grad -- debt at graduation is about $35,000 for students who do go to college. at carolina, it's $17,000. so, again, keeping those costs low is a way to really help attract capability students to try. it's very important. if you look at the united states statistics, we have about 3.2 million students graduating from high school. about 1.8 million of them will apply to a four-year university. but in the end, only about 900 million of them are going to graduate. so that means about 2.3 million of our graduates right now, high school kids that could do anything that are the town pool of america, aren't even making it into college. more than 50% are on average not graduating. so there's a lot of work here. many students who start don't finish. it's known to be a very negative cycle for them. we also know that educational attainment is one of the most

prominent determinants of class status. it reinforces the socioeconomic gaps, the disparities i know everyone wishes we could eliminate. applications are going down. at the very moment when we know the skills of college are more valuable. no matter what you read, we know the lifetime earnings of someone with a college degree are considerably greater. we know the new knowledge economy, the one bursting and growing, the one the country wants to compete in, is requiring the skills of a college graduate. and it's not just their stem skills and their programming. it's their writing skills. it's their critical thinking. it's their problem-solving. without those, we will not bring the 2.3 million high school students every year back to be part of a flourishing national economy.

so we know we have to do it. and i'm going to give you some examples of ways i think it's working well at unc. things i think can be scaled. first of all, you have to build universities that draw in the talent of people from all incomes and all backgrounds. if you are self-selecting for weight, you're going to get it. but that's hard. most schools in the last five years when we had the pooling of funds from the state, most dropped their need-behind commissions programs. they couldn't believe they could afford it. we need to know we can get them directly into the fields that contribute to the knowledge economy to they can be part of that burgeoning growth area. we know it is a world of change. if we are not getting students into programs that teach people change, i don't believe you want to put people into single skill programs. everybody knows the skill today

will probably not even going to be the business hiring in five years. it is our job to be training them to get the diverse skills of the multi-faceted learner. so our universities have to be the catalyst, the place where we nurture this type of energy. the question is are universities meeting that need. if we are great probably most say we are not. if we aren't, we have to get on the ball fast. that's 3.2 million students a year that could be going where we want to go. the hamilton project released a report that showed that family income is maybe the strongest predictor of graduation rate. that is a very sad statistic. because they can even control for s.a.t. and other levels of attainment. so that is something we are constantly trying to think about.

the likelihood of a student from high income bracket graduating is five times greater than students from the lowest income bracket, all other things being equal. so these disparities are growing and they play out even more in under represented populations. the trends are even greater. i have spent my whole life in higher ed wanting to fight these trends. i have actually found that southern part of heaven in north carolina. because i actually was able to come to the public university that really is doing this in such a deep and strong way. 14 times kiplinger named carolina the best value in american public universities. "new york times" recently ranked carolina the third most economically diverse top universities. and to be on that list you had to have graduation rates above 70%. ours are much higher than that. only three public universities were on the list. yet public universities educate more than 70% of students in america. so i'm proud of what we

accomplished. i'm going to use some examples. that doesn't mean it's all right. we have a ways to go. how did carolina get here? you have to go back to 1789. i won't make you go that far back with me. when carolina began as a great experiment. it came out of the revolutionary war. it was an idea if we're going to have freedom, we better have education. it was actually founded the same time we had our first president was inaugurated. it said we were going to give education to improve the life of north carolinaens at the lowest price practicable. it is in the dna of the institution. that has been part of it from the get go. the first student walked 133 miles to get to that university. but we still pride ourselves to reaching out to everybody in the community, not only in the state but across the country. and bringing people from every

kind of means to the university. how do we do it? well, it's important that we think i have to start by saying we do it in part because we still have a very generous state. north carolina is still supported well. we have had more than 30% cuts in the last five years. but we are still generously supported. that is important. all of the future has to find a way to continue to get some public dollars. if we care about this, public dollars are going to be important. even though we supplement with philanthropy and all sorts of other ideas. that is a real advantage for us. americans have a $1 trillion national student debt. they see tuition rising. so we have to be able to counter that. we have low tuition. that helps counter that. but to keep our tuition low, we have to make choices all the time. and some of those are not fun, are not very -- they hurt. in fact, we haven't been able to

