captioning sponsored by newsho productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woo on the newshour tonight: ounew wave of migrant families reaches the u.s.ern border, stretching resources available to respond to those eking legal asylum here. then, a deal between the trump administration and the taliban is on the horizon, but what will be the price of peace in afghanistan? plus, generation z is off to college, and they have some serious concerns about student loans. >> i feel like i'm scared of taking out loans just because the word "debt" is just very intimidating. >> woodruff:ll that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> woodruff: the struggle over making the report byal counsel robert mueller public is .ntensifyi it was widely reported today that the document is more an 300 pages long. the disclosure brought fresh criticism of u.s. attornne l william barr. he issued a four-page letter summarizing some of the findings on sunday. house speaker nancy pelosi ands other democrsaid barr's synopsis is grossly inadequate. >> no, thank you, mr. attorney general. we do not need your interpretation. show us the report, and we can drawur own conclusions. we don't need you interpreting for us. it was condescending. it was arrogant. and it wasn't the right thing to do. >> woodruff: barr says he will release at least a partial version of the repornext month, but not by this tuesday, as democrats have demanded. meanwhile, president trump demanded that house intelligence committee chair, democrat adam schiff, resign, for claiming

that the trump campaign colluded with russia. according to barr's summary, the mueller report found no collusion. house minority leader kevin mccarthy, along with nine republicans on the intelligence committee, joined the president's call today. >> the idea that you would have a chairman of a committee of this nature. ate work that is involved in this committee, ould lie to the american public, not apologize, but use the tactics of joe mccarthy to attk his own members. there is nothing that can come anfrom this committee thate trusted. >> woodruff: schiff stood by his past remarks today, citing a list of me of the trump circle and russians. and, house speaker pelosi defended schf as, "a patriotic leader." a small tanker ship that was hijacked by migrants off libya, has docked safely in malta, and five ringleaders have been arrested. the vessel initially picked up 108 migrants with plans to take

them back to libya. but, some in the group seized control of the ship and tried to force it to to europe. maltese special forces took back control of the ship today and guided it to port. in saudi arabia, three women's rights activists are now free, temporarily, after ten months in prison. the associated press reports they were let go a aay after nearozen women appeared in court. th spoke of being physical and sexually abused by interrogators. the activists have pushed for the right to drive and other freedoms. back in this country, the u.s. house voted today to oppose the trump administration's ban on transgender peoplemierving in thtary. the non-binding resolution passed along party lines. democrats called the policy "targeted discrimination." republicans said today's vote was really aut sending campaign messages. they argued it out, on the house

floor. >> today this houshas a chance to not repeat the mistakes ofr st. to move one step closer to that sacred promise, by telling bravo trans men ann in uniform that they ca ot be banned from military service because of who they are. >> if we were to really be discussing the substance of the issue rather than a messaging bill, then we could talk about the high standards for military service without special accommodation and there would be a substantive discussion. that's not what we're doing today. >> woodruff: transgender troops, the administration's policy bars people who have undergone gender transition, from enlisting in the military. those already in the ranks must serve in their original, biological gender. the policy is being challenged in court.es ent trump says he is backing off his budget request

to cut federal funding for the special olympics. the proposal drew heavy criticism from democrats and on social media. the education department made the same proposal in the two previous budget years, but it died in congress. the california horse racing tboard voted today to lim use of whips in racing statewide. that follows the dths of 22 horses at santa anita park. otjockeys argued whips hadng to do with the deaths. after public comment, the board must vain before the measure takes effect.we the c.e.o. os fargo, tim sloan, is stepping down after less than four years on the job. he took control amid revelations that employees opened millions of bank accounts, fraudulently, to meet sales goals. he vowed to clean things up, but more scandals erupted, and

wells fargo ultimately paid $1 billion federal fine. and, the u.s. commerce department has cut its estimate of growth at the end of 18 to an annual rate of just 2.2%. the initial esmate was 2.6%. despite that, wall street managed modest gains. the dow jones industrial average was up 91 points to close at 25,717. the nasdaq rose 25 points, and the s&p 500 added ten. law enforcement struggles with the growing number of migrant families at the u.s. southern border. what happens once peace is achieved in afghanistan?e wsuits against opioid producing drug companies. and, much more. woodruff: we turn now to the u.s.-mexico border, wherera feimmigration officials

say they are overwhelmed by the massive influx of fami seeking asylum. amna nawaz begins ourage, with reporting and production help from cronkite news at arizona pbs. >> nawaz: in el paso, texas, d migranained by the u.s., crammed under a bridge behind fencing and razor wire. officials say nearby detention center is past capacity from a surge in arrivals-- mostly families and childn. on twitter today, president trump accused mexico of "doing nothing to help stop the flow," and he threatened to "close the southern border." some of his top aides are echoing the president's message. in el paso on wednesday, the customs and border protection mmissioner, kevin mcaleenan, warned that his agency is at a breaking point. >> with the flows at these levels and increasing, combined with the lack of bed space for our partners, it means that we will be continued to be ouallenged to provide humane care for those in r custody. >> nawaz: overall, the total

