>> grab your textbooks and credit cards. tonight we're asking is college worth the price tab. i'm carlos watson and this is point taken. >> hi i'm carlos watson. now young adults face a lot of tough questions, should i go to college, can i afford it and by the way which filter should i use on snapchat. in the coming days a lot of high school seniors are sending deposit slips to college all around the country and they're starting down the road to opportunity and maybe but just maybe towards higher debt.

so today we're asking is higher education worth the even higher price. now we wanted to know what you think as well so fine us on the facebook page and live tweet us right about now at hashtag point taken pbs. now remember your point could end up being on national television so don't make any typos. let's meet our debaters. now team yes. they say college is worth the price tag. margaret hoover is an activist and a rocky mountain native, even though she's got involve and joined by randall pinkston journalist and adjunct proar. welcome. one of you guys is going to start us off and give me your top point in 30 seconds. >> 30 seconds for real? okay. here's the point. in general, absolutely i believe college is worth it. if only because it is the sure fire pathway for social mobility for someone who comes from lower economic circumstances as i did. >> there's real data that suggests this. i mean earnings are positively correlated with education. the more education you have the more you earn over the course of a lifetime as much as half a

million dollars more than over the course of your lifetime. plus there are exciliary benefits going to college that you can't put a price tag on it. exposure to multidiscipline. there's so much you can't even quantity fi in addition to that. >> you guys are saying slam dunk. now the team that's saying no way college is like is overpriced and too fast. we've got charlie taibi and coo to on college. joining him is professor robert kelchen. welcome to you both. who will give me the 30 second elevator pitch. >> we definitely can agree that university has sky rocketed over the last couple decades. we want to highlight on the front end students are going to school and reporting over 60% are not socially, emotionally o academically ready for school. that means when they're getting into the classroom they're dropping out at a rate hovering over 50%. >> when students graduate they

tend to do pretty well but debt and no degree is the worst possible outcome in a outcome that students never think they will be in. >> you guys did a much better job and kept it under 30 seconds. i love that all right. now we asked our studio audience before the show is college worth the price tag. 57% say yes. so you guys begin with 43% at the moment saying no. we'll take a second vote tend of the show and see if any minds got changed. now you folk at home we want you to chime in as well go on-line pbs.org/point taken. team yes. you guys say yes college is worth the price tag. margaret i heard you making not only economic arguments but making other benefits. is it really that black and white that clear to you in a world where many people have combined over a trillion dollars in college debt. >> let's look at the statistics. we have our own opinions but we'll argue with the fact. the facts are 70% of college students when you graduate or

finish the four years end up having debt and that debt is $28,000 on average. so there's no, you can't deny that that's significant. and president obama had debt he didn't pay off until he was basically in the u.s. senate. it is a real problem. even peter teleis trying to dissuade students from going and getting college degrees. he said if he had to do it again himself he would get his own college degree. >> a billionaire with two stanford degrees. >> there's real data. the bureau of labor and statistics pure research gallop all of them say you're right if you finish your four years. if you don't finish four year you get two years, any post high school education increases over the course of your lifetime. that's undeniable and leads to a lower chance of unemployment. >> you talk about some of the intangibles which margaret mentioned earlier such as broadened world view. let's say you come from a community where everybody sort of thinks the same way, does the same thing. in society you really need to be

globally aware. going to college has developed that sense of global awareness so that we don't think that our point of view is the only point of view that's valid. >> charlie is it that cut and dry in a world that's almost four times more expensive to go to college than it was a couple decades ago which you heard margaret say people have big bills. is it that black and white that students need to go to college. >> yes. we absolutely need to make sure students are having a more worldly view. do we need to spend $50,000 a year sometimes around that price tag to have these first. yes, these rites to passage is very important. the first time you do drugs, the first time you have sex. >> i love that, that's great. >> does it have to cost that much money, can you do that on a beach in thailand or a local bar. this is a serious, this is a question we need to start asking ourselves.