give faculty raises to the level we would like. yet faculty is bring anything a billion dollars in research. it is a very competitive environment. you're dealing in your university with very tough decisions because this accessibility and affordability is probably at the heart of everything that still tends to be our default position. but it won't exist if we don't continue to have that great faculty. so with affordability, keeping tuition and debt low is a top priority for us. so is need blind and meeting the demonstrated need. and i think those i'll come back to in a minute with an example from the carolina covenant. how that has had a huge influence on student success. and i'll come back to that. accessibility has been the next part. that means we do a lot of action going out and going into all 100 counties. carolina still has almost 82% of the undergraduates come from the state of north carolina. so that covenant with the state has been very important. i think that's why the state

still supports that at such a high level. that's a very strong relationship. lots of international students at the graduate level. very global campus. but that's important. we have also developed a lot of programs to go right out into high school. if you want to solve these problems, you can't start with the applicant. you need to get into the high schools. i'll give a clear example of that in a moment. you also have to focus when they're on campus very much on the advising, especially what take place in the first year. and if you don't put the money into that first year and the money into getting them ready no matter how much money you spent on getting them to start, they aren't going to be successful. the third area we do is try to make sure that we're doing it in an institution that is still at the highest level of excellence. i don't believe affordability and accessibility without strength of program means much. i don't think low income

students should be put in less than great education. i think that's completely unfair. and i think you need these three working together to really solve these problems. our graduation rates are 80% at four years and over 90% at six years. putting carolina right up there with the best of the privates. and when a student is accepted to a school where they believe they are going to graduate, there is a lot of information coming out. some good data i think you collected that shows believing in them, investing in them is a major factor that will determine their success. you heard a little bit about the carolina covenant. that's this program that brings students in from very low income. the big thing about that program, not only do we work to get them in, they graduate with no loan. and they do work study, they get grants. but that complete belief in those students has been so important. the program began in 2006.

looking at students from the exact same income and similar numbers and comparing graduation rates preand post covenant, it's been extraordinary. precovenant low income students in that program graduated at best at 57%. african-american males were graduating down in the 30%. since the covenant has been in, the entire program's average of graduation rate is just 3% lower than that 80%. it has skyrocketed. and the african-american males has doubled. so this investment and the advising that goes along with it, is very important. i could tell you stories of students. they come in with extraordinary records. their average gpa coming in is over 4.0. they are very talented students. yet they have families back home that need them. they don't have the advising. and they frequently lack the confident. we have so many who say i'm going to drop out. yet if they get that advising they stick with it. the stories are amazing.

i met three covenant scholars recently. all three told me stories about their lives. and two of them graduated, had great jobs. one already bought a house. two of them were putting their mothers through college. because their mothers had been so instrumental in what they were doing. so these pay forward for society in an incredible way. we also have programs that reach directly into the high schools. in north carolina, the low income high schools, about 65 of them, we are part of a program called the carolina advising core. it is probably one of the best programs in america right now. it started in virginia and was housed at unc and now has branched out. they take recent graduates, the most dedicated students you could ever meet, and put them into high schools. we're in 65 of the 90 poorest schools in north carolina right now.

the time in those schools that can be given to any student that wants to apply to college, can you guess how much time they have to spend talk to go them about college? less than five minutes a year. they don't have parents, families, people to get them in -- they can't possibly do it. since they have gone in with the advising program, they have seen application rates about 12% to 15% just in the first couple of years. i went to one of them and i talked to the students there. a number of them will go to junior college. and another from junior college to carolina. i went as a junior college as part of my own background. i had no idea how meaningful that would be. the students had a couple on tape afterwards and said the chancellor at unc went to junior college. so i don't think we can underestimate how few touches can have such an impact. the students come in and get that advising with a young,

amazing north carolina graduate. and it just changes the world. then we built another program to work with the junior colleges and carolina in about the last six years started to really can admit students. if they get selected in their first year and they achieve a certain level of success, first of all, they graduate from the two-year school. and the graduation rates are extremely low. they get automatic guarantee to get into unc chapel hill. it has been phenomenal. and if you meet some of those students, you would be blown away. one of them i met grew up in nigeria from a very poor family, war-torn area. saw is a poster of unc and dreamed about being at unc. how she ever made it, i can't tell you. went to unc, head of her class in nursing, going to medical school. so we have to keep remembering not all students will do the traditional path. but if we're going to make accessibility, affordability the

