Operations in syria and so how to get rid of this extremist element in syria is a concern to all americans. We dont want what happened in paris to happen in an american city. Scott President Trump campaigned on promises to cut taxes and spend more. President trump were cutting taxes for the middle class and i will tell you we are cutting them big league for the middle class. Maya macguineas we have overpromised, we have overborrowed, we need to deal with that first. Dean baker its very hard to see how the debt is negatively impacting our standard of living now, i would argue that its positively impacting it. Scott and even with a republican president and republican congress, nothing can fuel a washington fight like a battle over the budget. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] sharyl welcome to full measure. Im sharyl attkisson. Today, we begin by digging into the unaffordable cost of a college education. According to one analysis, tuition at public universities has quadrupled over 35 years. The average cost of Public College in 20162017 is just over 20,000. Tack on 15,000 if youre from out of state. Private colleges, on average its more than 45,000 this year. In one survey, 39 of recent College Graduates reported earning 25,000 or less. Thats nowhere near enough to make a dent in all those student loans. And we found some students turning to desperate measures. On college and University Campuses around is a familiar complaint. Candace brown i think its really sad that our country wants to charge like 18, 19, 20yearolds a quarter of a Million Dollars to be educated, better, good quality citizens. I think thats ridiculous. Sharyl do you know how much debt youre going to have when you graduate . Jade wootton yeah, my guess is somewhere around 30,000 or 40,000. Sharyl are you concerned about paying it back . Jade wootton um, yes. Im very concerned, you know, got to get a good job out of school which is hard these days, with the market the way it is. Sharyl the high cost of college is on the minds of a lot of students here at new york university, or nyu. It costs upwards of 60,000 a year to attend school here and live on campus. Professor Mark Crispin Miller you could say that nyu represents the avant garde of everything thats wrong with u. S. Higher education. Sharyl in what respect . Prof. Mark Crispin Miller they engage in a staggering range of tricks and tactics to squeeze as much cash as possible out of a student body. Sharyl Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of media, culture, and communication at nyu who leads a Faculty Group and coauthored a faculty report called the art of the gouge, how nyu squeezes billions from our students and where that money goes. Prof. Mark Crispin Miller there are 10,000 to 20,000 worth of hidden fees at nyu, amounts of money that, that the students didnt realize they were going to have to come up with. This has happened time and time again, students telling us, they just sent me a bill for 2,000, etcetera. If you factor in the considerable hidden fees that nyu ends up charging, i think it is unquestionably the most Expensive School in the country. Sharyl critics call those hidden fees backdoor tuition. And its not just nyu. Colleges around the u. S. Have quietly devised creative, complex systems of mandatory extra charges on top of ballooning tuition. Application fees, Student Orientation fees, credit card fees, you name it. Parking permits cost up to 858 at ohio state university. California polytechnic state charges an annual 814 Student Success fee. Harvards mandatory fees add up to nearly 3800. At the university of california los angeles, theres the Student Services fee, Instructional Enhancement Initiative fee, seismic fee, document fee, Green Initiative fee, over 2000 for mandatory health insurance, and more. Together, it adds upwards of 4000 on to tuition, room, and board. Vincent cinque lots of nickel and diming, so were giving so much as it is, and now youre gonna take even more from us thats like not technically included in the tuition. Sharyl Vincent Cinque graduated from nyu with a degree in drama and producing and a gutwrenching debt. Vincent cinque im personally 30,000 in debt and my dads like 120,000 from the school. Take out loans and eat ramen or get a sugar daddy and live the life youve always wanted. Sharyl some female students are turning to a shocking alternative. A website called seeking arrangement, which hooks up young sugar babies with sugar daddies to help pay the high cost of college. Jumpstarting your future begins with choosing the right education. Sharyl how long ago did you join . This was like three years ago that i joined it. Sharyl this seeking arrangement sugar baby agreed to speak with us if we would protect her identity and alter her voice. Her parents have no idea. Lets be clear. A lot of the men do get into this because they want sex. Yeah, they do, but that doesnt mean you have to have sex with them, just like, if you meet someone with, off that site, and you met them in person, that doesnt mean you have to have sex with them, if you choose not to. Sharyl so, what did you ask for and what were you able to get . Student