Test test now washington journals interview with Michigan StateUniversity President lou anna simon, she talks about priorities for the university and Higher Education moving forward. Its part of our special series on universities in the big ten conference. This is 35 minutes. The cou cspan bus has been on a tour of the big ten colleges across the country for the past few weeks and along the way here on the washington journal, we haver been talking withni university t president s aboutat Higher Education issues, the point is e cspan bus is on the campus of on Michigan State university, in east lansing, michigan, joining us aboard the bus, is lou anna si simon. Let me get started rightti away with the challenges that you see in Higher Education. Value good morning, and its a y. Beautiful day in east lansing ge so the promise of Higher Education creating not 1i6rle a job, but a terrific life. And one of our challenges is always to be sure that we work in a way to be as Cost Effective and relevant as possible so we make peoples dreams bigger, that means we have to be at theo front edge ofom how are you building that affordability for students when it comes to tuition and room and board et cetera. When you think about Michigan State, most of our students aree very middle class, families of. 125,000 or less. And the number of students that leave with its about one years full cost of attendance f with our tuition being about 14,000 for instate students, so we have to make sure that we can do everything we can to reduce costs and one of our we h platforms would be a high performing organization, not simply a cost cutting organization. And at the same time we need to reduce enormous value when thigh leave Michigan State at en thi graduation achkd also throughout their lifetime so were focused on value. Hi how difficultga has that bee given this headline from may the that michigan Higher Education budget cuts some of the deepest in the nation since 2008. It been an extraordinarilily difficult if you listen to 2001 until now and you listen to the state tuition, thats only. Grown 65 in total over inflation in that entire periodn so thats required us to be extraordinarily innovative, unfortunately, the burden has been shifted a bit as business d leader ts from michigan and oths have pointed out to students and their families. So were pleased that our educational debt rate, our default rate are well below thec national average, at the same time we have picked up additional funding for our state program, to make Michigan States as accessible as possible. But at the same time, we have de had to grow sevalue, which mean you have had to make difficult s priority decisions because our students deserve the best, and w thats what they come for. How much of your time the spent negotiating with the federal government, the state yr governments, and how much of t your time is fund raising and trying to raise muffin from private donations. Ve well, Michigan State was very late in the game, our legendarya president john hanna believed ve that we should keep our public heart and not raise a lot of private dollars, or about two generations behind in fund raising, even though ourre endowment is about a billion and a half now, very low on the big ten but still substantial and tt were going to be launching a capital campaign, so its making more and more of our time, but the story is the same, its about value, and about creating the opportunities for students across the middle class to be extraordinarily successful. When we talk to students we trys to talk about our s aspirations and also about the things we s i need to do to be better every day. There are this story about msu joins the alliance to help o lower income first generation o students that you will be among 11 public universities across the nation that will be part of a collaborative effort to ensure that these low income and firsts generation college. Students ean degrees. What will you be doing . Ok first of all, Michigan State, going into this project was, if you look at u. S. News and world reports, if you look at our size and caliber, that actually had a plus number in terms of predictive and Graduation Rates for our lowest income students, but we need to be better, because the biggest loss to our society is actually student whob is come to our university and e dont succeed so we make sure ta that every studentbr that comesn Michigan State succeeds. Pro were class experiences in new and innovative ways to pilo provide the insent tives and th support for students including using data. Our pilot programs showed a 20 e increase in the Graduation Rates of our lowest income student who is already are achieving at a higher rate than nationally. Were talking about affordability and accessibility among Higher Education with lou sna simon whos the president of Michigan State university. We want to get our viewers we w involved in the conversation. You dont have to have any ant o relationship to msu, but we want to hear your questions and hige concerns about higherr educati, the students dial in at 2025853882. And michigan residents, you cann call usts at 2025853883. President simon, i want to show you thwae column this morning i the washington post, College Priorities adrift. And what he bring writes in her colleges and universities are all taking part in competing for enrollments based on amenities. As of late 2012, 92 schools had embarked on 157 recreational capital products at a total cost of 1. 7 billion. En that just one question, is this the best use of scarce resources. Federal and state taxpayer i funding and that colleges are supposed to be, you know, educational institutions. Since i well, since i havent seen the entire article, but let me a comment, our research recently came out with the finding that s students who engaged in a healthier lifestyle, which in includesth exercise actually wet successful in the classroom, but there is a ed on balance. We have notre embarked on a jure recreationalproject, we have for included exercise halls as part of our renovations. But it is important to put those things together, its not about using amenities to attract students, were using our outcome of education to attracti students and part of that is to make sure they have a healthy lifestyle. So weea have two Big Initiative on Student Success and on health think lifestyles, which is not a simply about exercise orphan si things, its about developing a lifestyle through college that will make you successful in entf life, we make those things fit r together very, very well. Do you feel pressure as the president of msu to attract a better student or more studentse to the university with these type of amenities . Because a lot of your competition is doing it. Cation well, right now were not a n part of the common application, so when you apply to Michigan State, you have to make out a o separate application, our applications are growing, we believe, because were focussed on the value of an education, not simply the experiences you have on the campus, but your orf success when you leave Michigan State achkd tnd the fact that yn part of a net work of par stspa for life. To appreciate the value of their degree over time makes a fad. Difference in recruitment, not a specific latest fad. Lue, par were sort of the persistent a consistent