brand for our nation, we need to do this. we need to start before. we need to give the support they need. we need the advising on the ground. and we need to continue to draw from such a broad range that we don't miss so many students who are out there. if we start doing that and we have programs that can help universities do this and we have programs that can do it in places where graduation is what they do, i think we have a real chance to change things in the next three to five years. so i look at what's happening in the news right now. and i hope you'll ask me a lot of questions on any of these subjects. how are we going to make the dream of higher education really the dream of this country and reverse the trend that really has been taking over our nation, fewer people applying higher expense i think is one of the

greater challenges. i hope in the next decade we really do achieve that. i wouldn't be standing here if i didn't go to college and work as a waitress and pay my way through college. i did it years ago. couldn't be done now. i wanted to make sure all the other people like me and probably like you out there have that chance. and i think we have some good ideas about how to do it. so thank you for listening. and looking forward to answering questions. [ applause ]. >> thank you, chancellor. we have quite a few questions. i'm glad you're ready for this. the 2015-2016 tuition, i think you mentioned the price is $33,644 for out of state. and $8,562 for in-state. while that's still a good deal, the growth and tuition since the early 1980s has increased six times rate of inflation.

in-state students it is five times the rate of inflation. what has caused this huge increase? will we ever see the costs slowing down even dropping below it? >> thank you. it's a really great question. well, i mean, i am in a great public university. and i am part of a university where the state tax payers do really expect the majority of the support to go for in-state students. what we have been doing, and so in times when there was a retrenchment, we didn't always choose those. a lot of times those were legislated for us where to take the increase. that $30,000, as you said, is still compared to our peers. right now i think it's hard tore get into unc chapel hill from out of state than any school in america. it is a great place to go. they want to go. so what we have been doing to

counter that is using philanthropy and nonstate targeted dollars. they're eligible for the covenant, which i think is great. some of our covenant scholars do come from out of state. it is 50% of our covenant scholars are first generation out of state. 60% are students of color. we really do try to use these banner programs to attract them. for me in the future a lot of our money that is not already targeted will be going to try to keep those levels down. i think many states don't understand truly the benefit of the influx of students from out of state. first of all, all the students want to meet people from everywhere. when students move to a place like chapel hill, they want to stay there forever. but they do come. they are important parts of building a state. and i think other institutions handle that differently. that's something we think about a lot. >> a host of students now coming to universities that are undocumented immigrants but spent most of their lives in the country.

many cannot afford the pay the high out of state tuition. is there anything the university can do to help the students in this situation. >> you are hitting the really big issues i was saying earlier. i'm wearing the pin from our latino/latino organization. it is a growing part of the population in north carolina. we are not one of the institutions that forgives for out of state. so we use philanthropy to be able to cover out of state rates. it's huge if they can't get the out of state rate. we have recently had -- our state now makes it possible for all active duty military personnel to have in-state rates.

that is another under served population we want to get actively involved. so we're moving in that direction. there are about 30 states. weren't you saying earlier that might actually do that. i think beyond that what we have to do right now is continue to find resources that can be used in the areas of most critical need. until you can get that -- if you can forgive it at the state level, it would really help in that area. >> some have argued making college more accessible can be a decrease in academics for the university students. do you agree? >> this one i would have paid for you to ask me. that's such a great one. this is great. i have a figure, we don't show tables and figures here. good thing. academics will never leave the stage. it shows a diagram of all the students who come in on the carolina covenant. it imposes them on the quality of the entire unc entering class. if you were to pull out the

covenant and the need-based aid students, every single metric, valedictorian, gaap, goes down. so i am absolutely -- i don't buy into the argument that it has anything to reducing quality. i do also realize, though, being part of a great institution you do get to draw the students who have is that capacity. and so part of the issue is what do we do then for the next tier of students who don't have that? how do we get them performing at a level they could? but we are really drawing an incredible population. so their ability to graduate and lead the world in many different ways is is absolutely there. we have to make sure they can graduate. >> a lot of questions in the united states now about testing. how do you monitor the quality of your education? some of the factors you mentioned, problem-solving, critical thinking, et cetera. how do you monitor that? how do you the grade that in some form?