number of people crossing the l u.s.-mexico border is stll below historic highs in 2000, but they have crept up in recent months. customs and border protection says 3,700 people were detained monday alone, the largest one-day totain a decade. they estimate this month's total uld reach 100,000. c.b.p. has responded by moving 7 some staff from internal theckpoints, down to the border. but officials say e still isn't room forveryone detained. as a result, many families and children, pending immigration hearings, are being released at bus stops or chu- the same so-called "catch and release" practice president trump has condemned. volunteers who work with migrts say they are struggli to keep up. reverend raul saatado is pastor evolution church in tucson, arizona >> the numbers, when we started back in november, deceer, we started off with 50 a day. now we're upo like 100 a day,

so they've just been going up higher and higher. >> nawaz: yesterday in honduras, homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen spoke with central american leaders about the violence and instability forcing people to flee north. she appealed fe help. >>e facing an unprecedented regional crisis. the united states has gone from facing a crisis, to an emergency, to an almost complete shattering of our system. >> nawaz: officials from honduras, guatemala and el salvador have now agreed to joint police operations to fight human trafficking and smuggling. and,exico announced it is sending federal forces to its southern border, as more groups make their way north. meanwhile, with little action from lawmakers, and the white house calling for extreme measures, these famili and children remain stuck in the middle of a political battle. bob moore has been covering this story for "texas monthly." he joins me now over skype from el paso, texas. bob, welcome to the "newshour".

we can't s this enough -- lume isn't the problem here, it's demographics, right? there's not more people coming er the border,eth just more families a children. om what you've seen there, how is this creating a capacity issue for immigration system? >> so much of our border security infrastructe and even the debate we have around border security is trapped in th 1990s. the truth is that the infrastructure that we have, particularly the boarder patrol is not eqipped to handle families coming across. it's a force that's been ilt to stop people from sneaking across, not dealing with large families coming across to surrender. that system has become overwhelmed and, in turn, as the numbers increase, the volunteer network in el paso that's housed these migrants, and fed tem, has also become overwhelmed. m> the images are coming fro the border. you have been tweeting out some of them. a couple before the press conference yesterday that cbb

commissioner. give me the backstory open the photos. >>ithe pss conference was te bridge with just a main port of entry intofr el pasm mexico, and there are hundreds of people, mostly families, being detained under that bridge out in the open. there are milar blankets scattered everywhere. you see the desperate faces of people who don't know what's happening to them now, and that's something completely new. it's the sign of the capacity of the boarder patrol being exhausted. they have no place for the people as they process them they're holding them under an international bridge. >> have you ever seen anything like that? >> it took my breath away. again today, when i walked over the bridge into ciudad juarez,

you could hear babies crying derneath. that is a completely new experience. nothing like we've seen before. >> let me ask you about the legal ports of entry beci'ause walked across the bridge with legal asylum seekers. there s a process where they were limiting the number of people from entering. is that still a problem? >> it's a huge issue. there are still agents at the top of the bridge that are prepared to turn back anybody who doesn't have the properd documents asically put them in a long line in juarez to wait for their turn to come seek asylum. that system has ground almost to a complete stop now. they're letting very few if any people as, and one of the changes that the commissionerer announced yey, which is the redeployment of 750 people from ports of entry to help with thisraig processing issue, is going to make problems even worse because a lot of the agents they're deploying are the people who would process asylum

seekers at the port of entry. so the administration repeatedly says the way to seek asylum to come to a port of entry and make your quests in compliance with the law. that process has stopped. there's esentially no way for people to do that on the southwest border right now. >> reporter: so let me ask you about that.ha therbeen talk about a new processing facility potentially being built over several mon in el pass o. you mentioned several solutions presented.pe it's hard foople to understand how cbp which is under d.h.s. and is one of the best-fundeagencies in th government, how this is the only option for them, which is people behind a fence and razor wire under a bridge. >> it is not the only option. it's the option they've chosen. in 2016, we had another large influx in el pass to, and one of the things t cbp did at the time was to set up a processing center at another port of entry where people were staying in

tents for a while but well cared for. there are otr options available, and i don't want to put this all on the administration either. this is a complete i political failure at every level -- congress, the administration. we've had five years of warning that this was coming, and we've done nothing in terms of response to prepare boarder patrol to handle this, to ajust laws to handle this influx of similies. it's a mas political failure. >> reporter: a few seconds left, bob. what do you expect to see next? will the numbers continue where they are, go don, up? >> as the weather warms, we're going to see more and molere peaking the journey north from central america. as it stands right now, about one in every 200 guatemalans and one in every 150 hondurans hascr alreadsed this border in the next six months. those are staggering numbers that i don't thi the american people fully comprehend and, as i said, as the weather warms,io

