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families in need. new tech to boys and girls club and support, whenever and wherever it matters most, we'll be there. >> cox supports c-span as a public service alongith these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ack. we are talking about higher education in america with a of princeton university, christopher ice grouper. he's also chair of the association of american universities. welcome to the program. so you just started your term as chair of the association of american universities. tell us about that organization, the mission, and who the members are. >> is a great honor to be chairing the board. this is a group of about 70 of america's leading research universities. public flagship universities and private universities. what we share in common is a

commitment to educating students at the highest level and the commitment to research of the highest quality that enables our country to enjoy prosperity and promotes the security of the country as well. host: so what are your goals and priorities going to be for the coming year? guest: it's important for the government to continue supporting the kind of research we've had in the united states. what we've done has helped tremendously in this country by having a partnership between the government and its universities. that has proved practical for applied research and basic research and has laid the foundation for later discoveries. so one of the things that i want to do is work very closely and carefully with president barbara snyder to support that funding and congress. we will also help to make the case for what those institutions are doing for our students and the country. host: make that case. how would you describe the current state of higher education in america?

yes: i think the current state of higher education is terrific in the united states. people all around the world seek to come to these universities as students and faculty members. the return on the investment for a four-year college degree, which is what we offer is tremendous. for many families, that investment in higher education be the best investment that they make in their lifetimes, judged just by financial return and other benefits to getting a four-year college degree. the research that are universities produced as a difference maker in terms of our health and information technology, innovation and knobs. host: you talked about return on investment. a college degree has become extremely expensive and it continues to get more and more expensive. outpacing inflation, and it has

been put out of reach for a lot of american students. why is that, why is a college degree so expensive these days? guest: i'm glad the rate that point because i think there are a couple of things and one of the very common narratives and i would love to be able to correct them. the actual cost that people pay for higher education hasn't been going up even at the rate of inflation, it has been going down. that is something you can find in college or data. host: tuition itself has been going up. guest: the sticker price has been going up but what people actually pay is the sticker price minus financial aid. institutions including mine have been raising dollars from alumni and from endowments, so our educations are more affordable than ever. let us use some of our own data around that. 71% of the students at princeton are on financial aid. 71%.

that involves scholarships that are larger than their tuition price. the average student on financial aid at our university is getting a part subsidy in addition to full coverage of the tuition price. we were looking at education, they have to keep two things in mind. one is what matters is the net price and all of the aau institutions are offering significant financial aid to their students, so people have to look carefully at what they are actually going to pay. in the second is the critical question about education is that return on investment, figure out exactly what the net price is and pay attention to what you're getting from that. education isn't a consumer good to be simply used up in the way that something that we purchase our. it is much more like the kind of investments that you make for a long time and it is one of the best investments that you will ever make. host: nonetheless, there are

people taking out a lot of student loans in order to pay for college. do you take a position on student loan forgiveness? guest: the aau doesn't have an official position on student loan forgiveness. we have a commitment to affordability. we believe that the government should increase the pell grants that enable students from low income families to attend college and flourish when they go there. we and other associations have supported the idea of doubling the pell. one of the things i think people need to know if these narratives get out there through stories that i think often are outliers, that these financial aid arrangements, often students are able to graduate without any debt from college. princeton makes a commitment to its students that all of them will get financial aid that will allow them to graduate with zero debt. more than 83% of our students graduate every year debt free. the others are taking out

relatively small loans on a discretionary basis. so the reality when parents are taking a close look at what colleges and other universities are offering is different. host: well you've got to get into princeton first. that's not easy. guest: that is not easy, and we have extraordinary students who are applying. so it's just say that is true in different ways across this extraordinary group and that many colleges and universities that are outside of that, it is not is very selective universities were this is true. host: there has been a decline in enrollment across the board in american universities. is that a concern among university leadership and what is being done to address that? guest: we're seeing a generational shift. we have known that we will see

declines in the numbers of college going students as demographic patterns change. the leading research universities in the applicant pools remain robust and students want to come to our colleges and universities from within the united states and outside the united states remains very strong. i think we are going to see effects in the sector more broadly as these democratic -- demographic shifts take hold. host: if you got a question or comment about higher education in america, you can give us a call. i guessed is president of princeton university. the lines are by party and republicans are on (202) 748-8001. democrats are on (202) 748-8000. an independents, (202) 748-8002. we also have a line for college

students. so if you are currently enrolled in college right now, please give us a call, we would love to hear your perspective on this as well. (202) 748-8003. there have been fewer protests on the gaza war than we have seen in the past. how are schools addressing this issue this school year? guest: what schools have to do around this issue is to respect basically the principles that are part of our united states constitution. that for most of us are part of our university rules as well which is we respect free speech and at the same time, we insist that students and others comply with what are known as time, place and manner restrictions when they are protesting. in the city of washington, d.c. where our government is located to have more freedom to criticize our government than you do in just about any other country in the world.

i think that is a good thing and you have to have that kind of vigorous free speech on college campuses where people can speak about controversial topics like the israel gaza war. on the other hand, we do have rules in the united states and on college campuses. you can't occupy a building, you can't display paint your message on the washington monument and the have to have the same kind of rule on college campuses. that is will be done at princeton and with other universities have done. people have to make sure they speak up in a way that allows everybody to go about business on the campus and doesn't disrupt the activities of the campus. we have to be elevating the conversation. a lot of it is covered a lot of the news media.