>> i think i have an english professor with me. she might tell you how hard it is to grade a paper and even feel like it is absolutely perfect. universities have many ways of assessing individual performance. we give tests and grade papers and give lots of feedback. what we aren't so good at doing is the emergent hole when you finish. we don't give final exams for a byo major to understand what they developed throughout their entire time at the university. most schools, and through accrediting, many of us have been leading in this way. there is a lot of effort put through every major to understand that very clear skill sets, critical thinking, problem-solving, are increasing. again, i'm most concerned if we move to an educational system that starts looking like mass production, we will lose the critical piece of feedback, experimentation, risk taking that are the great thinkers that

cannot only take a job but create new jobs. there was a great chapel hill study in the "new york times" recently where they redid all of their intros.t.e.m. courses. we want the population to be able to take science, technology, engineering and math. they did two separate classes. one where everything was discussion based, hands-on learning. they still had to take the same tests. another more traditional. the gap between low income students in those two ways of teaching completely closed. so there are ways that we can change the way we educate that will have really measurable progress. but that's kind of in the infancy. i'm sure metrics are part of that. but it's not always something easy to measure. >> let's talk politics for a second. higher education seems to be bearing the brunt of fierce political attacks across the country. as we have seen, for example, in wisconsin.

as head of a major public university, what message do you want to send to politicians to have greater accountability and faculty who want to keep their tenure and academic freedom? >> this is when i turn to you. you probably have the answers to that question. i think one of the big problems right now about higher education is we tend to talk about it as monolithic. everything is different. i'm talking about carolina. i told you what it was like to begin. to make clear, it's the same as many other institutions. we need to be much more knew nigh nuanced and we need to understand what community colleges do and look at our historic black collages and universities. we need to find what the great research universities do. we need to start building in the metrics of success based on what they are, their mission and what they're actually doing.

i think that's one of the problems. second, everyone is quite willing to do efficiency. it is a big -- it isn't true -- i mean, yes, universities are like herding cats. but they are innovation centers. every single invention that makes your life better has actually come from a university. some beginning of that innovation. our industry right now in america used to be 70% r&d and industry 30. it has moved to less than 30% in industry and all in university. so to be that innovative you have to be flexible. again, we need to talk about the specifics. it's important to understand that where economies come in, you should allow universities to feed it back in to the innovation. i think there's a lot of misunderstanding there. the biggest misunderstanding is what they bring value. i saw the university of wisconsin did this study. we did one in north carolina.

and that's $7 billion, about a $7 return for every dollar. well, it's more than that for every dollar given to us by the state. we just aren't -- i think in part we aren't giving the nuance. answer. the last thing, tenure and academic freedom, i think you would destroy america. if you destroy american universities by eliminating academic freedom. i think that is at the core. what it is exactly might be misunderstood. it may be abused. it may be things like that. but in general the idea that what people study and the work they do has to be held to a standard that is not bound by the mores of the day is really important. tenure still serves an important purpose. although i understand i don't think tenure means no accountability. that's another mistake. even ten euroed professors go

through post-tenure review. they have to achieve levels of accountability that are important. i think we need to make those things understood. >> by your answer i'm going to guest that you supported president barack obama back in all of his plans to have government rate government higher institutions. >> yes. >> we'll get through a lot of these if the answers are like that. speaking of college costs, do you think the trend of colleges, including public universities, having nicer and fancier dorms, fitness facilities, buildings, contributes to the problems of the rising college costs? >> it does. it does. you know, people try to figure out what are the main drivers that have increased cost. facilities are part of it. most of america's great universities were built in the '20s and '30s. we have an aging infrastructure.

we are going to be building buildings and they do cost more money now than they used to because we have to comply with all sorts of standards that are very different. to say it's -- it's a tiny fraction of what it really is. there is also a race for better facilities for students, where they live. and i understand that. i do think though, we are part of the times. i used to send my son to a camp that didn't believe in having mosquito netting. i wanted him to be tough. you they aren't coming out of that. that's not what they're looking a lot. he didn't like that either. that was a new hampshire thing. but, you know, i do think we are sort of working with the student generation. and i think what's actually more important than fancy facilities is that they feel they are part of a place where the facilities will allow them to be part of the great things that are happening.