there was a time where i needed like 300 for the textbooks for class and i honestly didnt know how i was going to pay for them. Like i didnt really want to ask my parents. So he paid for all the textbooks, like he was like listen, im going to give you money so that you can take care of that, cause its important. Brook urick its very popular among college students. People in college oftentimes dont have a lot of money, theyre taking out a lot of loans, theyre graduating with a ton of debt, and walking into a job market theyve oftentimes priced themselves out of, and meeting a sugar daddy is also a way to advance your career. Sharyl brook urick is a spokesman for seeking arrangement. She says its not prostitution, which is strictly a transactional process for sex. Instead, she says, the dating website facilitates mutually beneficial relationships. Brook urick around 2010, we saw a really huge increase of students joining the site, so we decided to offer them a Student Discount when they sign up using their student email addresses. Sharyl they call it Sugar Baby University. You can gain the personal connections you need to go from entry level to corner office. Enroll with Sugar Baby University today and get your education paid for by a generous sponsor. Brook urick nyu, in particular, has topped our list of top sugar baby schools for a few years now. And its in part because of the cost of living is outrageous there, as well as the cost of attending nyu, and to reasonably get by on a minimum wage job while youre in school is not something that a lot of these women and men can do. Sharyl nyu declined to be interviewed for this report. So did the College Board and American Council on education, a coordinating body for colleges and universities. We do know that while students are going into deep debt , endowments and revenues at many schools are growing. A new report from the nonprofit open the books finds that 8 Ivy League Schools have amassed nearly 120 billion in endowment funds. As nonprofits, they pay no taxes on investment gains, 3. 4 billion in 2014. They show a net profit of 21 billion from 2010 to 2014, but enjoy healthy taxpayer benefits collectively amounting to nearly 6 billion a year. What would you say if you had to pick one factor as the biggest nationwide when it comes to cost . Prof. Mark Crispin Miller administrative bloat is whats costing all these kids so much money, costing their families so much money. I mean, its really gilded age stuff and it has no place in any decent university. Sharyl that includes lavish executive pay. Miller says top nyu executives averaged raises of 26 while professors got just 2. 5 . Recentlyretired nyu president john sexton scored the highest base pay in the country in 2013 at 1. 24 million. His 2014 compensation topped 1. 5 million. Nyu wont say how much it pays its new president andrew hamilton. The universitys annual payroll nears 3 billion working out to a cost of about 57,000 per student. Besides salaries, many colleges spend millions on the rapid fire buying, building, and renovation of pricey real estate. Prof. Mark Crispin Miller into showplaces to attract students of means, you know, and to provide a kind of health club, club med atmosphere for students, as if they were applying to attend resorts for four years as opposed to studying and learning how to think critically and so on. Candace brown i think the money could definitely be going to help students more so than build another building in this city. Sharyl nyus real estate portfolio includes several multimilliondollar luxury condos for selected Law School Faculty housing, with extravagant features like calcutta gold marble, radiant heat floors, and a dining room with 37foothigh ceilings. Prof. Mark Crispin Miller they see the university as on the one hand a corporate enterprise, a commercial enterprise. Its meant to get as much revenue as possible. A corporate enterprise that has to be branded relentlessly all over the world, nonstop. Sharyl we wanted to hear nyus views, but they declined to answer our questions. A spokesman emailed us a long address affordability, including ensuring the lowest increase in costofattendance, tuition, and fees in 20 years, lower than 25 closest competitors and freezing room and board rates this year at last years rates. Nyu also says its tripled its Financial Aid budget and average grant amount. But many students here and around the nation are struggling. Sugar Baby University where beautiful, ambitious people graduate debt free. There are other resources besides just going to seeking arrangements and meeting men, so that they could pay for your college. You dont necessarily have to turn to that site, but is it a bad idea . No. Candace brown its interesting because my dad paid for all of my schooling out of pocket until this year. Hes spent the majority of his savings. I dont think my dad will retire at all. Vincent cinque i feel like i am always gonna be in debt and ive just kind of accepted that and it just changed the way i look at spending and everything. I think its ridiculous. Sharyl Times Higher Education magazine recently ranked nyu number one for employability of its grads. But 