that's tradlly the migratory season, we'll see a growing inf the commissioner mentioned yesterday 100,000 people had been taken into cusdy this month. i could see that doubling or tripling in the coming months. >> reporter: bob moore ining us from el pa, texas. thank you very much. good to talk to you. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: the u.s. is currently negotiating with the taliban to find an ende america's longest war. tonight, chief u.s. negotiator zalmay khalilzad is in europe, briefing allies and trying to set up a meeting that will include the taliban and the afghan government. but a new u.s. government report out today asks a fundantal question: is afghanistan ready for a peace al, and the american withdrawal that would come with it? here's nick schifr.

>> nick schifrin: for more than 17 years, american troops have fought, and more 2,400 have died to bring peace to afghanistan. for more than 17 years, afghans have struggled to find stability, and transform a non- existent bureaucracy into a functioning government. and now that the u.s. is pursuing its most serious ever lks with the taliban, jo sopko has a warning.im >> it'rtant for the policy-makers now to plan now for what we call the day after. don't wait until then. if you fail to plan, it's a plan to fail. ne schifrin: sopko is the special inspector l for afghanistan reconstruction, a government-funded watchdog whose job is to iticize government spending. in washington, he's controversial. was once dubbed the "donald trump of inspectors general," and is unabashedly outspoken. >> i go back to what, you know, president truman said. and i'll paraphrase it.

if you're insptor general and you're doing your job and you want a friend in washington, go buy a dog. >> schifrin: today, his office released a report that lays out the risks of any peace deal. top of the list, insecurity. for civilians, afghanistan has never been more dangerous, and 45,000 soldiers and police have been killed since 2014. owe u.s. provides indispensable training and fir, and the goal of the peace talks is to agree with the taliban on a u.s. withdrawal. >> a lot of support for the afghans over the last few years have been from our advisors, as well as our firepower from military operations. that is essential forin ining what, in essence, is a stalemate. if that disappears, you run the risk of the country even gting worse. >> the afghans cannot afford the

government they currently have. schifrin: of the government's $5 billion domestic budget, more than half comes from international donors. ghanistan's defense budget is $6.5 billion, of which $4.9 billion is paid by u.s. taxpayers. >> if there's a deal and we don't continue to ghpport the government financially, as well as technically, but financially, the government wil. collap >> risk three, reintegrating taliban fighters. over the long term as many as 60,000nsurgents will hand in their >> schifrin: over the long-term, as many as 60,00armed insurgents are going to need to hand in their weapons, and will expect jobs, training, and even land >> there is a tendency we have seen to think that, miraculously, the problems will disappear once there's peace. if you want sustainable peace, you have to focus on, how do you reintegrate, disarm, and reintegrate those taliban back into afghan society? >> schifrin: risk number four, protecting afghanistan's gains.

of 320 parliament seats, 63 are held by women. 6,000 women are police, soldiers, judges, or attorys. nearly 70,000 women are teachers, and tens of thousands of girls are in school-- all unthinkable under the talin. ambassador zalmay khalilzad, who leads the u.s. talks with the taliban, promises to defend those gains. >> we will speak loudly and clearly for the values that we have. the values of human , value of freedom of the press, women's rights. >> schrin: but the taliban enshrouded and often executed women, and the peace talks have faced bipartisan skepticism. today's taliban negotiators promise a more liberal policy toward women. sopko isn't sure, and says the risk is not only humanitarian,al bu financial. >> i've talked to u.s. legislators. i've talked to parliamentarians from other gnoernments. an of them have expressed an interest in support

afghan government, even if peace is declared. if that afghan government is going back to taking rights away from wom and children. >> schifrin: the u.s. has spent $130 billion reconstructing afghanistan. but the government remains one of the world's most corrupt, and any peace deal could limit oversight of financial assistance. >> the afghans don't have, in many cases, the will, at the ministerial level, or thepa lity to protect that money. and if that's the way we go, then you might as well j dt pile up tlars and burn them on the streets of kabul. that's how usel it will be to us and to the afghan people. >> schifrin: sopko's language is designed to alarm. and while he and so many want afghanistan to find peace, he warns, peace carries risks that can imperil all the money, and all the lives spent for afghantan's future. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin.