so, for example, if i'm going to put something in at unc, i want to put in maker space. you might say we shouldn't do that. they are just rooms you build into dorms. they might have a 3 d printer, new expensive digital equipment. in the basement in a dorm of north carolina last year, a young student in his junior year had been working with a disadvantaged child in the region who had to have an artificial hand. as he was growing, they couldn't afford the $100,000 to build the hand. for $20 with a 3d printer in the basement of a dorm, he built him an artificial hand. that's what students want. access to stuff that will let them do great things. they want to be fit and feel part of the action. but they are really still looking at things that we want to give them. and that's really where i think we get the best return. >> thank you. now to a little bit more controversial question. recent events, including campus

shootings and campus police use of weapons of pepper spray and guns put a spotlight on the law enforcement powers of the police officers. what do you consider to be the role of campus police and what limit should be place on them with when dealing with students or citizens? should they be allowed to be armed with live ammunition and should students be allowed to carry guns on campus? >> well, the idea of whether you carry guns in a public institution, i don't get to make that choice. that is a decision by the state legislature. of course we know across the country there are different decisions by different legislatures. a lot of them do want guns to be allowed on campus. usually they have to be locked up. it's rare. i don't see a campus where people walk around with pistols and are doing that. i think every college president

and chancellor is deeply worried about that. our campus police, what you saw and what has been in the news, i do not think reflects the majority of campus police. most campus police, and i'm not speaking directly from my police, but i knew every single officer at dartmouth. i met so many of them when we had our recent tragedy and we worked together. most of the campus police officers are campus police officers because they love students. i think there is a huge role for campus police to play as a liaison and safety coordinator on campuses and to interface with their towns. we have to get those partnerships to be very strong. we need to keep them really working. but students often really like their security police if they developed a relationship that is positive and strong. so i think there's a lot of work to be done there. but there are many great examples where they do it.

our police just recently voluntarily decided to get cameras together with the local towns in part so they could stay to the students, we want to do this because we will do anything to make you more comfortable. these tragedies are highlighting it. every time something happens we go back and ask ourselves again, i have meetings with the police in all of our towns and the security police on our campus the next day. saying what can we do better? are we prepared for making sure this would never happen? but i think it's a tragedy. i don't think it reflects most security forces on campuses. >> sticking with the controversial for a minute. on the periphery of the campus is the silent sam memorial. in july, it was vandalized to say kkk, murderer, and black lives matter. as chancellor, should the statue

remain. if so, should any changes be made to the signage accompanying it? >> well, we've been through a major year our campus was really looking at not just the memorial but also names on buildings, and the issues associated with that. i think this is a very national issue. it isn't just the confederate flag. i'm very happy to have my friend sam here. we have been thinking about it as an institution. and the aborted of trustees took action. they decided to rename one of the houses that had been named in honor of a person known to have been the leader of the kkk. they changed the name. it is now called carolina hall. at the same time they said we are not going to go down the road of changing every name. our state actually said you can't change memorials unless you know, so sometimes you're working in a very changing environment. so i have to adjust and work

with whatever is happening around me. but what we really said we were going to do is spend a lot of time understanding how to contextualize history. that is a big job. and that is going to require voices from throughout the community to come together to have those conversations what does it mean to be from the oldest public university in america. people's names are on buildings from a time in the past to a time in the present. how do we honor the past, learn from the past, and then respect the dialogue that shapes today. so i can't give you the answer. but that is probably one of our top priorities going forward in this year. and i think that that memorial to silent sam is really just one of the pieces i think we're going to end up with much broader conversations that talk about the role of race in the south. i think we're going to be talking about the role of race

in america. so these aren't confined to any one campus. these are some of our biggest issues of the day. >> recent revelations at such places as the university of oklahoma have cast a spotlight on the system of fraternities and sororities on campus. do you see it as a help or hindrance to your efforts to make college more accessible to a more diverse population of students. >> he is going down the list of all the hard issues. you really did mean it. you know, there's a great article -- actually the chronicle of higher education and a lot of the journals have been covering a lot of issues surrounding this. chapel hill is is less than 20% fraternities and sororities. so it is not a numerically that large. they are influential. they have a real place there. i think that the scrutiny that

has been coming to campus starting with sexual assault but also binge drinking, hazing, this is extremely healthy for universities. we need that kind of conversation. i will tell you as someone in higher ed for 30 years, and a woman in higher ed. when i started in higher ed nobody would go talk to anybody except the woman in the biodepartment. students suffering from sexual assault felt very little opportunity to talk. and most of the people driving these issues, especially with gender, would have been women. this is really changing. we are seeing a lot more men and women talking about things. so i'm looking at the way the councils are changing our institution. the fraternities were the first to put in a whole program of sexual assault training. i'm not saying it is all perfect. but i am saying we need to continue to turn to the students themselves to involve them in

