classroom deliberation, classroom discussion on a variety of topics that are relevant. >> if you're in middle school or high school teacher join thousands of your fellow teachers across the nation as a member of c-span classroom. it is free and easy to register /classroom or you can request our american presidents timeline poster. a display of the biographies of all 45 presidents. find out more at c-span.org /classroom. washington journal continues. host: on this open phones if you want to reach to us at our social media channels you can tweet us at c-span wj or post on our facebook page at this book.com/c-span. for us at (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. reuters is reporting afghanistan

post-army chief of staff resigned on monday after afghanistan a pa -- a a taliban attack. amid the fallout from friday's taliban assault on a base. defense minister and the army chief of staff steps down with immediate effect. adding that the attack underlines the scale of the challenge facing the western backed government and its international partners more than 15 years after united states invaded the country. that story courtesy of reuters. the political reporting that the reddish prime minister theresa may has made a higher for her. the former obama campaign chief jim sena.

he's going to join her team ahead of the june a election that was recently called. previously worked as barack obama's to the chief of staff and as a campaign manager for his reelection bid to he advised the spanish prime minister who took control of minority government in october of last year. tosident obama expected participate and will participate in a town hall event at the university of chicago today. you can see that at noon. watch for it on c-span at c-span.org courtesy of our c-span radio app. maryland on spring this open phones. caller: this is about the last segment regarding student loans. i took up student loans to find my way to grad school. i expected to pay them back, i still expect to pay them back, i am paying them back. ,nce you consolidate the loans

i consolidated at an interest rate from 2002 they don't let your refinance of interest rate i'm paying on them is still twice what the current market rate would be but you are not allowed to refinance. i wanted to thank everyone for the march on science. thank you. , what do you think about these student loan forgiveness programs that are available to some students? sides. i can see both part of the problem is the exponential rate -- the dramatic rate at which education costs are going up over the last 20 years. with universities spending more and more every year on non-core spending, building new dorms new facilities all caps off in the drive to attract students.

it's driven of the cost of necessarilythout providing an increase in the quality of that education. host: we'll go next to debbie. flint, michigan, democrats line. caller: good morning. i love c-span traded a couple years ago i heard the federal government makes $16 billion a year off our interest payments. that said, i have a student loan. i recently retired but after 15 years i started writing letters to sally may saying i heard about this -- i work for a public agency, county government, are you going to wait my loan. you know what they told me after two years of fighting with these people on the phone? i should've went to direct loans. the young lady kept pointing out there were different kinds of loans. they were the identical federal

loans and it's just because i never transferred over to direct loans. the point needs to be made that i students ellie mae and after two years of fighting with them they transferred my loan to the to -- to nab the end -- navient. i would to university of michigan which is not the cheapest college around. my glad i took the loan, absolutely. when i took those loans and graduated from u of m i hired into county government and $12 an hour. the whole idea was waving these public loans was to get people to go into the cities. working child-support agency in flint michigan was no picnic. host: steve joins us from potomac, maryland. caller: good morning.

interesting program you had. this the same thing as tempers -- 10 years if you're working for a public institution ? host: only because our guest is no longer here with us, but i would point you to her writing at the marketwatch website. maybe it covers a little bit of the topics that you want to address. the hill reporting by president trump, talking about his interest in having one point $4 billion inserted into the spending bill that would keep the government open for the construction of a border wall. the hill reporting the president tweeted on monday building a wall on the mexican border will stop drugs from coming into the united states. he offer the argument on twitter , the same day lawmakers return to washington from the

government the white house will see the money from the wall put into the spending bill. "the wall is an important tool in stopping drugs from importing into our country and poisoning our youth." adding top administration officials talked about the importance of the wall and the government shutdown at midnight on april 28 if congress does not agree to a spending bill. the present's first 100 days in office will hit on saturday. a lot of activity on capitol hill. the houseexpected -- expected in tomorrow. the senate expected today. liz from mount laurel, new jersey, democrats line. caller: i enjoyed your last segment. students should be allowed to recalculate their loans at a lower current interest rate.

asn beyond that i think young people are considering their college options, if they are from particularly lower middle class backgrounds you cannot pick the most expensive school and expect to live there and have all the wells and whistles of the college experience because you will be paying for that experience into your 50's. i think you have to be realistic , find colleges that minimize the cost. most people have to work while they're in school. keep the amount of indebtedness for as the final solution lower middle class and lower class kids. host: would you advise them to start community college or something the?

caller: i think that's an option. here in new jersey we have one college who is now offering a four your degree at our local community college. option maybeis an they can look at. you cannot rack up $10,000 to $20,000 a year over a four to six-year period and think it's going to be extremely easy to get on with your life post-graduation. maine,ody in freeport, thanks for calling. your next on our line for republicans. caller: i would like to comment on the student loan issue. ownmyself, i have my personal issue. i graduated from mba program in 2010. i found azing to me

not only could i not find work right away that because the federal government had taken over the student loan program i was not able to consolidate those loans and refinance them at a lower rate. when i had got my undergraduate degree i was able to get my vote .own to about 3.5% when you compare that in contrast to the mortgage rate of the time, it's a pretty good deal. 8.5% or you could buy a mortgage for 3.5%. federal government is making a ton of money on the banks of these college grads. experiencer as your do you feel it from your investment you made in your education was it worth taking at

