publics in ba particular have significant cuts in support.to you go back to the time where

soldiers are coming out of the conflict of world war ii. and as a nation, we committed ourselves to supporting public education as a way of making sure that individuals were more. successful and we gave them opportunity. and we had a considerable pact, i would say, between state government, federal government and public universities to provide an educationhe l at the lowest possible cost that we could. and in many states, that was actuallye lo the words they use the lowest possible cost for the citizens of the state. o that has changed as budgets have gotten tight. and i don't fault the legislators. they had a tough problem. a lot of people with wit needs, not a lot of money. and their own budgets were declining. and they realized even though -- even though tuition was going p up, the outcomes of that degree in terms of the salaries you made were very high. a

that did not cover all of the increases in the benefits that we have by contract. those students got the best an u possible education.reasin and those tuition increases where you say, how can you be increasing that amount? that tuition increase does not cover the increases in costs.s o that's why we look for other places a to cut the budget. it's not a happy place to be.

we do know if you're delivering quality, and i will complement the university of wisconsin, gre is a great university. and the students that graduate g fromra it go off and do great y things. and so we don't want to sacrifice that quality. and that's oneo ofma the reaso why so many of us are focusing f on that population that really g struggle to get that degree. we know how valuable it is at the end. so we don't s want themur to be struggling. we want to makeever sure we cank every single person in the eye e and say, i don't care what you look like, i don't care what ame your background is like, i don't care what your economics are like, we want you to graduate at the same high rate.nging it's a challenge under these ire budgetnt environments, but i ate really think we can accomplish it if we work at it. eri >> penn state president eric barron joining us on "washington journal" this morning. we'll hear from an alum from los angeles, california. this is andrew, hi. >> yes. hello, good morning. i was calling because i wanted

to find out why tuition is so high at penn state. and we spent so much time, you know, studying at the university trying to get our degree. bei and not being able to enjoy things we like. we have to pay the tuition. can you explain why? >> and president barron, since you kind of addressed these things -- go ahead -- >> i can adjust one more thing n this is the wayd to think about it. take your tuition and fees and add it to what your state, as ad public institution provides per student. add those together, and that's the resources that you have to delivere re for the educational process for those students. penn state has a high tuition and fee.among sadly, seconald among all publi.

but i add those two together and i'm below average for the big ten. yet, we're delivering a ranking that is above average for the big ten. so this tells you , one, we're actually efficient in deliverinr quality compared to our peer set. it takes a resource in order to deliver high-quality education. and you don't have a lot of avenues to get those funds.tioni if the state support is low, your tuition is high. and you can watch t that over ak over again if you've taken analysis of universities that are high-quality universities, significant rank. you will see over and over d again, add those two numbers together, and you get a surprise. t and takes a certain amount to it deliver an education. and penn state is actually inal efficient in delivering high quality. >> how much do alumniom give ba

to the university? >> okay. so this is one of the things i'm the most proud of because we just finished a capital campaign, $2.2 billion. and 170,000 alumni gave back during that process. this is a phenomenal number, we think it's an all-time record. and so, seven years, $2.2 billion gives you an idea of what -- the rate at which peoplc are giving back. and that's an astounding number, which suggests how alu our alum really feel about this institution because people who had a transformative experienceg people who care about an institution, they're the ones that give back. to have 170,000 people give back is astounding.ndin a lot of good signs like that. record research dollars, despite a recession and sequestration on a federal level. we actuallyeq h had 126,000 stus

apply s to come to penn state. 20,000 more than we had the year before.care a this is an institution that people care about deeply, and it shows on the applications and ia shows in our alumni giving back. >> let's hear from jim in scranton, pennsylvania. you hello. >> yes, first i'd like to compliment you and the penn state university on handling the coach paterno situation. a i know coach paterno graduated a lot of athletes. i know he had a fantastic out hi program. and he genuinely cared about hiu players and his coaches. this was unfortunate, and i know there are probably thousands of incidents that happened like this that have not been reported. so, first, my hat is off to you on this. my comments are -- is, i don't think your tuition is that high. i know down in florida, florida

state, university of florida, i think, under $10,000 per year, tuition wise.have i i know the cost of living in pennsylvania is much higher. the problem i have is capitalism. we're wanting to take the public schools and turn them private, v wanting to go with vouchers and so forth.th we're taking average 18-year-old graduating from high school, basically has two choices. they can go into the military and possibly get the g.i. bill or go fight a war for war they contracts. obviously reasons we don't need to go. d and i'm noteb going to get into' that. or they can ge' intot go major d so you're looking at going to g, your00 university roughly probay 65, $70,000 for a four-year degree. put the interest on that, i then mean, you're starting the kid out of school, then they buy a house. we're putting debt on a 22, dent 23-year-old. i don't think the system is working correctly. and i certainly trust president obama. i trust someee politicians a he