the process. social engineering is a very difficult idea. and if you're going to really change people, you have to work with people. that does still mean you have to have very serious consequences when people are doing the things that we believe they should do. i think that the national organizations have started to be more active. i think you're starting to see a much bigger movement towards getting people spaces that are not just associated with so errorities and fraternities. that's the big issue on a college campus, is they own houses. and students want to be part of a place that has separate spaces. so to really make this work, we have to give alternatives where students can still have spaces so they don't necessarily find their only alternative in a greek system. they can find other things to give them that richness and experience. >> thank you. what would you like to see high schools do differently to

improve the college readiness over incoming students? and along that line, of questioning north carolina is reviewing its commitment to the common core state standards, most states have adopted them. do you think adopting common core will help the readiness of incoming college students? >> i feel like i have an answer to the last one. i have not gotten that involved in the common core debate. although we spend a lot of time in education. the big focus for our university and the whole unc system is actually to get more ready teachers to really improve the pipeline of teachers and also improve the success of teachers in the classroom and the retention. and they have recently been really trying to deal with that issue. it's very important. i think we need to teach students in high school how to write and critically think. i think those are skills. i know every one of my generation is going to agree with that one.

but it is something that we do see. the online world has done some positive things. some students read more because of the online world. i've never been a purist and said you have to read only one kind of book and write only kind of to be learning those skills. so we have things a lot our fingertips to engage students. a lot of evidence shows if you can get a student to read anything, you can probably start directing them to read more and more of what you want. but the online world has probably not helped very much in good writing. people can use the online world to completely ignore critical analysis. in high schools, if given the right amount of help, they could take advantage of the age these students are, their excitement about this online world and use that in new and exciting ways to improve their skills. we need to make sure we schools

have class sizes small enough to have engaged learning. there's not anything the same in being in a class of 60 or class of 30 no matter how super human that teacher is. i tend to believe we need to pay our k through 12 teachers more if they're going to be held to a standard that's absolutely right. we need to make it a viable career because we want great thinkers bring those 3.2 million students through high school that does prepare them. writing. i'm going to say math, too. that's an important skill. if we let them say i don't like algebra or geometry, we're allowing them to cut themselves off. >> two questions. how have unc's athletic recruiting processes changed and

are there other lessons other universities can take from your experience particularly regarding the athletic integrity issue? >> more than 70 reforms. i think some of those reforms are cutting edge. reforms not only in the way we monitor classes. the event that happened really that we talk about all the time should have been stopped. there should have been a process in place almost instantly that evaluated that chair every year and could have stopped it. it's the great tragedy to say, my goodness. we could have stopped it. we would stop it now. the better parts of it, why we're a much stronger institution coming out of it than we might have been is we've redone our advising. so for example all this that i

was telling you about the covenant scholars and that advising program we have a pilot program to share that exact same advising with all of our students, including all of our athletic advising. we developed programs to make sure they're not being tracked into a few majors. this is not just carolina but it's really important. it's true for many students. many who work or may have other outside activities. may find themselves with a narrow subset of majors because they can't get the courses at the right time. we're changing all of those sorts of things. these are the types of programs that help us recruit. most athletes that come to carolina are going to be great. they'll be on absolutely outstanding teams but they'll graduate and go on to careers that are not as active playing their sport.

it is our job to recruit them to get a chance to play on a great team and go to a great university. it's putting our effort increasingly on that duality. we of course you can come here and do both and then you have to make it real. >> unc students have put issues of race and diversity high on their priority list. how do you facilitate the conversation about these tricky topics as chancellor? >> when we have the death of the three muslim students, it was the most terrible moment you can imagine for anybody to wake up or to hear that that's going on. what i saw then was the beginnings of real opportunity. we saw that in charleston, too. the families of the slain students were incredible. they came forward and they, too,

said we want to talk about the love, the hope of these students and how our families produce wonderful children, how they grow and nurture a community. the community almost as a whole turned toward the celebration of life. and it had a big impact on the way people started talking about these conversations. it doesn't mean people weren't extremely angry. but the anger was not the driver. we immediately put in a program we're calling carolina conversations and invited students to help us do it. it's going to be starting this year. the very first conversation was on race. in setting that up, we went around to all the student groups. i invited students from every organization. students from across the political spectrum and every one of them committed to bring people to that meeting.

