customs enforcement director director. he is expected to testify before a house appropriations sub committee on oversight of his agency. we've just learning there will be a delay in this hearing as members of the committee are joining their colleagues in the house chamber for a series of votes. the house agenda today includes a bipartisan agreement to increase the federal spending by $324 billion over two years and to spend the federal debt ceiling for two years. another bill extends protected status to venezuelan immigrants. when the votes wrap up, we expect the hearing to get underway live here on c-span. by the way, you can watch the house on c-span. watch this hearing here on c-span3. >> we're back with nan ryan. we're going to talk about the state of homelessness in the

united states and the causes of homelessness. thank you for being with us this morning. >> glad to be here. >> first, tell us exactly what the national alliance to end homelessness is. what do you do? >> we're a national organization and we look at data and evidence to figure out the solutions to homelessness. then we work with congress and the administration to get support, good policy for the solutions and we work with communities to implement the solutions. >> where do you get your funding? how did it come about and how are you funded? >> the organization started in the early 80s when homelessness first started to emerge in the country. it's a bipartisan nonpartisan organization, and we get our funding from foundations, corporations, individuals and contracts for technical assistance, and we have conferences and so forth also. >> so what exactly is the current state of homelessness in the united states? is it getting better? is it getting worse? what's going on right now?

>> so there are about 550,000 people who are homeless every night in the united states. about one and a half million people over the course of a year. since 2007 when we first started collecting data across the board on homelessness, homelessness has gone down. this is despite the fact that the things that cause homelessness which i know we're going to talk about have worsened. it has to do with the fact that we're investing more in solving it and communities are doing a better job. in the past two years, it has been pretty much flat, and we expect that it's going to go up this year when we get the data in from the 2019 count. >> and just to make sure we're all on the same page. define homelessness for us. >> homelessness is a situation in which people either are living unsheltered. they don't have even a shelter bed at night or living in a shelter or transitional housing or some kind of program.

>> and what age groups are we talking here? are most of the homeless of a certain age? how many children are we talking about in this group? >> we're talking about 550,000 people. the majority of them are individual adults. about 40% live in families or people living in families. >> and president trump actually had something to say about this earlier in the year. so here -- well, let's listen to what president trump had to say about this earlier. >> you come to where we are now, tokyo, and the cities are clean. there's no graffiti. no one going to the bathroom on the street. >> it's very nice, isn't it? >> very different from our cities. >> some of our cities. >> but new york city, san francisco, los angeles, they've got a major problem with --

>> it's very sad. >> with filth. >> very sad. >> why is that? >> it's a phenomenon that started two years ago. it's disgraceful. i am going to maybe and i'm looking at it very seriously. we're doing some other things as you probably notice like some of the very important things we're doing now. we're looking at it seriously. you can't do that. you can't have what's happening -- where police officers are getting sick just by walking the beat. they're getting very sick. where people are getting sick, where the people living there are living in hell, although some of them have mental problems where they don't even know they're living that way, in fact, perhaps they like living that way. they can't do that. we cannot ruin our cities. >> what's your reaction to what president trump had to say? >> well, i appreciate that he's expressing his concern about homelessness and recognizing the seriousness of it. it definitely is not a problem that emerged two years ago. it really emerged in the early

80s prior to the early 80s we did not have widespread homelessness in the country. about 30 % of homeless people overall are unsheltered. that means they're living in places not meant for human habitation. it's not by choice. it's because either there are not shelter beds or the beshelt beds have so many barriers to entry that they can't get into them. in that sense, i agree. he also said the government is not really equipped to deal with homelessness, the federal government. but actually the federal government has been doing a really great job dealing with homelessness. that's one of the reasons the numbers have gone down over the past ten or 11 years even though as i say the drivers, the things that cause homelessness have gotten worse. >> if you want to join this conversation about homelessness in the united states, we're going to open up regional lines today. if you are in the eastern or