the debt you did? caller: in hindsight it probably was not. it was a wonderful experience and i enjoyed my time there it ultimately i'm still in the same field i've been in before. good to be a couple of years to reenter my oldfield. i left it completely to pursue my mba full-time. would are not working and differing on , that can cause payments to jump dramatically host: this is maverick saying the days of multiple job hunt yours -- multiple job offerings out or over.rs you

segments of this program are archived every day for you to watch when you have the ability to. a lot of things on our website. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8002 for ts.ependen caller: i'm calling about donald trump and this mexico going to build the wall. were going to build the wall. i was in the service back in the 1970's and looked across a fence looking into east germany and along that fence there was little white crosses were people crossed and that reminds them all other stuff. the wall paint going to stop the people. people are still going to come across and we're going to end up for that wall. i don't think it's right.

host: leading up to the president's first 100 days, a poll released by the wall street journal and nbc news about perceptions and pulling of donald trump. saying more than half of americans disapprove of the job mr. trump is doing compared to 40% who approve -- this is a weaker showing them the general nbc news poll in late february when disapprove i await approval by four points. the story accompanying the poll adding that 35% of poll respondents said he was off to a good or great start compared with 54% said the same of mr. obama eight years ago. nearly two thirds of americans, some 64%, said trump was off to a poor or fair star. some 44% said mr. trump have been less effective than prior new present.

janet, in michigan. caller: i'm going to reiterate student loan debt issues. i'm a student -- a graduate student group would debt. the previous caller from maine, is best the terrible 8.5% interest rates and we are not able to refinance. i wanted to continue to urge congress and all of our politicians who are working hopefully in our behalf, as i continue to pay and pay and i've had five years since i graduated and i have $35,000 interest that riseccrued and i with the of our president can claim bankruptcy and someone like myself who is really try to do good in the world and to educate myself and help make the world a , i don't want to

claim by cropsey -- i don't want to claim bankruptcy. to do that, that is my duty. i don't need public service forgiveness. what would be nice is a reasonable interest rate where you can get a mortgage, car loan , for 2% or 3%. 6.5% to 8% is almost like modern-day slavery. i feel strapped and i am trying. i pay well over 200 $2000 a mo. my parents about taking the equity out of their homes can get some of that money a 4% to pay off a chunk of my debt because it is ridiculous. if i may ask, what did you study? caller: i went to school for acupuncture. i'm actually an acupuncturist

working away. we have a potential earning potential. just starting out you have to build clientele. we're working pretty much privately. we don't have the support of the health care system. the va which it think maybe this health care problem will be our just before our all benefit. we have to start looking at prevention and doing things proactively earlier than waiting until chronic illness steeps and and it is to late and people are on meds and doing surgeries. host: thank you for telling us your story. stem, wet a degree in will pay off your loans in a few years. it is the student's choice. catherine is on our independent line.

besides stopping isis, it has been questioned after our u.s. air strike in syria what is our learned term strategy -- our long-term strategy. we are slowly circling iran. jordan, israel, others are our friends. we have advisers in iraq and afghanistan. saudi arabia and egypt we speak to. we're circling iran who in 2015 we made a nuclear deal with. president obama gave us time to form this circling strategy of president trump is also. if iran resumes its nuclear program, and let's hope not, we in the countries that circle iran would be in a position to pressure iran to stop going nuclear. that is my comment.

host: the caller mentioning foreign affairs. the new york times reporting president trump will meet with members of the united nations security council today for a lunch that will be featuring to theouse's envoy united nations, nikki haley. kentucky, republican line. here is jeff. caller: i was calling about the health care program, which was on earlier. i live in rural kentucky. the way the interest is set up drive 20e has to dra miles to see a doctor instead of seeing any doctor they want. these politicians are supposed to be working for us. instead they work for whoever pays them the most money and that ain't right either.

host: give us an example. jeff is gone. , is in florida. you are on. caller: the question i had. instead of paying back the student loans, during the person's lifetime, instead of forgiving them, why doesn't the government require a term life insurance policy to be maintained by the loan holder and it would not have to be paid at all until after the person dies? host: you're saying that would guarantee payment of some type ?f what they took out and loans

caller: it could still keep the interest rate going because i think that would be a boom for the life insurance company and they were just take the interest as a hit because the loan would be paid off. it would just be put in a future payment. i think it would help everyone that has a student loan, it would put everything off and the interest rate they are paying now, they would not have to pay that and it would just be accrued in the life insurance policy that would be maintained by the life insurance company and the individual. if they decided they did not want to pay the life insurance policy, the term policy for what was owed on it, they would have to pay the loan off at the previous interest rate. i think that would help everyone out. it would be a boon for the life

insurance companies. a relief for the people that had the student loan. government entities can be formed in order to do this. airlineetired from an they sold my retirement to private benefit guaranty corporation in my retirement was cut into third. i know government entities can before to do this. host: that is the last call on the topic. one quick tweet from jodi says when four years cost you over 15 years of payback it was not worth it. that is the last thought on that topic to another edition of this program comes tomorrow at 7:00. 'sn't forget president obama town hall featured at noon and watch it on c-span and go to your website for more information. we will see you back here tomorrow. thanks for watching. ♪