one of the most meaningful conversations that i heard at that was between two young men, different races, talking and one of the students going, why are we here? we're supposed to talk about race. this is really hard. i'm not sure why i even came. this is so hard. and the other student said you came because this is the first time and maybe the only time you would have ever talked to someone that looked like me. you don't have to worry about getting everyone in the conversation as much as starting the conversation and bringing students in and building these conversations out with real action items that people can try. the more experimental on these issues, the better. if we think every time we meet we have to change the entire curriculum, we won't make progress. but if we have an incremental idea, try it and test it and back it back in place, students

will come and start believing in that process. i think that carolina conversations is one step, and stay tuned. i'll come back next year and tell you about the rest of them. almost every campus in america is going to be doing something or trying something like that. i hope they are. >> before i ask the last questions, i have a few announcements. the national press club fights for a free press worldwide. for more information about the club visit www.press.org and to donate to our non-profit journalism institute, visit www.press.org/institute. i would like to remind you about upcoming programs. tomorrow we're hosting the commandant of the united states coast guard and the john reverend bryant. and on august 18th, mitch landrieu will speak from this

podium. and registration is open for the beat the deadline 5k. go to press.org for more information. i'd like to present our speaker with the national press club mug which i'm sorry is not in carolina blue. >> thank you. it's great. it's not duke blue either. >> so for our last question, the last question, unc/duke basketball score this season, and we're going to hold you to it. >> oh, my gosh. it's going to be a really good game. a high scorer. i'm giving carolina 96, duke 88. >> you heard it here first. thank you, chancellor folt. i'd also like to thank the staff

and the broadcast center for organizing today's event. if you'd like a copy of today's event go to press.org. thank you. we are adjourned. sunday night former emergency manager of detroit talks about financial issues and the job overseeing the largest municipal bankruptcy in u.s. history. >> if detroit had taken the 1.5 billion it borrowed when the stock market went down to 6,600 and invested it in an index fund stock market is trading at 18,000 almost three times what it was they not only would have tripled the money they could have paid pensions in full and

got into business of the 13th check getting pensioners a 13th check at the end of the year in addition to the 12. it could have fixed itself if there were sober management going forward just like any organization in the united states, as well. if you have strong leadership and some focus leadership you can resolve these problems but it takes a lot of effort. >> sunday night on c-span's q&a. the leaders of canada's four major parties participate in a televised debate scheduled with all four party leaders. the participants are steven harper, new democratic party leader, liberal party leader and green party leader elizabeth may. the debate hosted by maclean's

magazine will be on c-span and c-span radio. president obama was greeted with a round of happy birthdays as he took the stage to speak to some 500 people attending the young leaders summit identified as most promising young leaders. the president visited africa last month with stops in kenya and ethiopia. at the summit he repeatedly said in gay discrimination is the same as racial discrimination. this is just over an hour. [ applause ] >> thank you. well, hello, everybody. ♪ happy birthday to you happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ happy birthday to you

>> thank you. thank you. everybody, sit down. thank you so much. well. this is a good crowd here. first of all, can everybody please give grace another big round of applause. you know, not only does she do incredibly inspiring work in nigeria, but i have to say following grace is a little bit like following michelle. you know, she's so good that you kind of feel bad when you're walking out. because you're thinking, i'm not going to be that good. but she's just one example of the incredible talent that's in this room. and to all of you, i know that you've been here in the united

states for just a few weeks, but let me say on behalf of the american people, welcome to the united states. we're thrilled to have you here. and your visit comes at a perfect time. because yes, it's soon my birthday. and that's a very important thing. but that's not the main reason it's a perfect time. the main reason is because as many of you know, i just returned from africa. and it was my fourth trip to subsaharan africa. more than any other u.s. president, and i was proud to be the first u.s. president to visit kenya, the first -- [ cheers and applause ] the first to visit ethiopia. the first to address the african union, which was a great honor. and the reason i have devoted so much energy to our work with the