>> woodruff: new york state today filed what was called the most comprehensive lawsuit yet against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and members of the sackler family. the sacklers are the founding family that owns purdue pharma,r which manufactoxycontin, an opioid sold and abused throughout the crisis. more than 400,0 people have died in the past two decades from overdoses involving legal and illegal opioids, according to the federal gernment. at least three dozen states and more than 1,500 cities and counties arelso taking opioid manufacturers to court. purdue pharma is directly inhe bulls eye because oxycontin was so widely used and its marketinr tices have been blamed. as william brangham explains, the latest lawsuit comes as purdue pharma considers filingru

for bacy. >> brangham: the concern is that if purdue pharma ds file for bankruptcy, the ability of all those states and cities to recover damages will be greatly delayed and reduced, by perhaps billions of dollars. in filing her state's lawsuit today, new york attorney general letitia james seemed to target that very issue. the suit itself explicitly seeks to claw back money from members of the sackler family, alleging they fraudulently transferred profits from purdue to themselves. >> this lawsuit contains detailed allegations about the sackler family and their attempts to hide the vast fortunes they collected at the expense of actual lives. in an attempt to shield these fortunes fromo families se loved ones have been killed by their products, we allege that the family has elicitly transferred fundsr fom purdue to

personal trusts so that they are potentially outside to have the reach of law enforcement and our efforts to seek resontitur penalties. pa in a >> brangham: in a te development, earlier this week, purdue and the sacklers settled with the state of oklaho for $270 million, just months ahead of what would have been a televised trial where that stato took purduourt. barry meier has been following all this closely. he wrote a book about purdue pharma called "pain killer: an empire of deceit and the origin of america's opioid epidemic." separate development barry, welcome back to the "newshour". let's start talkingt first off, abis new york case. the attorney general in new york is arguing that mebers of the sackler family somehow siphoned off profi from purdue, stashed them away and that that constitutes fraud e way they did it. explain her argument. rt>> william, this is all of a legal chess game going on around the bankruptcy issue.

frst, purdue laid down a marker by saying, well, we're getting sued by so many people, we may have to seek bankruptcy and, us, everyone suing us is going to be left out in the cold.pu thated the attorney general in oklahoma to strike a quwik settlementh them and now new york is coming in and saying, wait a minute, not so fast, we're going to stake a claim that the sackler family has been siphoning off money.tr so if yo to file for bankruptcy, we're going to go after them and claw back this money for restitution. >> so the argument in that case is, if you kno iyour compa facing this avalanche of lawsuits, and it might go bankrupt, you're not allowed to siphon money off from that company. >> yeah, there's a general concept called, i believe, fraudulent conveyance. i'm not a lawyer, but if you're, like, facing an avalanche of litigation, and you say, you know, cousin joe, take

100 million and stick it in the bahamas somewhere, that doesn't likely help you at the end of the day if it comes out you did that. >> we should say purdue vigorously denies the charges calling them basis. the sackleramily als called the suit aid misgued attempt to ace blame where it does not belong. but the new york storage's caset tathe sackler family also with regard to theeir bhavior with regard to the manufacring of the drug. what are they air do youing in that regard? >> what we're seeing in all then lawsuits and tw york attorney general kind of went another step further is theth clai the sackler family was intimately involved in the operation of purdue, that they directed some of the illegal marketing activities o purdue or knew about them and benfrefited them. obviously, the family absolutely denies that.

they said we didn't know anything wrong was going on, and we moved quickly to stop it, but, you know, the litigation, is you know, pulling up documents that are raising questions about that and, ultimately, we will find out, hopefully one way or another, just what they knew and when they knew it. >> with regards to the oklseahoa lement, $250 million, you seem to be arguing that oklahoma looked at this potential looming bankruptcy and said let's just try to get what we can now before the company goes chpter 11. is that accurate? >> yeah, absolutely. i think the attorney general of that state made itery clear in his comments that they were prompted by pure -- you kno this specter that purdue used of ling for bankruptcy. e fact, two to have the purdue family members weated to be deposed in new york city about a week ago. those depositions wereut off and, lo and behold, th

settlement sort of materialized quickly after that. and i think he was quite cle that, you know, yes, they could have won a lot more money potentiallif they went to trial, but they went observe the bird in the hand type theory. >> barry meier, as always, thank you very much. >> it's a real pleasure, william. thank you. r woodruff: from the muel investigation to health care, it has been another busy week in washington. but how are those political debates resonating outside the nation's capital? for some clues, we turn to connie schultz. she is a pulitzer-prize winning columnist, and journalismes prr at kent state university in ohio. and, chris buskirk. editor of the conservativeur l and website "american greatness," and based in phoenix. >> woodruff: the amount of

hello to both of you, and welcome. let me just first ask you so our audience knows, how do you hear from americans? how do you communicate -- how do you run into ordary people? chris buskirk. >> well, iell you, the way a lot of people do, i guess. i mean, as you be, judy, i'm on the road a lot so see people all over the country just in the ordinary course of doing business, talking to people, psinterpersonal relations that sort of thing, but i also get a tremendous amount of email every day, which i try very hard to answer l of it. but between twitter and social media and email,l specially emtill, which is, actually, i think great, i hear from a lot people every day, and it just -- it's helpful to keep -- you know, kind of keep me listening to what other peoplere are saying whoot doing politics for a living. >> and, connie, wt about you? pretty much the same. i live in the city of cleveland, do my own grocery, go to the s drugstornd in line a lot, run into a lot of people everywhere. i get a loofemail.