>> that's why you have a professor to your left. i mean robert how do you think about it because you only got a college degree you went to graduate school and yet if i hear you right you see some caveats that the idea going to college is a good return in investment. >> there's definitely some caveats. finishing is far from guaranteed. on average people even if they don't finish tend to do better. but that's on average. you see a substantial percentage of students taking on maybe 10 or 20,000 in debt. they are struggling to pay off over ten years. maybe 30 years later does it even out. sure. but in the short run you got debt that is extremely difficult to pay. a higher percentage of students default upon less than 5,000 in debt than more than a hundred thousand in debt. >> is there any part of you that looks up and says plumbers when they come to your house still make a good living. mechanics still make a good living. for not just a few people but a large number of people they should actively be thinking

about something other than $30,000 of debt or more. >> to your point for sure college is not for everyone. and i would also add another point. there are colleges that cost less than $50,000 a year. there are also community college for young people who might not see the likelihood or logic of going to school for four years but went to school for two years and get a really great education. >> i think we're arguing that college there's an expanded definition of college. college can be two year or four year college or any post-secondary education. and i would like to see a more robust vocational educational system developed in this country which we don't really have. >> in germany. >> yes. then you would have that. you would have more economic benefits. but the fact is, if you have a high school degree and you are a plumber you don't have any post-secondary education, your earnings now are 62% less than somebody with a four year college. >> do you think it has to be that way. i'm purposely playing devil's advocate. do you think it has to be that

way or this is a world where people can increasingly learn skills on youtube, can take a entrepreneurial path. are we living a dream in the 21st century. >> we can find a common ground. there's a straight jack other for the four year ba. brick and mortar institution is becoming obsolete. being accredited and having learned skills without having that ba degree. i think there's an expanded definition how to educate people. but the fact is and i think we would argue is that education even though it's expensive is still worth doing for all of the societal benefits in addition. >> i wonder if in fact we have reached a point, and we've read this is true, where a college degree is now more or less equivalent to what a high school degree was like 30, 40 years ago. it is a gatekeeper.

it is like the first one of the requirements, the metrics that a potential employer looks at to see, do you have what it takes to focus, to be dependable, to carry through on task, to learn. and every job requires constant learning, retraining, on the job training. professor, would you disagree with that? >> it's one of the easiest ways for employers to say do you have basic skills. because they can't easily sit down and give you a test. because they face the risk of a lawsuit. and some of the economic benefits of the college degree is getting that piece of paper, not necessarily what you wanted. >> so charlie, it seems too easy to say that college is a slam dunk and yet i talked to young person after young person who is saying i went to school to study film and i'm working as a baker. i went to school to study english and i'm competing for a part time job at starbucks. i mean, how do you speak to that

in a real world in which you got not one, two or three people but literally there's more student debt than there is car debt. there's more student debt for many people than there's credit card debt. how do you think about that. >> i think where if you can stump the price tag of going to school and let's be honest. a lot of this conversation has been framed around these private institutions that are degree seeking full time undergraduate. and that is just grossly not a good lens to look at this problem. >> even the public ones are much more expensive even a place like massachusetts. we see including room and board. you can walk out of there with 30,000 in debt. >> that's only one third. like flagship must be universities and private schools is only one third of the institutions we're talking about in this conversation totally eliminating two thirds of students coming out. who are stomaching the price tag. that could be anything from a community college price tag all the way up to nyu today it's up to $73,000 a year which is a lot of money.

so you are able, you go to school and you are running through it just to get a degree at the end. then you get this degree and you're not really being trained for what the work force is. i think we have to be careful is this the only reason you're going to school. yes earnings over your lifetime are going to be positive but i think a lot of reasons why parents are willing to take on the debt for their children is not because just on earnings, they want them to be happier, they want them to feel they van it pack on the -- have an impact on the world and reach their full potential. with crushing debt after four years out of school you can't really think about those. >> wait a second. we're going to take a little midterm here. it's the segment that we love and we call it fact check. i'm going to pose a factor question and then each of the teams will give me an answer. to be clear it's not an open book test but you can work with your partner. so here we go. all right question number one everybody. everybody ready? everyone good. if you're between 25 and 34 years old.

are you more likely to have a college degree or live at home. between 25 and 34 more likely to have a college degree or live at home. aren't you the jeopardy music. all right, here we go. get the answer here. so the question again for those of you at home was if you're between 25 and 34 years old are you more likely to have a college degree or to live at home? in 2016. >> right now. >> as opposed to a century from now. >> 2011, 37% of millennialed had boomeranged and were living with their parents because of the recession. >> how do you know that. >> because i read a book about it. i know that's declined since then because the economy has recovered. >> what are you guys saying in are you guys saying more live at home or more have a degree? >> more live at home.