what gets the pictures are the students with the signs, but we've got to take those conversations and elevate them. the second i would say is we do want students to be engaged around the issue. there are people who go about their business and don't pay attention to the issues happening in the world. we want our students to grow up to be engaged leaders. it is a right to disrupt, not a light -- a right to -- host: not just the protests, but the freedom of speech aspects. guest: i think we can a good job at princeton. when we asked him about the student experience, and we do this every year, last year students continued to report a high sense of satisfaction with student experience, in fact a little higher than the previous year. you mentioned that because we

important have these tumultuous events, and people get hurt during them. but we are able to give students the kind of educational experience that they want. there are a lot of people who are upset with me about various things that happened on campus. we had students chanting slogans . i am jewish, i have relatives in israel, i found those slogans very offensive but i also felt i had an obligation unde constitution and under our free-speech rules at princeton to procthe rights of people to say things. we also had to enforce our rules when people were violating time, place and manner rules. we were very clear about what those rules were. but what i am proudest of is a number of different event that allowed people to explore these issues in more detailed ways. i'm just going to mention one very quickly. our dean is probably the most

prominent palestinian-american and political scientist in the united states. she did a couple of sessions with her counterpart at columbia's school who is an israeli who was previously in the israeli military. the two of them became friends when they were assistant professors before they became deans of these schools, and in the fall of last year not to long after october 7 they were doing public events at both princeton and columbia in order to model for students what it meant for people with very different backgrounds to disagree with one another and to civilly. those kinds of events don't get the kind of attention that the protest do, but that is the heart of what is going on on college campuses and they don't think it is happening in many other places. host: there is an article, why colleges are turning to institutional neutrality. can you first explain what that means and is that a good approach? >> institutional neutrality is a

kind of slogan that describes a view about when universities should take positions and when presidents should make statements on issues. this has been something that has been discussed among university presidents and other people in higher education for a time and kind of exploded into view after some of those unsuccessful statements that were issued last year. institutional neutrality at universities at a broad level, they ought to be restrained which is a word i like better than neutrality. the idea behind it is that universities ought not themselves to be the critics, they ought not to be taking positions as princeton university it should be the sponsor of critics, they should be enabling faculty and students

to raise their voices. i personally don't like the phrase institutional neutrality. i don't think i've got a neutral institution. i have an institution that stands for the value of research and free speech and people of all backgrounds who should be able to lower it. i think neutrality doesn't express this idea well but i do agree that universities have to be careful not to be taking positions as institutions except in a very limited of circumstances. host: that's talk to callers. syracuse, new york, republican. caller: i am a little bit surprised that we have this gentleman out here saying that he is saying you have to go to college to be successful. princeton is worth the money. mark zuckerberg, other people who have done. successful. mike rowe who has a show about dirty jobs, other jobs that you

don't have to be successful. but i think one person who would agree with you that it was a good idea to get a college degree would be ted kaczynski, the unabomber who went to berkeley. i'm sure he put his degree to good. host: what do you think? guest: thank you for the question. and thank you for the opportunity to clarify what i think about this. i agree entirely that you can be successful in a number of different careers without going to college and i don't think that everybody should go to college. and i think it is very important for us to recognize that as a country and for academic institutions as well as the government to support people who make other choices. on the other hand, what i do believe and what i did say is that the people who want to go to college and the people who make that choice, it is going to

be a spectacularly good investment to go to college. if you just take a look at the data about my institution, or for your college degrees more generally, the return on investment is very strong. it provides you with a lot of other opportunities as well. that doesn't mean it is a smart choice for everybody, it just means that for people who are asking themselves the question i'd like to go to college, the kinds of careers you get by going to college may sound attractive to me. will that investment payoff? the economic news is very good about that, but it is not the right investment for everybody just as other investments are not right for everybody. host: michael in denver, independent line, you're next. caller: thank you so much for taking my call and for being here this morning. i just have a quick comment and question. what i want to bring up is the issue of mental health at colleges.

statistics have shown as high as 40% of students on college campuses are experiencing some form of mental illness. and many times i think the problem is a lack of action that students have in many cases to forms of treatment or services. so the question i was going to ask you about this, what have you implemented or what should be implemented in terms of making sure that students have access to mental health care, and furthermore, identify mental health issues before it is too late? guest: thank you for this question which is so important for our colleges and for our country. what i would say first of all this we are facing a mental health crisis in the united states right now. it is especially acute among young people and that includes both high school aged and what we typically think of as college

aged students. i put it that way because it is not as though this is worse for students were actually in college. the numbers i've seen suggested is actually a bit better for students in college than it is for their peers of the same age and you're absolutely correct. this is an issue that we need to worry about on college campuses and in the country. i will just respond to your specific question a little bit from my own institution at princeton because it is the one that i know best. we work very hard to increase the availability of psychiatric services at princeton. we work hard to educate our students as well as our faculty to recognize signs of distress in themselves or in their peers. we've taken a comprehensive approach to mental health recognizing that mental well-being isn't just a matter of psychological services, it is

a matter of making sure that people feel supported and have ways of talking through problems throughout their life in this academic environment. you are right to bring up the question and i think in terms of access to resources but in terms of understanding what are the sources of this issue? people point to things like loneliness, they point to the impact of social media. we are providing on many of our college campuses better access to the services than people enjoy in their lives after leaving these institutions. we need to find ways to make sure we are producing citizens who are resilient and are able to live flourishing lives, and that goes beyond the care we are able to offer on campus. host:ts previously opponentsed. votes will be taken in thetsed. following order. motions to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 390 and