i can't possibly respond to all of it. my facebook page is a p page but open to the public, and we have a lot of publicon discusthere virtually every day, so that's one of the ways i keep in touch with the rest of america. >> woodruff: i think it's important for us to hear that aa wee these conversations. let's talk about the mueller report. as you know, it was released this past weekend or least a very brief summary of . chris buskirk, the white house says he's been vindicated, democrats are saying i want to see the whole thing. where doe stand onhis? >> the president has been vindicated. for two years we have been hearingns the cnt drum beat, donald trump is the puppet of putin and all the sort of things that spin out from that. there have been all sorts of irresponsible talk about how the president is going nd up in jail, he's going to be impeached because he does the bidding of the kremlin, and mueller, you know, with a team of -- you know, he took a lot of flack because his team of lawyers was

mostly democrats, was mostly people who had donated a lot of money todillary clinton, these were people who spent almost two years, and they just couldn't find any he have had of sothat. so nome of the rhetoric we're hearing, well, you know, we haven't seen the whole report. look, these are people who are just trying to figure out what they can say to ty to keep the egg off their face. >> woodruff: connie schultz, what does it look like to you from cleveland? >> well, i don't think that part of the response is very helpful. i'm a journalist, so i likely want to see the full report. i think we should be asking fori that a think the public deserves to see it. i will say most people who are reaching out to me are notb talkingut mueller. this is something activists on both sides care about. the number o issue i'mhearing about -- well, it's been ongoing but especially theisek again is healthcare. >> woodruff: that raises the question, chris buskirk, and yoi touched on ts because you're now hearing from the president, from republicans today in the congress, that journalists, that any elected officials who are t there talking about this for the last few years, making

suggestions that there was some sort of conspiracy, should be punished for it. i mean, is that what you thi voters want? y much onit depends ve the voters you're talking about. there are certainly some voters who do want it. think what people want is for journalists to uphold the standards that they have told everybody that they adhere to anthat is not just to repeat stories they hear from operatives at fusion g.p.s. or from operatives of a political campaign. in other words, go do the digging, and that's how you build trust with people.nk i that would go a long way is the people who got this story wrong is just to do wht a normal person would do and say, you know what, i think i got th wrong, maybe i got out ahead over my skis. sorry, missed that one and i willry to do better i think that will go a long way toward restoring trust in the media in general. >> woodruff: connie, is there a moment for accountability or

what? >> i think the's always a moment for reflection in our reporting and i think i see it every day in our journalists. i think it's really dismissive to suggest that the number of journalists who have been working on this story for a long time, investigating it at great length, who go through check and double-check and recheck, all the while being demonized by this president who is calling them the enemy of the people and putting them in ptential peril and physical danger -- i've talked to more than one editor of news organizations who tell us some of their more prominent journalists have had to have securi because of viont threats against them. so if we talk about the role of journalists, let's start with that, because thiss unprecedented in our country. i'm really proud to be a journalist, couldn't be prouder of the prfession right now. there are always times for us to be reflective. we me mistakes and i don't know any other profession in the country that so publicly admitsu themckly and responds to them and corrects them as journalists w. >> woodrufll, there's so much to ask about this and wie

ering to have you all back to continue that cotion, but iquickly want to pivot, chris, to healthcare, because that's what the president did this week. he came right out of the gate darlier in the week and sai we're going to make the republican party the party of healthcareep his justicetment is now seeking to completely overturn the affordable care act. this a goomove, a smart move on the part of the administration? >> well, i guess i characterize it this way, it might be. i look at this as an opportunity for the president to really do something that is substantive on the policy frnt and something that speaks directly to the middlend working class an some of the pressure, the economic pressure that they have come under, and if he does more than just tweet about this -- and i hope he does -- if he really turnshis into part of his we are election campaign and says, look, we didn't like obamacare, we didn't like thefo able care act, we overturned it, but we didn't

just do that, here's how we're going to make healthcare better, more accessible, morre affordable, dependable, that could be a winning issue for him and i hope i. >> woodruff: connie schultz? ell, his own republican leadersh in congress wishes he wouldn't do this again. what i found sign instructive -- instructive last year -- i'm married to sharrod brown, and in his campaign last year, there were a nuber of focus groups broken into men and women. i sat in anid what found interesting is the movement we saw close to election day, thepr men weretty much entrenched, but women were starting to peel er family separations, because they are mothers andot granrrers -- not suggesting you have to be that but that was a number of them -- but also healthcare. healthcare was number one. many of them were healthcare workers, many were the primary gare givers for family members who need healthcare and they were scared to death about what s going to happen to the