continent is as i said last week, even as africa continues to confront many challenges, africa is on the move. it's one of the fastest growing regions in the world. africa's middle class is projected to grow to more than 1 billion consumers. with hundreds of millions of mobile phones and surging access to the internet. africans are beginning to leap frog old technologies into new prosperity. the continent has achieved historic gains in health, from fighting hiv/aids to making childbirth safer for women and babies. millions have been lifted from extreme poverty, so this is extraordinary progress. and young people, like you, are driving so much of this progress. because africa is the youngest continent. i saw the power of youth on my trip. in kenya. richard ruuto helped build yes

youth can, one of the country's most prominent civil society groups with over one million members. at the global entrepreneur center in nairobi, they spoke about how they started brilliant footsteps academy in nigeria, which uses education to fight religious extremism and provide more opportunities for young muslim youth. i met judith, an entrepreneur who co-founded a nonprofit that trains young women living in the slums of nairobi in computer programming and graphic design and helps place them in tech jobs. so i saw the talent of young people all across the continent. and as president, i want to make sure that even as we're working with governments, we're also helping to empower young africans like all of you. and that's why i launched yali, young african leadership initiative, to help you access

the resources -- to help you access the resources and training and networks you need to become the next network of leaders in all areas, in civil society and business and government, and the response has been overwhelming. so far, more than 140,000 young people across africa have joined our yali network. so young africans with new ideas can connect with each other and collaborate and work together to put their plans into action. i want to welcome all of the yali network members across africa who are watching this town hall today. i'm proud of all of you. i'm proud that we've made so much progress together after just a few years. and last year, i said we would launch a new set of tools for our yali network. so today, we've got more than 30 online lessons available on everything from public speaking to how to write a business plan, mentoring.

new ways to network across africa, around the world. new training sessions. meetings with experts on how to launch a start-up. and we're launching three new online mandela fellow washington fellowship institute courses so that all members of the yali network can access some of the great ideas you have been sharing. last year, i said that we would create yali regional leadership centers across africa to provide skills, networks, and opportunities to even more young african leaders. and in kenya, i had a chance to visit the regional leadership center in nairobi. this morning, we opened a new center, and two more will be open by the end of the year. [ cheers and applause ] last year, i said we would do even more to support young entrepreneurs with grants. to help you start a business or nonprofit. and with new training for thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs in small towns and

rural areas. so at the recent global entrepreneur summit in nairobi, i announced we secured more than $1 billion in new commitments from banks and fill anthropistes to support emerging entrepreneurs around the world, including in africa, with half the money going to support women and young people. and last year, i welcomed our first class of mandela fellows. this year, the response was overwhelming again, nearly 30,000 applied. and today, i am honored to welcome you, the second mandela washington fellows class. we're on track to double the mandela washington fellowship program to 1,000 fellows by next year. and i know you've been busy. over the past few weeks, schools and businesses all across

america, you have been taking courses, developing the skills you'll need to make your ideas a reality. so that you're able to continue the great work that you're already doing, but take it to the next level. that's what brian plans to do. where is brian? where is he? there he is right there? so brian uses music to advocate against things like gender-based violence and to educate youth on hiv/aids. so while in the u.s., he's learned about our health care system, met the founder of an american hiv/aids organization, and now he plans to start a record label for music about social change. brian, we're proud to be your

partner. or we've got kadijah diallo, where is kadijah? there she is. so, she helped lead unicef's media campaign to stop the spread of ebola. with the management skills she gained at wagner college, she wants to work on improving the lives of women and girls back home in guinea. we're proud to be your partner. or we've got jamila mayanja of uganda. are you posing? she is posing. jamila is not a fashion model. that's not -- she's started a door-to-door laundry company to employ more youth and teach them entrepreneurial skills and she

hopes to take what she learned at her time at dartmouth university to meet her goal of getting 1,000 youth to work in or run their own business. we're proud to be your partner. so that's just a sampling of the incredible projects that are being done by fellows all across africa. so this program's going to help all of you make a real difference back home. but fatou from senegal, where is fatou. she wrote me a letter and said if the real value of yali is for young people to learn for mothers, maybe we should start sending young americans to africa also. she made the point, not just to help poor communities as they usually do, but to learn from

other societies with humility. and which i thought is absolutely true. so i have good news. from now on, we'll give americans an opportunity next summer, up to 80 american leaders will join --