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administrator and author. watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span or c-span now, our free mobile app. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." president biden plans unforgiving $10,000 of student debt but the next obvious question, is college worth the money americans are paying? in-state college costs more than $10,000 a year and private college can cost almost $40,000 a year for a four year degree. the median salary of a college graduate is only around $60,000 a year. are americans getting what they are paying for?

that is our question this morning. is a college degree worth the cost? we are opening special lines. if you went to college and got a college degree, we want to know your experience at (202)-748-8000. if you went beyond the bachelors degree to get a law degree, medical degree, phd, your number is (202)-748-8001. if you did not go to college, we want your opinion. your number is going to be (202)-748-8002. if you got a vocational degree, we want to know about your experience. your number is (202)-748-8003. you can always text us at (202)-748-8003. and we are always reading on social media on facebook at facebook.com/c-span, on twitter @cspanwj and instagram @cs

panwj. president biden has decided to forgive student loan for $20,000 for some students. this came up earlier at the white house. president biden outlined the plan for his student loan reductions. here is a portion of what he said on wednesday. [video clip] >> we have wound down pandemic relief programs like unemployment insurance. it is time we do the same for student loans. student loan payments pauses are going to end. i am extending it until december 31 and then it will end at that time. it is time for the payments to resume. second, my campaign for president, i made a commitment that we provide student debt relief.

i am honoring that commitment today. using the authority congress granted the department of education, we will forgive $10,000 in outstanding federal student loans. in addition, students who come from low income families, which allowed them to qualify to receive a pell grant, will have their debt reduced $20,000. both of these targeted actions are for families that need it the most, working and middle-class people hit hard during the pandemic, making under $125,000 a year. you make more than that, you don't qualify. no high income individual or household on top of the 5% of income will benefit from this action. host: let's look at the new york times and how they describe president biden's decision and

what exactly he will be doing for college loan recipients. he signed off on a plan that went further than even some of his closest aides expected. canceling $10,000 of debt for those earning less than $125,000 a year and $20,000 with those with pell grant. it also reduces payments for all federal student borrowers for years to come. something is too much, mr. biden said, noting outrage from republicans and some democrats. but i believe my plan is responsible and fair. it focuses on middle class and working families. it will help current and future borrowers and fix a badly broken system. it has drawn criticism from republicans, who describe it as a costly giveaway to many that do not deserve it, including families making as much as $250,000 a year.

some morning it will contribute to inflation, calling it a reckless idea that would add $500,000 to gasoline fires that are already burning. the question is, is college worth the money people are paying? there are a lot of people paying a lot of money right now. we want to know whether it is worth it to you or has it been worth it to you. tim is calling from wisconsin. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a college degree in sociology. turned out, it was not a worthwhile degree. when i graduated degrees in the social sciences were no good

unless you at least got a masters. you had to get a phd to see any decent job. i have to echo what i heard on tv. most of this money is going to graduate students who are from wealthy families or going to be making a lot of money in a few years. i am all for helping the poor. my church, myself, we help feed them and things like that. but this is a failure. host: do you remember how much you paid for your undergraduate degree? do you remember how much you owed when you were finished with college? caller: i think it was about $31,000 if i remember correctly. host: this is for a bachelors degree in what field? caller: sociology. host: do you think that degree,

the money you paid for that degree, was worth it to you now looking back? caller: no, it wasn't. that degree -- i don't know what it brings today -- but that degree was worthless. telling you the truth. i should have gone into something else but i didn't. i wanted to get through college to see if i could get a degree but i should have waited to go to college. but i had to go with my friends. i wish i would've went for some other field. host: how did you choose sociology? what made you decide to get your degree in sociology? caller: criminal justice, that was the field i was going into. you had to go through the sociology department to get that degree. criminal justice/sociology degree is what i should say. the jobs i would apply for other

people could get without a degree. you get the same job as a probation officer, if they took the state test and stuff like that, or they just went and applied. i found it to be -- i wish i would have researched the degree a lot more. that was my fault, but boy, when i found out all of that, it was disheartening. my advice to everybody going to college, make sure you are going into a field you get paid something. i was not making more than some guys coming out of high school and working the factories. host: speaking of how much college costs, u.s. news & world reports has a graphic that shows what students are paying today. in the last school year, if you went to a private school, you were paying about 38,180 dollars.