healthcare of their families and people they care about. and interesting, too, i wanto remind all journalists always, not a single trump voter we asked throughout the campaign was on twitter. >> woodruff: again, a subject we're going to come back to. it's a big one, healthcare. connie schultz, chris bus we will be having both of you back. we thank you. >> thanks a lot.ju . am woodruff: the amount of student loan debicans hold is at a record high. and much of it is shoulded by millennials-- people now in thr late 20s and 30s. which means that young people coming ang behind them, in what's called generation z-- those born after 1996-- are facing some tough choices about how to pay for college. as economics correspondent paul solman learned, some are taking lessons from what's happened to

eir older brothers and sisters. it is part of our weeklygm t, "making sense." >> reporter: this is the famous gate here of columbia. you've all visited here >> yeah. >> reporter: students across th coune clamoring to get into to schools like columbia university, where barely 6% of applicants are accepted, despite its cost: $74,000 a year. including room and board. more than $10,000 greater than the typical u.s. household earns in a year. >> for us, my family, college expenses are not the easiest thing to pay for. >> reporter: for gen z, the post-millennials, today's college prices may just be too high. >> going to a c.u.n.y. has become an option. >> reporter: c.u.n.y. meaning a city university of new york. >> right. >> reporter: the cost at c.u.n.y.? iomere $6,500 a year in tu and students can live at home. personal finance guru beth kobliner had assembled a group of economically-diverse new yors

city gen z'eall high schoolers-- part of the first wave of gen z to reach college age. we crossed broadway to barnard a women's college, long tied to columbia. price? about the same. >> this school is $70,a year. >> reporter: $70,000? >> $70,000 a year. d... >> reporter: $70,000... $70,000 a year. now, that's room, board, tuition and... and a car? ( laughter ) but don't just look at the sticker price, because schools offer financl aid, says barnard's v.p. of enrollment jennifer fondiller. >> barnard, and many schools, are offering tremendous amount in financial aid. we meet 100% of need, which means that if your famy can't afford the cost of barnard,in we're goto help you and meet that need that you have. >> reporter: but to "meet that need" also requires most students to borrow. two-thirds are saddled with loans, and their debt has passed e.5 trillion, half again total owed on credit cards.

that's 45 million borrowers, averaging more than $30,000 each. at barnard? >> our students do take out loans, but we really limit andze maxihe loans that they can get out, take out. >> do you give guidelines, like how much d >> there's not necessarily a cap, but we'll talk to them about what did they feel comfortable with. >> reporter: 15 years ago, w millennials' try about applying for college was getting into their top choice.da gen-z'ers say it's student debt. >> how many of you are worried about taking on student loans? >> reporter: half.ot who isorried? and is that because you come from a family where there's enough moneylready, or... ? >> no. it's because, i've already implanted in my mind that i have to work as hard as i have to in order to have a scholarship that wi get me through college. >> reporter: so student loans are just not an issue. it's not that you're n of them, you're just not going anywhere near them. >> i feel like i'm scared of taking out loans just because the word "debt" is just very intimidating.

>> reporter: kobliner, who writes and speaks about youth finance, admires gen z's caution when it comes to debt, but warns against becoming phobic. >> i don't think student loanse cessarily a horrible thing, but you want to stick with federal student loans. >> reporter: so, federal student loans, because they have a much lower interest rate? >> much lower interest rate. >> reporter: given the price and the opportunity cost of collegee r, the money you could make by working instead, why not just go to scho online? wherh can be thousands cheap in tuition. or, skip college altogether? >> people always talk about the college exrience, and how important it is. i feel like, if you want to develop socially, going to college, just being on a campus and being, like, putting yourself in a situation where you have to get to know pele, is extremely vital to your life. >> you could also be witpeople who could give you knowledge or, like, feed off your knowledge, and you can feed off their knowledge. so that's kind of the e,in reason fors to be with other people, just, like, you know, to connect. >>a learn better when i'm i

classroom setting than being at home on my computer. because when i'm at home on my computer, i can be on my phone and i can just, you know, get distracted so easily. i can have, like, the lesson being, like, on my computer screen, right there, and have netflix on the side. >> reporter: indeed, the pew search center reports that fully 59% of gen-z'ers aged 18 to 20 were enrolled in college, compared to 53% of millennials in 2002. in 1986, the number was only 44%. the main reason for the rise seems obvious. college, though pricier than ever, has be a historically good investment. on average, grads make $300,000 more over their lifetime, even after subtracting tuition and other cost than their diploma-less peers. but will it continue to pay going forward? hey, paypal founder peter thiel, grough himself a stanford ad, has offered students with good ideas $100,0 to start a company instead of going to school. >> would you accept it?

