to begin, i'm joined by margaret spellings, the former u.s.secretary of education under president george w. bush, and the former head of the university onorth carolina system. she's now president and c.e.o. of texas 2036, a policy group to make texas successful after its bicentennial. margaret spellings, welcome back to the "newshour". thank you for joining us. i'm looking at something that president biden said when he was making this proposal. he said, it's not enough to restore where we were before the pandemic, we need to build a stronger economy that does not leave anyone behind. what about that rationale for this? >> well, it makes all the sense in the world and i commend him really for investing in american higher education. we know that mot of the jobs of today and certainly the future require higher levels of education and, right now, we're falling woefully short of having all our people with the skills to access the economy. so at the top line i really commend that goal. >> let me just go beyond that then because what the president ha

judy: last night we spoke with another former secretary of education, margaret spellings, who had theer president george w. bush. her argument, though, against this is that so many of these students in community college don't complete their time, they don't get to the associate degree, and the money would be better spent in other ways. what about that? john: two things. one, we know that, for many community college students, the very reason they don't complete is they don't have the financial support they need. what president biden envisions here is really a state-federal partnership to get students the resources they need, not just to start, but to finish. there's also, as you mentioned, the $62 billion investment in additional supports for students, better advising, access to childcare, access to mental health services, the kinds of supports that evidence shows greatly increase completion, particularly for low-income students and students of color. this is a very carefully thought-through package of reforms. as you know, states have disinvested in public higher ed over the last few

is going to help us build a stronger economy for the long term. >> woodruff: we heard from margaret spellings last night, john king, the argument that when students go to what she called a traditional comprehensive university, like an hbcu, historiccably black college, they get more support, as she called it, more likely to get what she called help for a trajectory into a livelihood, the kind of thing that just doesn't exist in many community colleges. >> well, look, this plan also includes a very significant investment in historically black colleges and universities and minority served institutions. we need a mix of strategies. you have some students that will only want the community college degree, they're going to need very specific skills to advance in their career, whether that's in a merging field like cyber security or a traditional field like logistics, so this is an opportunity to help support folks who may need this degree to better support their family, to move up at their job. i think really what president biden is aiming for here is a vision for a society that helps people improv

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