if you are going to the public schools, you are paying about $22,698. if you are going to in-state school, you are paying about $10,338. is that money worth it? steve calling from schenectady, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. i personally do not think it is worth the money at this stage. frankly, there has been a drastic increase in the amount of the cost of tuition in a relatively short period of time. i do not know exact numbers, but within like, 20 years it has been drastic. there was a gradual increase lining up with inflation, but relatively within the last 20

years there has been a drastic increase in tuition costs. i don't know exactly the reason for that, but i do not think it is worth it for that reason. host: did you go to college? if you didn't, why did you make the decision not to go? caller: i did not because it cost too much for too little. to put myself in lifelong debt first would require getting into a job where i could make that money over time. the numbers do not work out. as much as we want them to, obviously, you want to become more educated and you can become educated without a degree. i think a large number are just to get you to memorize pieces of information and then move on.

it would be getting into the efficacy of actual college. host: if you do not mind me asking, what do you do for a living and what did you do when you are around 21, 22, 23? caller: it is kind of complex. at this stage, it is a creative pursuit at this stage. originally, it has always been more problem-solving. in many different areas. i am kind of a consultant, i guess you could say, but i have been called many places to solve problems. host: if you could do it over again, would you go to college? caller: it changes depending on

the company. host: if you could do it over again, would you go to college? caller: i really would not because it would not benefit my current work or help me at all. host: harold calling from topeka, kansas. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, jesse. host: go ahead. caller: no, i do not think college is worth what it costs nowadays. i did not attend. i went to the workforce immediately after i got out of high school. i did not accumulate a lot of student debt. i did not accumulate children that are a drag on the rest of society. i am not getting credit for an electric car.

i have been responsible my whole life. i want to know when the government is going to give me something. it does not seem like a single man or woman who worked diligently and done the right thing their whole life and be a drain to society's money, but we never get anything as single people. when are we going to get something? host: let's go to terry calling from kansas city, missouri. good morning. caller: hi. i went to college for six years and i was in medical school to get an md, but i did not finish and ended up with a chemistry degree. but in the years since i did not make a go of it financially. i depended on my husband, so we have never had much money, but i

am so happy to have the information and education that i got at the university of missouri. it helped me when, years later -- we are in a terrible school district. there is violence and shootings and everything. i ended up homeschooling my children and they came out so great because of the education that i received. had i not had those courses i could not have taught them calculus or the other things they learned by the time they were 14 years old. then they went to college at 14 years old. that was neat. and i feel so bad that my parents spent $50,000 on my medical education and, god rest their souls, they were so generous. most of that came out of their own pocket. i had just a small amount of student loan debt. host: if you have the option, would you do the same thing?

would you still go and start medical school? especially considering what it costs today? caller: i really appreciate college. i so much appreciate what i gained. and i did work as a chemist briefly. that is where i met my husband. we have been married 43 years and have three grown kids. the youngest is 34. i was really pleased. just the knowledge, and of course, i have forgotten 90% of what i learned in medical school, but it has been wonderful to have the education through the years. host: i heard you say your parents helped pay for your college. did you do the same for your children? caller: well, yeah, but they did not go much. they went out to the community college. not a whole lot.

they just went out there for math classes and chemistry. they did not finish degrees or anything. but my middle son went and wrote videogames in seattle. he has credits on harry potter, the lion, the witch & the wardrobe. when he was 20 he had learned online how to do this game boy developing. they quizzed him and then they hired him to a real good job in seattle. he did that for a long time and came back and paid the loans we had taken out to have them have a really rich childhood with karate and swim team. he paid $64,000 worth of credit

card debt of ours. bless his heart, and still have money left over that he does investing now. host: let's go to charles calling from covington, georgia. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. host: go ahead. caller: how you doing? i graduated in 1983. my father, he was going to send me to college, but it was hard back then. i did not grow up in a rich family. [indiscernible] i went to work and help him out and stuff.