>> for me, not just going ahead and take a risk i cause, what if il, you know? what am i going to do then? i need to, like, to have a plan b, like, a back-up plan, just so, like, you know, if all elses fails, and it t work out. >> reporter: a prudent plan b, because oldegen z'ers, like ose in our unscientific sample at least, ar economically hard- nosed, and shooting for the top tier in an economy they've seen become more steeply bifurcated their entire lives. >> a lot of us in our age want a job that's high up there, that maybe the dream is to become rich or wealthy-- or theame word, but higher middle class. >> reporter: anxiety about what economic class they'll winup in is increasingly evident in the actual college classes students choose. so-called stem majors have soared in recent decades, while an english degree, with which something like 10% of students unapologetically graduated in my day, is down to 2%, prompting the question: is a degree from a liberal arts college like barnard worth it economicallyda

thes, especially if it's in the liberal arts? >> humanities, social science areas, they open doors, because it is not just about the specific skill that you're learning, but it's all the other hapieces that go into what major might be. like in the classroom setting. to bable to collaborate. to be able to be a good public speaker. >> reporter: fondiller's humanities pitch sounded good to to. i focused on art h and sociology, and to be a proud english major. and there's plenty of support for what she says. three-quarters of employers y soft skills are as important as technical ones. but to our gen z'ers... >> i don't really like believe that. >> i didn't really b argument either, because, if i'm resomeone who is going to wo people, one who is an english major and one who has a major that's necessary for the field, i'm going choose the one who is necessary for the field. >> reporter: lauren, you agree with that? >> yeah, i agree with that. ollove certain literature that i

have read at my scand i just would love to continue doing that, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really lead anywhere. >> reporter: and so, gen z seems to be thinking about college costs a lot more skeptically-- some wou say morely "realistical others, "more narrowly"-- than those who came before. for the pbs newshour, this is economics correspondent paul lman, reporting from new york. n >> woodruft, jeffrey brown's "now read this" book club conversation with our march author. it is part of our regular series on the arts and culture, "canvas." >> brown: around the world, women have developed a special superpowergethe ability to rate electric shocks and hurt men. our march book club pick "the power" is dark, unsettling, imagining where the gender balance and world order are

upset but not quite as you think. the author joins me to answer some of the questions our readers sent in. thank you for being a part of this. >> great to u here. tellwhat you're after. superpowers, everything flips, right? >> what if women and not men were the sex who could doore physical harm, who could cause more pain, do we think that, in those circumstances, women woula remainful and loving and kind and lovely, or do we not? and let's have a think about how those situations will play outa, i really went into the book thinking i want to know, too. i want to know what would happen in these circumstances, and then just following the logic of the aracters and the the pl through to work out what i thought the answer was. >> okay, so then you created this world, our readers ve read -- let's go to some of their questions. >> why did you decide to wri the novel entirely in the present tense? >> the book would only work if it seemed like it was right now. so people say to me, when is it set?

i said day after tomorrow, basically. it's going on. you know, i started out thinking, oh, maybe i'll set it in the '70s. but, actually, no, you need to be able to go, would my life be different today if this happenea >> yeah. and, you know, that remains a very pointed question. >> and in the book, things sort of evolve. you give us a kind of contdown and countup. so we're sort of in time.ng >> somets going to happen at the end to have the book but you're not going to find out what it is for a while. >> second question. what influence did margaret atwood or theandmaid's tale have as you wrote this book? >> you can see people thinking about the famous exmple handmaid's tale, what are you writing and what was her influence? >> rim writing science fiction, feminist science fiction which contains octavia butler and others, book i loved reading as a yog woman. they seemed exciting to me. they were inviesing alien worlds

where there was no g,der in. a waeminism is a science fictional enterprise. >> and margareatwood herself, you were telling me before we started, became a mntor. >> i was fortunate. i was paired up with margaret atwood in a mntoring prgram. sometimes these things take, sometimes they don't, but we became good friends, and we talked about the ideas in the book. there wasn't a single point where i would go,es, that's what margaret told me, but we had a long conversation over a couple of years about what we thought might happen and what e pressure points are in the world. >> were you inspired to write "the power" by eents in your own life? if you were, do you find ain wr protest to be a sort of catharsis? >> all writers hear that. there was never a point where i actually electrocuted somateoe ill, but like a lot of women, i have experienced cat

calling or the reverse when people say horrible things to you, and i ink probably every woman, this is what the #metoo movement is about is everyone has experienced something. i think, for me, in a funy way, the more significant thing was i had experienced the world of stories as a woman, where women ardquite passive a men get to be active, and i wanted to write something where that wound turn overee what happened. and in that sense, it wasn't a really, like, oooh, i long to be able to electric cut man. and i should say women in the novel can also elricute women. >> yes. i really wanted to write a story where women ia very natural way would be able to get those tremendous fight scenes. from that perspective, i think it was very enjoyable to write. >> okay. we had a number of readers send in a vesion of the same question. we paired a cple of them. >> are you in favor of women