of a lot more than i trust wall street and bankers. i have no trust for them. yoursl i would like your comments on that and what other college presidents such as yourself can do toan get this in order.. we've got to get this in check in my opinion.hank thank you for your time. and keep up the good work, sir. >> thank you. i rarely enter into the political side of the equation in terms of taking sides. i onlyever, and i do it every me of every day, i represent penn state. so i want to drive those student debt numbers down. we actually have the same were percentage of students, 66% that borrowed ten years ago compared to today. the amount they're borrowing is higher. our average is 35,000. the students that borrow, not everybody, the 66% have an is t average of $35,000 as a debt when they leave.nt it it's too high. we don't want it to be that way. a stronger opportunity for

suppor t. our tuition is not as high, uitn students are going to take on more debt. but if we can get them to graduate in four or 31/2, class of 2006-07, save them in debt.oe if we work hard with the need-based students to make surv they're not working too hard and not spending too much time in from a college, we'll drive down their debt considerably. so i think we've u -- from a university viewpoint, we have to work at the root of the problem. and we have to -- we have to resell ourselves in terms of our value to commonwealth of pennsylvania and to every othert state in the nation about how critical it isns to provide thi education to all citizens that are ableth. and that's the part we have to work out. >> president barron, we talked about technology, do you think , that the future of the university is in trouble becausl

of the growth of online educa education? and will there always be a needa for a brick and mortar type of situation for education?r a >> well, i think there will brk always be a-a need for brick an mortar. this is a transformative opportunity for students.conten. a coming of age as well as getting content. and we know that if we can engage students in activities like one-on-onerc research nters creativehi activity with facult members and internships and opportunities for leadership and study abroad opportunities and all these things that enrich an education that allow someone to drive what i calldu penn state blue and white sports car, put it through its paces. these are all things that are transformative. and right now, that's very difficult to deliver online. online is an opportunity right now for a particular segment of the population.

and we're realizing that it's notac reaching all the masses y because even if you look at these massive online courses that get 100,000, 200,000 people who sign up have very low completion rates.. and the people that complete are already educated. so this tells me we have a long way to go. on the other hand, online education provides a great opportunity for people that are not mobile or employed and wantt to go a little bit further in lr life. it provides a great opportunity to add flexibility s for studen' schedule. a great opportunity o that for us to flip the classroom. so that we have an expectation online that you get a particular content, and then the faculty an member really gets tod pr focus those critical thinking and ely. problem-solvings. those skill sets we know translate into the job market really, really effectively. and so, online education is great for all of those reasons.

we have a long way to go before it replaces bricks and mortar.on and i actually kind of kid people. because if you only had online education and not the why opportunity for a residential t education, why wouldla your 17-year-old ever leave home? they can come and do their laundry and raid the refrigerator. i suppose that i'm trying to bel cute here,ot if you think about it, and sit at the computer and take a class.host: we offer a lot more as a university than content.s woul that's the idea. >> so as far as the future of penn state. what specific things would you t like to see at the university ww done under your tenure aside from cost and things along that? what would you like to do with the university?t wh >> okay.t so that one's important to me. i want people to drive that blue and white sports car and out it through its paces.students we need to provide more opportunity for students becaus we know that an engaged student,

they have a better peer group, they're less likely to get into trouble because they're managinn their time. group i their peer group is supporting them. there was a lot of evidence that they get better grades, and they're grades and building a resume with worthwhile experience and they get better jobs. we know this fori fact. every we need to enable students to go in that direction. i think that every university has, especially the public has r an obligation to make sure we are educating the residents of a our stateti and the nation and e diversity of that population is changing. so we have to make sure we're always awelcoming and inclusive environment for everybody if wei are going to makety sure that we're a university that's part of the future.ake you got to make sure that technology model works in the future. it'se to expensive to keep redo technology and being at the iven cutting edge.g but we see so many opportunitiee in delivering curriculum better that we're going to continue to

push along those lines.ut our and i also think that we need to stop talking about our economicn impact and start talking about the degree to which we can be an economic driver but pushing oura intellectual property into the a marketplace, creating companies and then having our students being educated at the cutting edge moving right into those jobs that as a university we are creating, to be deliver rat about the process of economic development and student career success. so i have quite a list.si >> president eric barron of penn state. he's joining us as part of the big 10 bus tour. joining us on the bus. mr. president, thank you. tomorrow a panel discussion with an editorial team, mr. greenbla greenblatt, louis jacobson and zach patton. live coverage on c-span2.

here are a few of the comments we have received from viewers. >> calling to tell you how much i enjoy q and a. at 5:00 on sunday on the west coast, everything stops in my house. i turn off my phone. i get my cup of coffee and it's the most enjoyable hour on television. >> the guest today was very informative. good opinions. i enjoyed listening to him and the comments today. me myself living in the midd middlest, he was accurate and on point. he was not using his own personal innuendo. and i greatly enjoyed it. and i hope you have more guests like that. but he was right on target this morning. >> i'm calling to say that i think, like many people, c-span is wonderful. but as to criticisms, i almost have none.

and i'm a very partisan kind of person. but the reason i almost have none is i think you all do a tremendous job of showing just about every side of everything the way people look at things in d.c. and elsewhere. i take my hat off to you. thank you very much. >> continue to let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. the 2015 student cam video competition is under way. open to all middle and high school students to create a five to seven minute documentary on the theme the three branchs and you. showing how a policy, law or action by the executive, legislative or judicial branch has affected you or your