a lot of young people do not do nothing with their life and i feel good about what joe biden is doing. i am all for joe biden doing this. that is all i got to say. host: what type of money do you make in salary in the united states with or without a college degree? forbes.com has the average, the median yearly earnings, of 25-year-olds to 35-year-olds depending on the type of degree. according to forbes, if you have less than a high school degree, you make a median salary of somewhere around $29,800. if you have a high school

degree, it jumps up to $36,600. if you start college but do not finish, you can make up to $39 ,000. with an associates degree, it is 44,000. with a bachelors degree it jumps to $59,600. with a masters degree, you can make $79,000. that is how the salaries vary for those between high school degrees and masters degrees. is college worth it to you? according to the statistics, you can make more money. but college is getting more expensive. david is calling from atlanta, georgia. caller: good morning.

host: go ahead. caller: yeah, when i came through school it was totally different. i came through in the 1980's and when i came through, i came through by way of the pell grant and work-study through the college i attended, the university of d.c. the biggest blessing i had coming through college was i attended a land grant college which, at the time, meant that i did not have -- all i had to take was the college entrance exam. i learned a lot in college. it did help me in my career. i think speaking on what you are going to make, when i went to

school, it was never my thought when i started school. my parents taught me about education, it was about education. that is what i went for. i think that is what makes it important for younger americans that do go to college. it shows the employer when you are coming out you have the ability to learn, the ability to listen to instruction. i feel that is what they help you understand coming into the work room. host: let's go to linda calling from greenville, south carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: i am doing great. go ahead. caller: college has been extremely beneficial to me. my mother put me through school. she said, if you do not get married and we know you are not getting pregnant, i will send

you as far as you want to go and you will not owe a penny. my father, due to layoffs, had a far lesser job than he had in my mother put me through college as a beautician. i have a masters plus 30. i went to school for elementary education and i have a masters and here beyond in speech therapy. i have used my education to raise my children. i have been a widow since my oldest was five and my twins were three. i have put all of my boys through college. they have not owed money coming out. had i not had the education i could not have had the job and have carried that out for them. i do not agree with this payout we are talking about. i don't know. i think there is difference in the structuring that it will go to some and not others.

i think the money could be spent in other areas of education and not pay off student loans. my mother was responsible, i have been responsible, and all three of my sons have been responsible and have their own houses. host: student debt in the united states is enormous. forbes has statistics about the average student loan debt that i want to bring to you. right now in the u.s., we have $1.75 trillion in total student loan debt. the average barware owes somewhere around $29,000. 92% of all student debt are federal student loans. 55% of students from public four year schools did not get through school without taking out a loan.

more than half of ulster didn't took out -- more than half of all students took out loans. more than half of the students in public and private school did not get through school without taking out student loans. our question to you, is college worth this cost? cliff is calling from texas. caller: good morning, jesse. how are you doing? host: i am doing great. go ahead. caller: i think there is three or four different parts to all of this. a lot of it to me is common sense. i have 10.5 grades behind me, i quit and went into the family business. and now with all of the higher interest rates i am opposite of most people. i did so well i am now able to loan the money out and get a

higher return. not having to go to college and when i dropped out of high school the criticism, publicly, around us with different people was incredible. but we have this thing in america that you have got to go to college to be successful. what i believe is i have a grandson that loves mechanical stuff. well, maybe he will become a great mechanic. oh, but it is not acceptable to come home with greece on your fingers -- grease on your fingers. if the trade schools were to come back into the high schools more -- here's a good example. do we respect an electrician or plumber? not really. until you need one. and when you have lights back on you think the guys the greatest guy in the world, but he is

highly skilled. that should be respected. one of the things i think we can add to those in the skills trade, if that is what they want to do -- besides have society not judge them -- one of the other things we can do is offer classes at community college on how to manage money. some of these guys making $50 an hour as an electrician may not know how to manage money. but the end of their work life they could be millionaires. i think we could do this thing and a lot of it is social. what is accepted? what is socially accepted? but i think we are getting more away from that. all of these paybacks, $10,000 paybacks for the ones that had art degrees and social degrees, like that one guy earlier. those should not be paid back. you know going into those jobs