solve the problem? is it not just an act of revenge and can we not lookon bey >> how do you see your book as a catalyst for female advancement vis-a-vis the violence you project through women in power? >> this requires us telling people who haven't read it that things dnot end up rosy one women have this power. >> well, my view is women aree not any bter than men, not any woe either. >> yeah. i think men and women morally tend to be about th same. for me, female advancement comes fromecognizing equality. that is all i am talking about is to say let's not treat women as if they are some special category of, like, morlyood human who have to be kind of tended to and cherished andbe looked afteause they can't really look after themselves and, you know, the hard jobs of the world really have to go to the men because the women are so

tender.st d for the irreducible complexity of the human spit where each of us contains vulnerability and toughness, each of us contains love forhe children and desire to do violence or alto be selfishl of these things exist in all of us, and if we insist that only one gender gets one of those, we are cutting off one of our limb >> so let's finish there for now. we're going to continue our conversation and all of it will be online on our now read this facebook page.no folet me say thank you naomi alderman for joining us. >> well, thank you so much for having me. >> before we go now, our pick for april, we're back in the real world, i think, but there are still plenty of gender politics. growtopia is an exposeé of one f the dark sid of silicon valley's tech industry about journalist emily chang. we hope you will read along, check out r facebook page

for insights from our authors and other readers and do join our book club, now read this, a partnersp with the "new york times." >> woodruff: so much good to read. >> woodruff: continuing our focus on immigration issues, night's "brief but spectacular" sheds light on a family's struggles and triumphs in tucson, arizona. now an 18-year-old freshman at naomi de la rosa was just nineye s old when her mother was deported and banned from the u.s. for ten years. her mother's crime? entering the country illegally a decade earlier. >> when my mom got deported, i was nine years old. she crosse she was always working daily at the motels, cleaning rooms and everything, and she would get home like around six in the afternoon, and she would stilld have to clean ok and stuff. she's about to finish her obten-year sentence next o in 2019. ever since my mom got deported, it was really tough.e i had to be m figure. i had to be the student, the

best friend, the sister. like, everything l >> with tle brother, he was only four at that time andry he would cry eight for my mom. when i was nine, i did get depression, but not really anxiet more depression because i would cry every night, and especially with bobby, i would sleep hugging him and stuff. was bad. but then at school, i would ways have a smile on my face because i didn't want people to like ask, "oh, what's wrong?" and then me having to cry again over my mom and tell them the same story over and over again. my father is already 86, and i remember when i was small, he would take me to mcdonald's to eat, and like, he would get me the little toys and everything. but now i'm like, like, we switched roles, because he was like my caregiver, and now i'm his caregiver. oh my god, my graduation, it was so much fun! okay. so i took pictures with my best

friend, damian, then we went out to eat with my family. i was going to surprise my dad. he was in the bathroom washing his handso he can eat his chicken nuggets or whatever. my dad was being brought down the hallway with my brother and i was like there waiting at the door, and then, i popped up d, with my diploma and stuff, and then my dad started crying and then i was crying. o's like, "oh my god, i'm proud of you." but like, in spanish. he was like, "oh my god, (ispeaking spanish ) and i was like, "i did it for you." it was a morable night. what made it so emotional was that, many people, when their families are separatedthey, like, they get into depression and they lose, like, their mentalities and like, "oh, i need to keep up with this stuff. oh, i need to do this. , i need to do that." and, like, for me, i, like, surpassed all those obstacles and like, i graduated. and now, i got a full ride to the u. of a. so is like, "oh my god, i di it." it's nice. >> who did you do it for? >> my mom and my dad. i did for them. my name is naomi dla rosa,

and this is my "brief but spectacular" take on family. yeah. >> woodruff: and an updateo this story: naomi's elderly father passed away after this interview was recorded. tonight's piece was produced with help from reporter perla trevizo, who covers border and immigration issues for the "arizona daily star." u can watch her "brief but spectacular" take on our website, at www.pbs.org/newshour/brief. >> woodruff: and that is theur newsor tonight. i'm judy woodruff. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, and we'll see you soon. >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and more. babbel 10-15 minute lessons are available as an app, ore. on more information on babbel.com.

>> hotel mumbai. rated r. >> consumer cellular. >> bnsf railway. >> americacruise lines. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by

hello, everyone. and welcome to "amanpour & company." here i what's coming up. intoday, we put well- in the spotlight. first -- >> t gop will never stop trying to destroy the affordable health care of america's families. >> health care takes sentence stage in in the post-mueller world. i will speak with senator chris murphy ofco ecticut. >> we spent more on health care than any other country in the world and our life expectancy continues to go down. >> one nation under stress. dr. sanjay gupta on what's fuelling america's depth of d s despair. >> i thought it would help people to understand how mental health conibutes to finances. >> why it's okay to admit you are bad with