78th in terms of salary earned after 10 years 58,800. Ahead on full measure. Could better u. S. Relations with russia save civilians in syria and help stop terrorism . We talk with obamas former ambassador to syria. Z29kuz zstz y29kuy ysty sharyl in 2012, president obama said that the use of chemical weapons by the assad regime in the countrys civil war would american airstrikes. But when he crossed it, critics blasted obama for not following through. The following year, u. S. Ambassador to syria, robert ford, resigned over what he saw as a failure of obamas syria policy. Our joce sterman recently spoke with ford and asked if he had any regrets. Ambassador ford i have one big regret which is that the syrians in the opposition always thought that we would send in our military to save them from bashar al assad. And as much as i told them it wasnt going to happen, they didnt believe me, they just kept thinking, america, statue of liberty, land of freedom, theyll come. Joce but america didnt come, not after assad used chemical weapons on his own people in 2013, and not after he continued to violate ceasefire after ceasefire negotiated by former u. S. Secretary of state john kerry. If the u. S. Had taken Strong Military action immediately after the use of chemical weapons by assad and that speech about the red line, do you think things would be any different . Ambassador ford well, i do, had we done a short, but stern strike, we might have given impetus to the Syrian Government to go to the geneva talks and actually engaged seriously with the opposition to find a political settlement. Joce the civil war in syria that began in 2011 as a tiny city protest against an unpopular president spiraled into chaos, as hundreds of opposition groups, including isis, fought for control of the country. More than 400,000 syrians have been killed and the mass exodus of millions has created a crisis in europe and helped launch a populist movement around the world. Outside of those very obvious humanitarian concerns, can you tell us why should the ara Americans Care in terms of strategy in syria . Ambassador ford we have u. S. Military forces in combat operations in syria and i dont think Many Americans understand that. But we have 400 u. S. Special Operations Forces deployed next to syria or in syria, helping with syrian fighters against the Islamic State. Every day with new combat operations, theres a risk to our own young people in uniform who are over there. We have seen how extremists operating out of syria have attacked cities like paris, like brussels in belgium, in germany, and so how to get rid of this extremist element in syria is a concern to all americans. We dont want what happened in paris to happen in an american city. Joce russia has stepped into the power vacuum, sending thousands of troops and launching airstrikes that helped assad regain control of aleppo, syrias largest city, last december. The Obama Administration was outraged by russia coming to assads rescue. But the new administration is calling for cooperation with russia. Sean spicer i think if theres a way that we can combat isis with any country, whether its russia or anyone else, and we have a shared National Interest in that, sure, well take it. Joce can they be a strong ally for us in this battle against isis . Ambassador ford i think they could be if they wanted to be, but im not sure they want to be. The primary purpose of the russian intervention had nothing to do with fighting the Islamic State. Going forward, does Vladimir Putin want to turn 90 or 100 degrees and instead want to focus on the Islamic State . Thats up to Vladimir Putin. I think were he to make that decision, then there might be room for the United States to cooperate joce and if you were in this new administration, what would you tell them at this point . Ambassador ford dont think the americans can fix these problems by themselves because they cant. They are going to need allies. And i think americans should be asking themselves, are we going to be in this kind of war forever and ever, is that our destiny . Or are we going to start dealing with some of the politics that helped create the situations over there in the first place . Joce we are already seeing that First Political move. Cia director mike pompeo was in turkey this week, his first trip, and possibly the first step to resetting relations with a country that plays a key role in u. S. Strategy in syria. So interesting to hear from the masseter. Hes very clear. Thanks. Next on full measure. Presid z23wpz z5yz y23wpy y5yy u. S. History is written in red ink. Except for about a year in the 1800s, debt has been a constant. Its now approaching a staggering 20 trillion. President trump is reportedly working a on skinny budget that will reduce federal spending by 10 trillion over 10 years. But hes also called for increases in spending. Scott thuman takes a look at a pending budget battle. Congressman mark walker weve got to get the spending under control and we hope the administration will also begin to make this a high priority as well. Scott mark walker heads the House Republican study committee. A coalition of conservative lawmakers