you are not going to get any return on your money. a lot of it is social status. a lot of it is common sense. a lot of it is going with what you are talented at. what is wrong being good at it? if you listen to society and you go against your skill set, you end up being unhappy the rest of your life and you have high debt. why $125,000? i am from texas. that is a lot of money. there are not a lot of people that make that money. they should have cut that off at $50,000 or $60,000. what do you think of my ideas, jesse? host: sharon is calling from oregon. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: i am doing great. go ahead. caller: first of all, i have a

masters and many hours beyond. if you just talk about numbers, i paid my own way through. but when i paid it, at my local college, it was $1300 a year. i paid my own way and worked. my niece is going to the same college. it is costing her $8,000 a year. as an individual and young person, she cannot come up with that and go to school. that is living at home. both of us lived at home. let's talk about what it did for me. first of all, invaluable in terms of interaction with people, general knowledge, happiness of life. let's talk money, because that is what people talk. when i graduated i had as a job a secretary. i was making $4800 a year.

my first job after graduation was $9,420. over twice as much. in retirement, in 2008, i was making $72,000 a year. without a degree, as a woman, i would not have been making $72,000 a year. my current retirement, i get $73,000 every year. for me, it was well worth it. if i had continued down the path of non-graduation, i do not think, financially, we would be where we are now and it is very comfortable. yes, i do think it is choices. i will agree with many of the people that say, the student gets a degree in something not worthwhile. i was very pointed. i knew i wanted a job at the end of my degree. but also, all of the invaluable

classes i took that had nothing to do with my occupation made me a better person, a happier person, a person able to interact with all kinds of people. in fact, this covid hit and i am devastated. after retirement i wanted to go back and engage in college classes again for the mental interaction. but what bothers me, not so much the payback of the loans, but what bothers me is why has college gone up so much? it used to be the federal government kind of subsidized college a little bit, and in turn, you had to keep tuition down. i think that system seemed to work better in leveling out the playing field. host: at an event featuring

higher education professionals, education secretary miguel cardona called for changes in the college and university systems to ensure all students benefit. here is what he said. [video clip] >> every year millions of students wind up with post secondary purgatory. they earn some credits with no degree. then they have student debt they cannot afford and a limited path to higher paying jobs. it is a generational effect. meanwhile, many institutions spend enormous time and money chasing rankings they think kerry prestige. in truth, they do little. little more than xerox privilege, as one president said. there is science behind climbing the ranking. it goes like this. you compete for the most students by luring them with generous aid because the most

well prepared have the best sat scores and graduate on time. you seek favor from your peers and other schools with expensive events because their opinions carry clout. and you invest in the most amazing campus experiences that money can buy, because the more graduates who become donors, the more points you score. too often our best resource schools are chasing rankings that mean little to what actually counts. college completion, economic mobility, narrowing opportunity for all americans. that system of ranking is a joke. in case i have not been clear yet, allow me to restate. we need a culture change in higher education now. [applause] we must stop conflating selectivity with excellent. we must stop correlating prestige with privilege.

we must embrace a new vision of college excellence. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about the question of, is college worth the cost? here's a tweet that says, without a college degree or license in a trade, one cannot make a decent living in this country. here is a text that says, college is worth the cost if you're degree is in something employers need. degrees with no job-related use should be scrapped and no loan available. a tweet that says, all growing companies have an r&d department. our nation needs to save to remain successful. training beyond high school. free community college is a start. we owe life prep for all. another tweet that says, north carolina community college has numerous phd's in history.