>> okay. >> over here. >> i would say it's close but live at home. >> close but live at home. okay. the answer, scroll. the answer is college degree about 36% have a bachelor's degree and 14% live at home. improving economy. it's some very generous parents i'm sure would point out, some people fall in both categories. the parents are definitely doing both. all right back to question number two. all right. so i love this one. what is the most popular college major? i will give you a few seconds to discuss. most popular college major.

>> that's what they graduate with. >> what they major in. >> people are reaching for life lines over here. all right. we're going to get to the good stuff. that could become the margaret hoover. i love that. here we go. so the question again was what is the most popular college major. we'll go to you guys first. what do you say. >> undeclared. >> undeclared. >> interesting. that's a little what we call trickerration. i like that, okay. >> business. >> business, okay. the correct answer is business. over here, the good people. a fifth of all degrees in 2011, 2012. so not the margaret hoover were business. which of course is the perfect major if you're going to pay off that one trillion dollars.

all right. let's continue to take a look at how americans feel about the college's price tag. we've got an exclusive point taken survey from our friends. they do these special surveys for us every week and this past week they asked is college worth the price tag or not. here's what they found. 55% of americans said yes, it is worth the price tag. so some of our studio audience. while 38% said no, not worth it. but consider this other interesting fact. when asked of the cost of college is out of reach for most american families, 75% of those same people agreed, 23% disagreed. so margaret, interesting. you are hearing folks saying college is worth it but they are worried that it's out of reach for a lot of people. how do you hear that? >> what that means to me is that we're in dire and desperate need for reform for the system. it feels, frankly navigating the financial aid process is an extraordinarily difficult process.

i mean there's tons, there's like a 35 page formula you have to fill out about all of your needs and your parents. and the barrier to entry feels incredibly frustrating and it feels too big. >> how aggressively would you reimagine it. the presidential election, we've heard a variety of thoughts on what to do here. how aggressive would you be. >> for radical reformation and for massive simplification. i think you heard especially both on the right and the left. i'm not one of these people who think the government should pay for everybody who goes to college but it does need to be made more affordable. the government has been tipping the balances to making sure, frankly facilitating the increase in tuition. you can do things like amend student debt repayment. people pay back their student debts as their income fluctuate over time. so make that more correlated. >> you vary the price tag based on what you make.

>> there should be trans parency when you go to university so you know how much graduates this university makes when they have this major so you know when you get out what you're signing up for and what you're likely to earn. >> another point and it may be i don't understand why it is that college students can't get lower interest rates on their loans. they are prohibited. everybody else could refinance, why couldn't a college student. >> there are very aggressive moves even in the private market now to allow that. let me jump over to you guys. how aggressively would you reimagine given that we all agree that the load is heavy. would you have taxpayers pay for it. would you make other changes? what would you do? >> you know, i mean i'll go along with margaret here with the point taken and say something needs to be done. i think what we're seeing now is there has been this surge in all these boot camps coming out. students want to know and those

outcomes are important. >> how aggressive would you be with that, would you shut down those who don't perform. >> i'm going to go out and say a lot of the colleges in this country are not setting your students up for success. >> may i add something else too. and this is part and parcel of what parents have to do. you can get a degree from an inconstitution that costs you $50,000 a year or go to one that costs you $30 a year. i've done some teaching at the university of mississippi at the school of journalism and some students have come to mississippi because they are in state tuition is more expensive than the out of state tuition. i know a lot of folks don't want to go to mississippi but it's a great school. >> you're saying to families look around,. >> yes, look around. there are accredited institutions of higher learning. people from all over the world go there but people tend to have

like blinders on when it comes to certain part of the countries and certain state schools. maybe they should take those blinders off. >> margaret you have many connections to many universities like stanford where the former president once said they think they should get rid of the idea of college as four years and we should try to get it done in three years, maybe simpler. would you be in favor of something like that. >> absolutely. look, i don't think there's any law written anything that says you are fully educated after a ba degree. and it can't be tied into three years. you want to enhance learnings and enhance skills. you want critical thinking skills and broaden world view. steve jobs didn't ebb finish school. steve jobs was except of ceptional he wasn't an ordinary period. but he dropped out and took calligraphy. what he said about calligraphy it impacted what he thought about design. imagine if steve jobs hadn't taken that calligraphy class.