and made up of some serious deficit hawks. Congressman mark walker many of the members who are now serving had that as part of their platform in running for the United States congress, its something thats crucial. Scott walkers caucus includes Tea Party Republicans who rode to office in the 2010 midterm election, campaigning for a rejection of oba billion stimulus bill. One of them, Mick Mulvaney, is on track to be the next director of the office of management and budget. Congressman mark walker choosing Mick Mulvaney as omb director was the strongest message that fiscal responsibility is important. To me that laid down a huge line from this administration saying that we are going to make fiscal responsibility a high priority, i have full confidence in mick and hope he gets past senate confirmation. Scott but President Trump campaigned on promises to cut taxes and spend more. Pres. Trump were cutting taxes for the middle class, and ill tell you we are cutting them big league for the middle class. We are going to fix our inner cities, and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals, we are going to rebuild our infrastructure. Maya macguineas i am worried. I am worried because i think a lot of promises were made in the campaign that have big price tags with them. We have overpromised, we have overborrowed, we need to deal with that first. Scott Maya Macguineas leads a Bipartisan Group that studies u. S. Fiscal policy. She says trumps proposals would add another 5 trillion to the debt. Maya macguineas the question is, what policies, spending cuts, entitlement reforms, or new revenues is our political system willing to talk about . Because, the truth is, and voters know this, politicians arent coming clean about this. Theyre not talking about these tough choices at all. Dean baker we cant just say, oh we are going to cut back on government spending, well balance the budget and dont worry the private sector will fill that gap. I dont see that story as making sense. Scott economist dean baker disagrees on debt. He thinks spending cuts could bring worse damage to the economy. Dean baker its very hard to see how the debt is negatively impacting our standard of living now, i would argue that its positively impacting it and thats creating demand in the economy and if we didnt have that demand from the budget deficit then wed have fewer jobs, ss scott but in a new administration, political reality may force some degree of fiscal reality. One of the things the president has looked at is the cutting side, the revenue stream, how we can grow the economy and bring in additional revenues to the government on the revenue side. There is a balance to how the president is looking at bringing down the deficit. Scott one pending clash could come between the president and his own party. Over half of the federal budget is spent on two programs medicare, medicaid, and social security. And it will take an act of congress to change it. Speaker ryan we can save medicare, but we have to reform it. Scott House Speaker paul ryan has spent years talking about reform. But hes up against a president , who has promised there will be no cuts to social security, medicare, or medicaid. Even with a republican president nothing can fuel a washington fight like a battle over the budget. Congressman mark walker ultimately, we have to remember as the legislative branch that we are the ones in charge of the purse. There may come a time, but to kind of guess or speculate, i think its a little early to tell, but ultimately we do have the fiscal responsibility in the house. Scott the first clash between the administration and congress could come in march, when Congress Must vote to raise the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow, or risk defaulting on payments it owes. Sharyl. Sharyl scott thuman, thanks so much. Next, we share some of your sharyl coming up next week on full measure, did ava contractor cheat veterans by denying benefits . I told them that i believe it is unethical, unprofessional, and as a result, based on the statistics that they have released, its unacceptable. Sharyl the company was getting a huge amount of tax dollars to conduct these reviews. David vatan absolutely. I think its close to 50 million. Sharyl thats next week on full measure. Thats all for this week. Until next week, we will be searching for more stories [ alarm clock beeping ] weather. [ laughter ] cartoons. Wait for it. [ cat screech ] [ laughter ] [ screaming ] [ laughter ] make everyday awesome with the power of xfinity x1. Hi grandma and the fastest internet. [ girl screaming ] [ laughter ] z29kvz zstz y29kvy ysty the vice chiefs of the military go to capitol hill to Warn Congress on readiness, but one important part of the countrys defense wasnt there. As the arctic warms up, it will be easier for america to navigate and easier for our adversarieries to get closer than ever to the homeland. And a new attorney general, a new education secretary, but not everything going smoothly for the trump administration. Our federal beat round table looks ahead to whats next. Government matters starts right now. Thanks for watching the Weekend Edition of government