way of looking at t value, particularly with all of the students or middle class families that we have. Our slogan in 1880 as a pioneer land grant was good enough for the proudest and open to the poorest. And thats the model we use today. Under the brick of empowering s. Students of every socioeconomic class. We were showing our viewers the msu website and right there on the forefront is an argument for why college is worth it andn why kids should be going to college. Why is that right there when you go to msus website . Because we know that a number of families, particularly if d youre fromep michigan and have experienced the what i would say the epicenter of the recession and you know with families who were educated and had a very, very difficult time, we have to be clear about what we believe is important for the future and why we believe were a good value. It its not just about accessibility for us, its aboue value and making sure that wert doing everything we can to enhance the value of our it. Education and our degree for our students and its right there. People can analyze it, you can u go to our website and dependingn on who you are and your family circumstances, you can actually figure out what its going to tt cost you to come to Michigan State university. Case f that transparency is very important. And we have to make a case for value. All right. Lets hare from stanley, a parent in westboro, massachusetts. Youre up, stanley. Ing, the caller we do homeschooling, we have for five generations, from machine shop, to welding, the whole thing. I became a Nuclear Engineer without going to college. Companies give courses when they get somebody that they know they can train to do a newfield co coming out thats out. Theres a book on tv which i bought, they do the whole family. Book is the harding family. And the name of the book is the brainy bunch and they do exactly what we do, except we would send the kids to Public School to cn prevent y ques stanley, let me jump in, can you get to your point or your cr question here . Oh, and switzerland, they dont test people in any schoolt germany schools get out at noon and you have to be able to make what you design. They dont teach that anymore. Whats your point, stanley. Caller its hard to explain unless you read that book. Lou ann simon, are we doing education right in there country compared to other countries . I think that as a Land Grant University, we were founded to blend thefo theoretical and the practical in ways that students would leave Michigan State as tshaped people with the do capacity to do the kind of things that stanley was talkingh about. And we need to do that in very larg propel the s to economy forward, Michigan State, any university is not rightch f everyone and thats why we have to have choices. May no i agree with stanley that we have a number of jobs that america that require high skilla but mayt not necessarily be something that is amenable to an education at Michigan State or similar aau institutions, thath why we have to have choice. I also believe that g homeschooling can work out effectively for some families, but it requires great discipline. So obviously stanley was a part of a family that was very successful, he sent his kids to Public Schools and we just and h happen to have the best model for americans and i think the Land Grant University concept that came out of Abraham Lincoln is one thats very important for the future. Joe in annapolis, a parent there. Joe . Caller i would like to ask about thed admission process, te admission criteria, as im sure your guest is aware, recently, theres a thin cord in fisher no versus texas rule that but h universitiesad can continue to e race as an admissions criteria but had to for the first time demonstrate, prove to a court that they use the least it offensive in terms of constitutional rights, manner to do that and its not just to pick a word for it, as is sort of the case that involved the university of michigan and university of michigan law i school, so now theres a new mechanism, i think most people understand, and that the university has to demonstrate they have used a nonoffensive to the constitution process, to uso race, my personaln experience my sons undergraduate acce acceptance that the schools will never tell you that. But its a relatively new Court Mandate and i would like see if we offer a specific response to that question, how do you use race . Michigan passed a ballot initiate ive that prohibits universities from using race in admissions. So we are even though the university of michigan case was part of the discussion in the , university ofsu texas case, osit becauseio of the Supreme Court case, subsequent to that there was a michigan ballot composition. So we use a very hole listic admissions process that looks ae academic credentials, community engagement, because we believe m that studentsen who are the mos successful through college are multidimensional, but in ocess. Michigan, race is not a factor w in our admissions process, givet the proposal. Next up, pat whos an educator in michigan, pat, good morning to you. M a caller hello, thank you for cspan. Im retired, i taught education in a Public School. And i finding it amazing that ri yours ratio of professors to students at Michigan State are 17 to one. A commen when i taught kindergarten, i taught 25 to 28 students. We work hard to make sure that our opportunities have a world class experience achkd faculty to student ratio is important in that element, but its simply not what happens in the classroom, its that our students are engaged in researci and a wide varietyty activitieso that ratio disprovide this capacity to provide this multidimensional experience that provides a college graduate. How many are tenured at es Michigan State university. Ve how many professors do you have that are adjunct status. We have about 2,000 roughly faculty who are in the tenure ao system, and another 1,500 or so that are in a variety of ct. Appointment statuses that are noted noted noted noted a adjunct. They are a a most and we have some folks who are on research appointments. Steves next in new york, a parent up there. Ann hi, steve, you ure on the air. Caller hey, how are you . Thank you for having me. I was curous about your Political Science programs. Clin a lot of the colleges theyre Political Science programs are a far left leaning they embrac. Socialism, and im curious where Michigan State is in that area. C andie do you guys police your Political Science people and you know make sure that theres an equal balance . Because conservatives have a tough time in colleges up there nowadays. Well, steve, i think that wee have a Political Science department that has a worldwide track record of trying to look f at issues from a p variety of pe perspectives becausect you have know a i would also say we have a very prestigious residential college, James Madison college, and you have to begin reading the federalist papers as a part of your freshman experience. Leslie, burlington, north carolina. Youre a parent. What are your questions or concern was Higher Education . Caller well, i am so grateful that Michigan StateUniversity Tuition hasnt gone out of this world, and im a graduate from Michigan State university, and leslie, can i ask you what did you pay when you went there