>> not a good look. charlie, talk to me on the other side because the reason why you're helping to lead this group called uncollege. lay it out crisply why even given the various benefits that margaret and randall was saying you still think large numbers of students should be looking away from college at least in current days. >> the big point for us on college is assistants are going in and they're not just presented. it's not that there's no value in college. that's why we try to stay away from the argument learning versus not learning we're not saying that at all. what we want colleges understand is they're great at teaching content. they are not great for you exploring who you are as a person and figuring out what you want to do. going through a course catalog and saying i'm going to take this credit this credit and this credit and this will maybe transfer over to major but maybe not and all of a sudden two years becomes four years and four years becomes six years and 50% of people are dropping out. we're not doing a good job preparing them. we're trying to take it back and say if college is the right pat

-- path for you, go. >> robert take the magic wand. big change, what big change would you bring to the system. >> i think the big change that needs to come is additional accountability for college's outcomes. that can take the form of requiring colleges to report earnings by major as you said or requiring them to be responsible for a portion of student loan defaults and that's an idea going around congress right now. >> that actually is very interesting the same way they're now making cfo's and ceo's of companies sign off they are not running their numbers. that would be very interesting if they made the same thing happen in university campuses. provocation, we like that. all right. great discussion today but the question remains, did any minds change. let's check in with the studio audience. now audience here's where you started. 57% said that college was worth the price. 43% said no it isn't. please pick up your remote and tell us how you feel. click one if you think it's

worth it. two if you say no way it's too expensive. and you good folks at home are invited too. get us on-line facebook or twitter. when the studio audience votes. point taken we believe we can always learn something new even from people you disagree with. so team yes, what's the best point you heard from charlie and robert today. >> well i liked the idea about more accountability. i think it's absolutely essential in any field but especially when you're dealing with such a huge financial investment and also investment in time. as someone says, time, what is it, money can't get you time but time can get you money. anyway, more accountability. >> and good singing. all right. you guys over here. robert and charlie, team no. most compelling most interesting. maybe most unexpected point you heard from margaret and randall today. >> i'd focus on the non-economic

benefits that can come from college. that you can meet interesting people. that you can network. that you can discover new interests. and those are thing that if you don't go to college you need to find some other way, even to meet a spouse. >> well, there's that. >> i think for you, the point robert started off making really the gap that we have is that you have kids who are starting college and not finishing. not only are they not having their degree, their earning capacity has gone down and they have the debt. and that's the point we started off with. >> i like people are taking points. so back to our studio audience. now remember before the debate 57% said yes, 43% no. what do you think happened? 60% now say yes and 40% say no.

charlie, why do you think you lost a little bit of the people. not to put everything on you. >> i think that, you know again we need to look at what a lot of these statistics are saying right now and making sure we're framing it in the right way and talking about majority of americans who are going to school and not just a subset of people. i don't know if we did a good job highlighting that. >> randall last big thought. >> i think we ought to do something to the school that promise a lot and give the students nothing. i'm not talking about mainstream education institution. >> a for profit school. >> yes. >> i thought i would hear that. >> you only gave us 26 minutes. >> all right. with that, i really want to thank my terrific guests, margaret hoover, author randall pinkston journalist, thank you both. [applause] >> charlie taibi from on college

and long island originally and robert kelchen. good to see you again. [applause] >> hey, so if you enjoyed the debate you probably also follow politics. so after today's voting in five key primary states the race is for the democratic and republican nominations are shifting once again. so it's not going to be boring so don't miss the pbs newshour tomorrow night for the latest news and analysis. we're going to keep going on-line and on social. that's it for us though on the broadcast. i'm carlos watson for all of us here at point taken. good night and good luck. on our way to cal ball, pauline stops to show off. after classes times to relax before homework and a time to reflect on a luring style to make any girl a sweetheart from

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