it is interesting and there are a lot of potential for professors. i had a phd in history working as a surveyor. one last week that says, college is worth attending for its own sake. most college costs are out of control. my own was 40% scholarship and i attended and $5,000 a year. it is above 60% now. currently $81,000 a year. a large endowment keeps debt down to less than $20,000. we want to know from you if you think a college degree is worth the cost. if you went to college and got a degree, (202)-748-8000. if you went beyond college to law school, graduate program, medical school, (202)-748-8001. if you did not go to college, (202)-748-8002. and i want to hear from our vocational graduates, plumbing

degrees, electrical degrees. was that worth it? (202)-748-8003. let's go to bob calling from nebraska. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. how are you? host: i am doing great. go ahead. caller: i graduated in engineering in 1965. i paid my own way and it was well worth it. my brother and i started a company and worked a number of years on our own. i am now retired. but i paid my own way. even though i was in the service , i was a veteran, but there is not much money except a small amount, maybe $1500, that i eventually paid off. it took me 10 years to get

through college but i was not much in debt when i got out. but it was well worth it. i would recommend anybody that had the ambition to get a degree in something that they really can use. i do not agree with this thing that the president came out with. anybody can get through school on their own if they want to. they ought to make high school mandatory like grade school was mandatory for my parents and, aunts and uncles. host: adio calling from orlando, florida. are you there? caller: i am here. can you hear me? host: yes, we can.

caller: i do not think it is cost-effective to go to college now. it is a big business for the colleges. i will give you some examples. my wife, she is around $80,000 in loans. my sons, two of them went to college, and they have to pay back loans as well. what the president has done i think is a step in the right direction. however, i think he could have added money for a lot of people who could have paid their debts off. i do not think it is fair to say you can go to college and get a degree in sociology and end up

as a teacher in school. that is what is unfair to a lot of people out there going to college and not coming out with the right job they want to get. i do not think it is worth it to be entering college right now. it is too expensive. it is a big business for the colleges. host: let's go to mark calling from california. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. i was a late baby boomer. still in my late career at this point. i was fortunate to get good grades in school and get accepted to some pretty good universities. my family -- my father was a blue-collar career. my older brother had started at

the local state university but had not been able to finish. he was somewhat income held back because of that. my parents said, we want you to get a degree, to me. can you finish? i said yes and i was able to get into a good school. the bill was high for the time. my parents filled out long financial aid applications. we were able to get goodbackagee so it was not so onerous to go to a top-tier school rather than a liberal arts school. got an engineering degree. went on to a masters program at a different university and those

things were really necessary to having a technical career. i ended up in the energy industry. my wife, who had a similar experience, also got an engineering degree. she was working on her bachelors degree when we met. got into an aerospace job and when we got married her company paid for her to go to graduate school and get a masters degree, because they saw the value in having additional education. basically, in the technical sciences -- and i am sure other major professional vocations -- those higher degrees do have value. even though not everything i do is technical, i benefited from the eligibility the college

brought. i like to think that the income i was able to learn because i had the advanced degrees paid itself back to the government in taxes for whatever student aid programs i had during those years, and made it financially worthwhile to the economy. host: scott calling from country club hills, illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. first time caller. i have some college. i think it is worth it. meaning, well, ok, i worked for a bank for 18 years. i worked -- i started in the mailroom and, you know, a few

years later became assistant vice president. i went to roosevelt university off and on. i was using tuition reimbursement, all of that, but i could not pay consistently, so it was on-off, on-off type of thing. one of my jobs at the bank i worked at i worked in wealth management. i was an associate but i preferred to work in the office

and go out with clients with my wealth advisors i supported. i was embarrassed that i did not have a cfp, certified financial planner designation. i did not graduate one of the top four year colleges, universities the people around me graduated from. i was embarrassed, i really was. i made great money. i made $80,000. at the end, i had to stop working, back in 2013, because of my health.

if someone can afford it and use what is around them, yes, i think that they should. use everything around them to get educated. here is what i am afraid of. here is the bigger picture i am afraid of. that china has kids in college all the time. they grow up going to school all day. i am afraid that, one day, we are going to be the underdogs and i do not want my 31-year-old daughter -- i am about to be 55 -- i do not want my 31-year-old

daughter to be the underdog. i am glad i live in america but, man, i think that people should try to go to college if they can. host: why is college getting so expensive? u.s. news and world reports has a story talking about the cost of college and why it is getting so expensive. i want to read a couple of paragraphs to you. a policy analyst at the newscenter and author of the report titled "the new american dream," says the ramification of the 2008 recession are hitting the higher education world and students are paying the price. the two main drivers of the rising cost is reduced state funding and the incentive for tuition raises as an

unrestricted revenue to benefit colleges. meaning, colleges can spend tuition money however they wish. state and local communities are spending less for students. someone has to take on the cost and unfortunately, it has been the student. his report outlines other reasons why college is so expensive, including the need for schools to devote more money and staff toward complying with regulations set by the u.s. department of education, high prices at for-profit colleges and a competitive drive among some colleges to raise prices to create a perception of quality. sort of a marketing technique. that is coming from u.s. news and world report. why is college so expensive? we want to know from you, is college -- is a college degree where the cost? frank is calling from florida. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse.