central time zone, we want to hear from you at 202 -648-2000. if you're in the mountain or pacific time zones we want to hear from you at 202-748-8001. we're always reading on social media on twitter at c-span wj and on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. is homelessness a problem in every state? is it a problem in certain regions? what is the geographic cal break down? >> it's a problem everywhere. it's a problem in urban, suburban and rural areas but having said that, it's more of a problem obviously in urban areas. it plays out differently in these different areas. at the moment, it's the the problem is much more serious on the coast. the states with the highest rates of homelessness i think are new york, florida, texas, and the states on the west

coast. it does have a geographic dimension to it. >> i want to get back to this before i forget you said it. you targeted the 1980s as being the era of which homelessness exploded in the united states. what changed in the 80s that caused that problem to explode? >> the big thing that changed was the equation around housing affordability. housing affordability is really the driver of homelessness. people are homeless because they can't afford housing. people with disabilities are more likely to be poor at a disadvantage when they're competing for a scarce resource. that's why you see a lot of disabled people who are homeless. but in the 70s we had an adequate supply of affordable housing, but we did not, and we did not have widespread homelessness. it started to emerge in the 80s. the reason we lost house, there are many reasons, but there was a big reduction in federal spending on affordable housing. there was also urban renewal

that ended up destroying or tearing down a lot of affordable housing, replacing it with higher priced housing and the conversion of a lot of multifamily housing, rental apartments into condominiums prior to the 80s, multifamily housing, apartments, was exempt for new york city, was pretty much all rental, and of course, now a great deal of multifamily housing is owned by people. it was a changing housing equation that resulted in homelessness. >> like you said the largest number of homelessness are on the coasts and we assume the largest number of the homeless are in new york city, los angeles, seattle. we have some of the numbers here. new york city, los angeles, seattle, san diego. but is homelessness just an urban problem? is homelessness a problem in rural areas as well in. >> it's definitely a problem in rural areas as well. you know, when you say housing affordability, or the housing equation has two pieces to it,

one is people's incomes that people don't make enough money to pay for the housing that's available, and two, that there's not enough affordable housing available. and, of course, in rural areas you have a lot of people who are challenged in terms of their incomes. it plays out differently in rural areas because there's not as much infrastructure to help homeless people, not as many shelters and so forth. you see more people living in places, maybe in campers or in barns or doubling up with other people. it plays out differently, but it's still there. >> let's let some of our viewers join the conversation. let's talk to gilbert calling from birmingham, alabama. gilbert, good morning. >> caller: yes, sir. thank you for c-span and thank you for your guest. there's an old cliche you have to walk a mile in a man's shoes to understand it. i was displaced back in 2001 when the storm came through

birmingham. let me tell you, when we think about all the national disasters that happen in this country, a lot of people become displaced and homelessness because of it. now, as god would have it, ironically, when the financial crisis happened to your guest talking about affordable housing, houses were so able in birmingham, i was able to pay cash far house with my income. that's the way it is. until we realize that every natural disaster puts people into homelessness more than any other and then homelessness veterans we have out here. and what i'm saying, who cries for the homeless? you know, the previous show you were talking about the displaced and immigrant workers. who in congress are crying out for the homeless community? >> well, first in terms of congress, we do have a lot of support in congress actually for homelessness. there are a number of bills that have been introduced this year.

>> we are going to step away from this washington journal segment to hear from kellyanne conway making statements in the white house driveway. >> back of that now. i was reading this morning that yesterday was about election protection. that's pretty funny. i may laugh because we want our elections protected. i made very clear for the time i've been here, we don't want anyone interfering in our election. i don't want russia, china, mainstream media tipping the scales. i don't want any of you or any foreign power interfering in our election, choosing sides, being unfair in coverage, and so i didn't know that's what yesterday was about. i thought yesterday was supposed to be an unbelievable movie better than the book, and bob mueller was going to pave the golden road toward impeachment. that didn't happen. it's not happening. impeachment resolution even before his underwhelming testimony occurred was 323 against 95-4 4 not con confused

for the 17 for the anti-bds stuff. that was also a disaster. of course we worry about election security. the president has made that clear. we have cyber security measures. it depends on what's in their legislation. >>. >> reporter: what about the bill that would require campaigns that receive foreign assistance to report it to the fbi? >> it depends what else is in the bill. it does. we have made clear -- first, i was the campaign manager. you see me nowhere in that, in that report in these testimonies because i would never have accepted, invited, wanted thought it was a good idea to have any kind of foreign government or foreign -- we didn't need anything. all we needed to beat hillary clinton was hillary clinton. i appreciated that. >> reporter: robert mueller said he did not exonerate the president. he specifically said that. >> do you understand the role of a prosecutor?

in this case, the special counsel? the role is to refer an indictment or decline. only for donald trump is there a new standard that we're guilty unless proven innocent. the standard in this country is innocent until proven guilty. not that this was a criminal exercise, but boy, did it sound that way. i think yesterday nobody is going to confuse a political exercise with a legal exercise. this was clearly a political stunt by people using and abusing director mueller and trying to imbue a flawed investigation, and no juice for impeachment trying to imbue all the efforts bob mueller's integrity and reputation. i think that's a shame. i saw somebody who did not want to be used and abused by people. i saw somebody who it's not clear to me was in charge of his own investigation for most of it. i also saw someone who -- i read the polls that very few americans say they've read the mueller report. i'd like to know if that number

includes bob mueller himself. >> reporter: on monday the president said that he had been asked to mediate between india and pakistan by the indian prime minister. but the indian government says that never happened. did the president make that up? >> i've not discussed that with the president. but we have a good and growing relationship with the indian government, and so -- >> reporter: why would they deny something like that? >> you'd have to ask them. >> reporter: the president -- robert mueller did not have the power to exonerate the power. why does the president keep saying he was totally exonerated by robert mueller? >> i guess he's been watching tv and reading all of you for two years hearing he's going to be marched out of this building along with his relatives. that was unfortunate. we're happy to accept the apologies. if i may as respectfully as i

can, it's time to move on, you got to swap out and get new dwrasks and new expertise. we have a lot to do for this country. and we could use your help in terms of informing the public what is happening here, what we're trying to do and trying to do with congress. what we're trying to do on our own administratively. this country, we all reverified air. i'm a lucky person to be here. this is nonsense, if it continues. we've now had the mueller investigation, the mueller report, the mueller testimony. we've had an impeachment vote. we've had nancy pelosi yesterday shoeing away with the wrist flicking move she does so well, and so often, shoeing we senior democrats who would like her to move forward with articles of impeachment. she will not do it. she knows how to read the numbers. that resolution impeachment resolution last week failed with just 95 votes for it. there's not any juice for this. you're asking why an innocent person was not exonerated.

that's like asking you why you weren't exonerated. the question is who was in charge of the investigation? while we're investigating the investigators to find out how we got here in the first place. fisa anally police stati-- appl. we need to know who is in charge of the mueller investigation. usually if a book is ghost written, they usually have a forward or give somebody credit or let everybody know who else was involved heavily. and i don't like people who are picking on bob mueller the individual. i think that's very unfortunate. i see it's a lot of strong democratic voices who must be very nervous that bob mueller couldn't get done what everybody has been trying to do since 2016, get donald trump out of the white house. got no closer to getting out in the next year either. so we've -- like i'm saying, we've got a lot to do. i stood before you on monday and now on thursday to say the same

thing again. premueller testimony post mueller testimony. the american people should demand more from congress. they paid for the mueller investigation. they paid for the mueller report. they paid for the mueller testimony. they see what's happening in congress and what's not happening. there is no infrastructure. there's investigation. there is no drug pricing. there is rehash of a report that clearly said no indictment. they see no work on health care which we're trying -- the president, we're working on the health care plan here. the president is trying to improve it for all those people. so i see none of you fact checking your friend omar, the anti-semimite who lied last week about millions of americans dying because of donald trump's health care policies. i don't know if all of your fact checkers are in the hamptons or nantucket. i can lend you one or two if you want to fact check people you're afraid of or adoring of.

last one. >> reporter: the prescription drug price reduction act. it was tweeted the president or the white house supports it. can you explain why the -- >> who? >> reporter: tweeted out, continue to work with the senator to ensure the president moves forward working for low drug prices moving forward. can you explain why the white house supports this and what executive actions the president might be taking? >> the president has taken many actions in his administration to reduce drug prices. the record number of approvals for generics have been reducing the prices. first, reduction in decades under his watch. but it's not good enough. in other words, he wants them reduced further. we've looked at a number of different measures. i've been in the meetings to try to make that so. we'd love to work with congress on this, but if we can't, we'll continue to do things.

we've done health reimbursement and transparency. kidney health. we're doing the building blocks because we have to get out of this conversation about health insurance and back to health care and improving outcomes and curing disease. that includes reducing drug prices. drug prices really break the back of many seniors in this country, but many people in their household budgets as well. as we're reforming health care overall and improving medicare and making sure medicare is there for those for whom it was intended, drug pricing is a big centerpiece of that. we're very happy recently the senate came up that bill, and obviously the president was meeting with senators earlier this week on a range of issues including turkey. but they discussed a range of issues and will continue to talk about drug pricing. a centerpiece of the president's agenda. i'll leave you on i think a happy bipartisan note. a couple months ago when president trump spoke with speaker pelosi over the phone, he immediately tweeted out just

hung up the phone with speaker pelosi. we had a great chat. hope we can work on things together including infrastructure and drug pricing. hope springs eternal. maybe we can get some democrats to work with us. i have a feeling there are many democrats who would like to work with us on things like that. they're always welcome. they're welcome here any time. and they're -- always welcome on their very lengthy recess to come and visit us. >> reporter: tweets are not daily briefings, kelly ann. presidential counselor kellyanne conway speaking to reporters about a number of agenda items. we join it in progress. she was there talking about the mueller investigation. and she had been called to appear before a house committee to testify about possible violations of the hatch act. the house oversight and reform committee met this morning and

they decided not to hold a vote on her subpoena as negotiators are working to have her appear. again, the subpoena was to answer questions about possible violations of the hatch act. we will bring you updates as we get them. and we are still waiting to get the start of this hearing from the u.s. immigration and customs enforcement acting director. he is expected to testify before the house appropriations sub committee on oversight of his agency. the committee hearing and a little bit of a delay now as members are attending votes in the house. the votes should wrap up shortly, and we'll bring you live coverage when it gets underway on c-span3.

we're talking to adam harris about his article the education desert of rural america. adam, good morning. >> how's it going? >> first, what made you focus on this particular issue? >> so at the aspen ideas festival which is co-hosted by the atlantic, the author of this incredible book "educated" essentially remarked on basically how educational opportunities aren't the same for people in rural america as

they are in cities. and that kind of draws back to this research that's been done, th the reports that have come out that essentially show how the gap in college attainment has grown between urban environments and rural environments. so essentially what you've seen from 2000 to 2015 is that in rural environments you've seen kind of a closing of the gap of people who have high school degrees. so essentially you're about as likely to have a high school degree in rural america as in urban america. but that gap has grown if you're thinking about college attainment. it's gone from about 15% to 19% of people in rural america with college degrees. so it's a small increase, but the gap for people who are in urban america has grown more. so you've gone from about 26%. that gap is widens. as you've seen in the university of alaska, they've lost 41% of

their budget in one swoop, and in rural america's education options are declining, it's kind of a serious problem. >> let me make sure i understand. what you're saying is that the gap between completion of high school degrees has shrunk between urban and rural, but the gap between people who finished college is increasing from urban to rural. correct? >> yes. and in particular, i should specify we're talking four-year degrees. so if you're thinking about things like two-year degrees or other credentials that gap may look a little bit different. if you're thinking about four-year college degrees, that gap. >> we being americans have always done a lot of moving from rural to urban areas. does that have anything to do with increasing that gap between completion of four-year degrees from urban to rural areas? >> there is a thought that maybe the growth of this gap is due to

people who lived in rural areas getting their college degreen and moving out of the area. it also says a lot about potentially the job opportunities in rural areas and kind of the decline of some manufacturing and things like that. if you're really thinking about kind of broadly there are still opportunities in rural america. people have gotten degrees and lived in rural america for years. my family was kind of the same way. there are a couple of concerning factors here, particularly as states disinvest in higher education. if you're looking at montana where one in three montanans live more than 60 miles away from their nearest college, you have the outlines of a very serious problem. >> like you, i'm from mississippi. i'm a third generation college graduate. with so many colleges and universities going online, is that going to have an effect on this gap in rural areas? can't people take classes online? >> people can, and oftentimes in

rural america people do take classes online. actually, at the university of alaska the governor suggested after they make the 4 1% cut to the budget which is about 130 million, he said that people could live stream the classes if they're in areas that are far away, but according to a recent report from the center for american progress, only about 63% of people in rural areas have broad band access in their homes. so that would require going to a library or somewhere else to do that work. so in terms of kind of it being oh, this is an ease of access thing, they can just go online and live stream that, it can't be kind of a sell for kind of this systemic problem we have. >> we referred to it a couple types. let's talk about it. let's going on with higher education in alaska? what are we talking about that happened in alaska that brings it into this conversation? >> late last month the governor of alaska vetoed $135 million --

or $130 million of the university of alaska systems budget. essentially what that meant was that the legislature had to come in and override that veto or else the university was going to have to start cutting jobs. they were going to have to fill out a plan to remove tenured professors. they had about two weeks to do this. as of yesterday, yesterday was the deadline for them to override this veto and the legislature failed to override the veto. essentially yesterday the university of alaska system officially lost more than $130 million of its budget which is going to spell really kind of disastrous things. disastrous things for our system, and expansive state like alaska with three major colleges that they may have to start cutting programs and faculty and potentially campuses. >> if you want to join this conversation about education deserts in the united states, we

want to open up our regional phone lines to you. once again, if you are in the eastern or central time zones, your phone number is 202 -748-8,000. if you're in the central, in the mountain or pacific time zones, your phone number is 202 -748-8001. keep in mind we're always reading on twitter at c-span and on website at facebook.com/cspan. here's a question we're always asking. our editors always ask this question. why does this matter? why does it matter that there's a education desert or a gap between people who are getting degrees in rural areas versus urban areas? why does any of this matter? >> if you're thinking broadly about what education was meant to be, you're thinking about the founders' estimation of what education could be, you had

people like benjamin rush and george washington arguing for places where people could learn the arts and sciences and also these practical skills. they could also learn how to be citizens. if you look in 1940 with the truman commission, they said colleges were places where people could learn to be good citizens. we've shifted to a kind of situation where we see colleges as a part good. you get your business degree so you can go and make money as opposed to getting your business degree so -- it stimulates our economy. if you're thinking about places like tennessee that invested in higher education, they did it because they saw the practical benefits to the economy. one of the reasons why this matters in particular is to -- is for the economic stimulation of the states. economic stimulation to the country. more educated people. the more educated people you have, the more stimulated the economy. >> that was one of the questions, i'm glad you brought up. several states including

southern states are now offering those free community colleges, free first two years for students. are we seeing more rural states move to this form of getting people into universities, or does it even matter if they try that? >> yeah. it's kind of a patchwork in terms of where free college programs popped up across the country. and dozens of states have launched either free tuition programs for community colleges or a form of free -- or free, quote, unquote, programs for low income students in particular. you know, the university of texas just recently said that it would offer scholarships to any students whose families made less than $60,000 a year. so kind of if you're thinking big picture, then there has been kind of explosion of free college programs, especially leading into the democratic primary. it's yet to be seen whether or not it's going to be something that takes hold nationally, but as of right now the states are

leading the way on this. >> let's go to our phone lines and talk to merna, calling from c chicago, illinois. >> caller: i want to talk about the online courses. i'm a senior citizen. i'm not actually going to college, but i really find with the choice of courses is immense. particularly maybe not for hands on courses like let's say chemistry or engineering, but like more of the liberal arts and fine arts courses for a very reasonable price like for $75 or $100, you can sign up for a course at some really great universities. it's extremely good. it's a half hour segment that is so well-structured. you get a reading book on the side. it's a really good idea for people that want to take courses maybe that are either too far away or they're going to take courses that really may not have job opportunities. let's say, like literature or

history. thank you. >> and merna, before we answers, i want to say it doesn't matter how old you are, you can always go back to school. knowledge is always a good thing to have. now, go ahead and answer her question. >> reporter: so it is, and universities have been building out and building out infrastructures for online education for the last several years. if you're thinking about places like southern new hampshire university or you're thinking about arizona state university which has gone and grown into this 100,000 student enterprise and the way they're thinking about access and affordability and also online education is rather remarkable and often lauded by college experts, but they're also trying to figure out now how to have that classroom experience of a program like chemistry or of a program like physics or something of the sort. and make sure that that online experience is as robust as the experiences in the classroom. >> we have one of our online viewers wants you to address how

the student loan issue affects college attendance. let's talk specifically about the education deserts. is it hard to get -- >> basically since the federal government, since we switched over from base banked lending, federal student loans are going to go through the federal government. students will still be able to get their unsubsidized loans up to the certain point. that's the federal limit. and typically if you're thinking about state institutions, they're going to be less expensive than say a private institution. if you're not thinking about the $20,000 a year for division. you're thinking more like 7$,000 a year for tuition. typically your student loans would be able to cover that. but broadly, i think that right now people are kind of rethinking the way that student loans are being -- are factoring in to basically how to pay for

college. if you're looking at what student loans were originally supposed to be, they were supposed to be more of a tool in the tool box to pay for college rather than the key. no now it feels to take out college loans to get a college education. candidates and policy makers are rethinking how college can be affordable and still remain kind of something that you don't have to go into a significant amount of debt to achieve. >> in these education deserts you're seeing, are there more private universities or public universities that are available to students? are those education deserts basically only served by public universitys? >> it's a mix. you do have your small private universities and rural counties. but you also have your small regional public universities. but one of the issues that we're seeing particularly at state funding is being cut is that those smaller public universities are having to kind of reduce their programs.

say they might get rid of liberal arts programs or might become more single issue or like oh, this is our one thing we really focus on and hone in on, and then the other programs just kind of get what resources are left over. so as you're seeing a strangling of university budgets, colleges are really having to pick and choose what they're doing in order to serve students. actually, the chronicle of higher education ran an interesting article the other day about the term cannot be everything to everyone. like, colleges can't be everything to everyone. as -- the local university near you is cutting it history or geography program and emphasizing the physics program, what do you lose when the programs are cut if you're a student that's interested? >> let's talk to gary from virginia. >> caller: actually, it's barry, but thank you for this program. i was not ever interested in rural education until i just did a study for the commercial real

estate industry on reducing the work force gap. i think that's the economic development issues to me far outweigh whether or not there's an education gap. i think the fact that most of these rural communities in the united states really are concerned about the labor shortage they have. and you're trying to find ways to keep their talented people in the rural areas and not move to the cities or the suburbs. and that to me is the issue. it's economic development, not so much the education gap. the education gap will follow -- will -- once you get the kids in high school involved in the local economy, and the business community knows they're not going to survive very long without talent coming back to them, they get involved. i looked at three or four programs in rural areas where many kids never thought they

were college learned otherwise and enrolled because they got involv involved. economic development is your goal, not going to college. >> with economic development, then more educated people going to an area will follow. one of the reasons amazon may have come to northern virginia is because there are more educated people in northern virginia. i guess there is a question of is it a chicken or an egg situation of is the economic development following the talent or is the talent following the economic development? i don't think the two have to be mutually exclusive. i think you can both have economic development and also invest in education to kind of build and work together if you're looking at arizona state, one of the things they often do is partner with industries in order to kind of develop programs that kind of tie some of those skills that companies will need to the curriculum.

so i think that there is still a lot of work to be done in rural areas but there's a lot of work to be done in terms of college and high school attainment in rural areas. >> one of the things we haven't talked about in this conversation is the role of private for-profit universities in these education deserts. are we seeing those schools trying to fill in the gaps between the private universities, the public universities? do we see the private for-profit universities slipping into that gap where there are people who want the education but they're not available? >> so we have -- i guess over the last decade or i guess two decades, you saw an explosion of the for profit education sector in rural areas but you recently saw a constriction of the colleges between itt tech closing or the corinthian colleges closing and most recently virginia college closed. i was speaking with a couple students in alabama immediately

after that. the closure of virginia college late last year. and they were wondering what do i do next? my credits may not transfer to another institution. what do i do next? so some for-profit institutions have moved into these areas to kinds of fill that gap. but there's still a need for a public affordable option. if you're thinking of education as a public good, why isn't there a public option that's affordable for students? >> let's talk to ryan calling from silver spring, maryland. ri ryan, good morning. >> reporter: private colleges have particularly high dropout rates. with people spending a large amount of money and not getting a degree, do you see as service as valuable? >> one of the biggest problems we're facing right now is people who have gotten a little bit of college, who have done a little bit of college and taken on debt

and then have not finished their degree. then they're responsible for paying off the debt without kind of the benefit of that college degree. and that is a very serious problem that a lot of people are trying to figure out how to dole with. one of the -- there's an interesting program out at wayne state university called the warrior way back program. essentially they are helping people who have done a little bit of college, dropped out, and are interested in returning to college. they're helping them get in the door and also get through college. i think there does need to be a lot of thought about what to do about that stopout crisis at some call it. if you're dropping out, you're leaving college. if you're stopping out, you may come back. to pool some of those people so that debt burden isn't just sitting there without the benefit of the college degree. >> this is washington, so everything has a political bend here in washington. i'm going to read to you what you wrote in one of your stories

about this issue. polls have shown that confidence in the higher education overall has decreased in the past few years. a pew research center survey found 61% of americans are worried about the path america's colleges and universities are on. democrats think the cost of tuition is too high own to a much lesser extent that students are not getting the skills they need for the workplace, but republicans overwhelmingly hold negative views of the sector. 73% thought higher education was going in the wrong direction as opposed to 52 % of democrats. a poll found only 39% of the republicans found quite a lot of confidence in the sector. down 17 points from 2015. for many republicans mistrust of democrats and mistrust of institutions collide when it comes to higher education. because they see colleges and universities as having a liberal bend. they point to surveys showing that college leaderships leans liberal and that liberal

professors outnumber conservative ones on campus. is this what's causing this problem, these education deserts? >> so you are seeing deserts? >> you are seeing this mistrust of institutions, the mistrust of higher education spilling into how they're viewed by politicians. if you're even thinking of things like president trump's recent order leak pulling research dollars which college and universities of course refer to one of the fundamental reasons why we're here is to protect free speech on campus or free speech more broadly. but you have seen this mistrust spill over into a desire to say if you don't believe the things

we're doing then you shouldn't be using taxpayer funds to do. it's a mix of things. one of the things is that education or higher education in particular is a very easy thing for states to cut. if they're looking to balance their budget higher education is going to be wurn of the first places to go. even those things do that as well. but there place where you'll see your most significant cuts in part because of the thought if you're not aligning graduates to jobs as well as you think you should be or doing the job we think you should be doing then you shouldn't be getting those additional resources in order to do kind of the i guess malicious

thing towards potentially one side or the other. >> liz calling front mount laurel, new jersey. good morning. >> good morning. i have some familiarity with rural areas because my mother hailed from them. she see to up root herself. her father before her had to go to ohio. this was not affluent family. but they had historical roots in pennsylvania, part of the rust belt trump took in the election. but all the industries up there that paid anything were related to coal, steel and oil

industries. and since they're on the decline and not in the area and closed down a lot of factories, they had some small state colleges, some small historic pricey colleges. but unless the family has money right now from when they had real jobs in that area, their children and grandchildren have a hard time getting to a college and paying for it. it's not around the corner. they average 60 to 100 miles from places like pittsburgh,e erie and cleveland area.

why can't parts of those jobs be done in places like the rust belt? and they do have people who are capable of learning it. a lot of my cousins children and grandchildren have advanced degrees but they've all had to leave the area. so you've got a whole generation of baby boomers aging and their children quite some distance away. >> i think this gets back to the earlier question of economic development in rural areas and businesses moving to these areas in order to provide the stimulus. but i think it does have to be a two pronged thing where the business has to both get into those areas and then also states have to shift to saying that we believe that an investment in the education of people in this area is important in order to help attract some of them.

i think one of the interesting things around colleges, colleges become economic drivers for areas on their own if you have a university, people in the area will work for the university and businesses will come to be attached to the resources. i think there is a partnership in those two things being linked. >> what's the solution for closing down the education deserts? >> greater investment and higher education is one of the first answers. where states have to be viewing college not as something that only helps the individual buts as something that helps people

more broadly. where people can get a job based on those skills or leap year into a four year institution. just providing that opportunity for people -- providing that opportunity will ultimately help states in terms of their economic development. let's talk to dave who's calling from athens, alabama. good morning. >> caller: good morning, c-span. adam, early on in your conversation you mentioned that the higher percentage of people who had higher degrees in education, that somehow stimulates the economy. and i'm questioning that. i don't understand. can you tell me where you got that from, and i'll hang up and get your answer on the tv, but as an aside, the little

photograph had the rural one room schoolhouse that accompanies your article in the atlantic looks exactly like the one i went to when i was a kid in rural kansas. thanks for your response. >> and thank you. actually athens, alabama, i went to college at alabama a&m. as the united states has had a boom in its economy it accompanies a growth. >> calling from athens, georgia. >> caller: glad to be an american, proud to be an american. education is the key to success, and in the united states of america we have devalued the

preciousness of education. now, adam h. you made a great point when you first came on. the founders envisioned education as being the road map to being a productive, informed citizen. we as the united states have put education on the back bar. it's all about materialism, about self-gratification. and until we're able to put the country, the nation, the world as a priority, i don't know what we're going to do. thanks. >> thanks so much for calling in. if you're really thinking about as you mentioned, if you're thinking about the reasons why you're seeing these large scale government investments in education, even the pel grant, the gi bill, the morel act, though they did and some of these did exclude a class of people, particularly black

people. but if you're thinking about why those investments were made is because the people who were essentially investing in them were saying the reason -- we need to have a more educated population in order to have good citizens more broadly and education was seen as a public good and now we're seeing it more as a private good. until that shift happens where we view education as a public good, you know, we may continue to see some of the problems. >> let's talk to one more caller. let's go to joe who's calling from staten island, new york. joe, good morning. >> caller: hi. it's a good magazine and article about education.

>> it's getting more expensive, right? >> it is. and i think the cost of college has -- i should say the sticker price of colleges has outpaced inflation. but f you're looking at what's happening to some of those smaller, private institutions you've seen a constriction of the sector where they've become more tuition dependent so they're telling people they're going to need to pay more tuition in order to attend the school but they're also discounting that tuition more so that their budget lines aren't matching up. and that's creating a lot of problem for more splaul private colleges. and until there's kind of a fundsmental rethinking of that business model a lot of schools are going to see kind of a difficult path. >> we'd like to thank adam harris for coming here and talking to us about his article

in the atlantic. "the education deserts of rural america." thank you so much. >> thanks so much for having he.

>> thank you for your patience and your willingness to stay until 4:00 given the votes that we have. we appreciate it. today we welcome the acting director of u.s. immigration and customs