i want to say college is an incredibly wonderful experience. i hope everyone who wants to go, can go. i went under military scholarship. i was pretty fortunate not to have debt, but when i graduated and done my service i got in with one of the top companies. i had a 28 year career there and they would only higher college degrees. yeah, it is definitely worth it. host: let's go to marshall calling from nashville, tennessee. good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: go ahead. caller: i want to bring a little perspective from the working class. you have middle-class and low income people who are going to be paying these debts off. i could not afford to go to college. i would like to have been able

to afford to go to college, but when i was young, generally speaking, you either went to college for you went to work. i was one of the ones that had to go to work. i do not believe that it is morally fair to the general population or this country who, right now, are going through inflationary times to shadow them with a larger burden when you have american families who are having a hard time feeding their own children, clothing their children, being demanded to feed, house, give medical care and education to people who are not even citizens of the country. for me, it is hard to say that it is morally right to saddle the american citizens with even more debt. we are a wealthy nation and that is no lie.

but our wealth depends on the ability of people who are just the normal individual. to be able to go to work, make ends meet, and have a roof over their head. this does not make it any easier. it makes it more difficult at a time where it is already difficult for american families to make it. host: let's go to chris calling from indio, california. caller: good morning. i started college in 1963 and from 1960 to 1980, california had no in-state tuition. i did not finish college until 2016 here in california. my son graduated from the university -- cal state

university, san bernardino years ahead of me. he was paying $700 per quarter. i was paying $11 per quarter when i met because i was over 60 years old. my peers were paying $2400 per quarter. i think the reason that happened was because they took the college tuition out of the general fund and turned it over to the students in order to pay for the 22 state prisons they built between 1965 when they opened the university of california irvine and santa cruz. 40 years later they opened it up to the next one, merced. they built 22 state prisons and zero uc's. it is not really student debt,

it is drug war debt and prison debt. host: lydia calling from new orleans, louisiana. good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling in to say i believe a college degree is necessary. it is not necessarily worth the cost to these days because colleges have become a big business like everything else. the children are being couched for education -- gouged for education, to better themselves. i think anybody should be able to pursue whatever they are interested in and sometimes college is the only way to get there. i graduated in 1989 but i had a job. i got a job right out of high school. i worked that job, i went to college, i graduated. it took me eight years to get my undergraduate degree and i had

to take out debt, which i paid off. i also have two kids, one is a veterinarian. i paid -- my husband and i struggled to pay for her college degree. we did not want her to have any debt on her back for her college degree, so we pay that often it was hard. but we were blessed and were able to do it. families today are really having a hard time because college, like i said, is a big business. it seems so unfair the children go to college, you take a class, you still have to buy books. how can a teacher teach a class without books? that should be part of the curriculum and part of the pay you pay for the course. but you have to come out with another $2000, $3000 for the books to take the class. now teachers are doing things virtual. i understand about the pandemic, but they were virtual before then. a lot of teachers do not go into

the classroom. the child has to go online to get their work. do have to submit work online. it is not what you are paying the teachers to be in the room. you are paying administrators and all of the top level people in colleges getting the money and all of the debt is passed on to the children. host: let's get some quick statistics about who goes to college in the united states before we end the hour. this is coming from pew research center. nearly four in 10 americans age 25 and older have a bachelors degree. as of 2021, 37.9% of adults in this age group had a bachelors degree, including 14.3% who also obtained a graduate or professional degree, according to data from the bureau population study. that is up 7.5 percentage points from 2011.

in a reversal, women are now more likely than men to graduate from college. in 2021, 39% of women aged 25 and older had a bachelors degree or more education compared with 37% of men in the same age range. the gap in college completion is even wider among adult aged 25 to 34. 26% of women in this age group have a bachelors degree compared with 36% of men. this is coming from p research - - pew research. let's get a few more calls before the end of the hour and we start with joy calling from chicago, illinois. caller: good morning, jesse. the american education system is kind of a diverse experience.

i am an african-american woman and we are one of the highest demographics for educated people in this country. i am an occupational therapist. many of my colleagues are from the philippines and other countries where they were recruited by other companies. in their country, they were not paying the high amount of tuition i had to pay. i am straddled with student debt when many of my colleagues, you know, they are able to buy mortgages and things because they are free of debt. that is unfortunate. another thing is the pay rate. when i speak to my colleagues i notice they get paid more than i do because i am african-american female. it is all of these discrepancies and it is a different experience for everyone.

i welcome what president biden is doing relieving student debt. the highest paid demographic in this country is asian and many of them are educated in their country, where it is cheaper. when they come here and are recruited by companies it is much easier for them to live with this cost-of-living we currently have. i welcome what is going on, but at the same time, we need to look at that. the fact that companies actually recruit and encourage -- and it is ok to have a diverse population, we want that -- but it is the way they do things in the way that they pay the people that are here as opposed to the way they pay other populations. host: let's go to mark calling from texas. good morning. caller: good morning.

i have a graduate degree in engineering and i am retired now but it has been good for me. i am sure it more than doubled my input. my experience is so different than today's. when i started, tuition was only $120 a semester. it is hard to relate. my children, two graduated, but all three, the most successful in college was the least successful in terms of earning money outside of college. the one that did not graduate makes every bit as much money or more than the others. i think it just varies from person to person whether it is

financially good. of course, since i sacrificed to make sure none of them had debt, i am not excited about paying more taxes to pay other debts for college. host: james calling from fort lauderdale, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a vocational degree. i was in a five-year program down here for air conditioning. most of my family have vocational degrees and we are all very successful. i believe if you need college, yes, you can go to college, but pay your way. so, this whole thing about not being able to pay, i think you take on what you need to take on or go to a vocation and try something different.

we are having a problem now getting people in vocational or electrical programs, air conditioning programs, etc. we actually need more of that. thank you for listening. have a good day. host: we would like to thank all of our callers and social media followers who contributed to that segment. coming up, we will hear from columnist and commentators from both sides of the aisle on the weekend of politics and looking ahead to the fall midterm elections. up first, we are joined by ethics and public policy center senior fellow and washington post columnist henry olsen. later, bill press, host of "the bill press pod" and author of "from the left: a life in the crossfire" will be here with us. we will be right back. ♪ ♪

>> hello everyone. welcome to the national book festival. >> over the past 21 years in partnership with the library of congress, book tv provided in-depth book tv has provided coverage features hundreds of non-fiction authors and guests. and on saturday, book tv returns live and in person to the library of congress national book festival. all day long, you'll interact with guest and authors, such as carla hagen, quinn smith and more. the library of congress national book festival, live saturday, beginning at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span2.

are you prepared for espionage threat facing the united states from china, russia, iran and north korea? a look back into our archives. tonight, on q&a with hoover institution's amy leegrat. >> we're living in a moment of reckoning akin to 9/11 where the intelligence community has to undergo a radical transformation reimagining to deal with the threats that are driven by new technology. and so i think about these threats and driven by technology in terms of five more than they -- that they create for the intelligent community. more threats in cyberspace, more speed. they're moving at faster pace than they were before. more data that intelligence analysts have to confront in the world. more customers that don't have

security clearances that need intelligence. people like voters who need to understand foreign election interference and tech leaders and more competitors. and i think that's probably the most challenging war, which is that u.s. intelligence at sis don't dominate the information like they did in the cold war. >n c-span's q&a. you can listen to q&a on our free c-span now app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back and we are joined by ethics and public policy center senior fellow, and washington post columnist, henry olson who is here to discuss with us campaign 2022 and the political news of the day. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: