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I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday Morning. For generations of Americans, it's been conventional wisdom. A college education is the key to success. The best path to a better job, home, and life. In 1940, less than five percent of us finished college.

Today, that number is nearly 40 percent. But too often, along with a degree, comes sometimes staggering financial debt. Does college still deliver the American dream?

Our David Pogue hits the books. Kira Cheney is 28 and carries a six-figure college debt. It's a common theme that people will be paying for nearly their entire life.

You think that might happen to you? Absolutely. But now, big employers are starting to ask, has a college degree become an unnecessary obstacle? People who actually have the right skills training are five times more likely to succeed in the job than people who have a college degree. It's counterintuitive.

Is the high cost of higher education worth it? Coming up on Sunday Morning. Chef Jose Andres and director Ron Howard are both masters of their craft. Tracey Smith talks with them about their collaboration to help people in need. Chef's cooking. You see? Chef Jose Andres has fed thousands of people in need, but he didn't want to be in a movie about it until Ron Howard convinced him.

And I said, did you ever see Apollo 13? This is what I love, our teams coming together and solving a problem. Right here is the kitchen area. And helping people who are going through hell, like those in Ukraine, makes a hell of a story. I'm thrilled to be part of it. It's an honor. Chef Jose Andres and director Ron Howard ahead on Sunday Morning. Anthony Mason catches up with Lake Wobegon's founding father, Garrison Keillor.

Tony DeCopel will be talking with Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update anchor, comedian Michael Che. And more. This is Sunday Morning, May 15th, 2022. And we'll be back after this. Congratulations, graduates. It's college commencement season, and we wish all the best to the class of 2022.

But this also seems to be the right time to ask a tough question. Was it worth all that money? All that hard work?

David Pogue has our crash course. 28-year-old Kira Chini works for the government, lives in a basement apartment with her boyfriend in San Francisco, and stresses about her college loans. How much did they add up to about? It's around like $280,000. $280,000? Yeah.

Chini followed the classic recipe for success. She graduated from Penn State, but now she's facing down decades of debt. Have you ever tried to figure out if I put aside this much a month, this is the year when I'll pay off those $280,000?

I mean, that would be the goal. I've always thought of winning the lottery, but... And Chini's not alone. 43 million Americans carry student debt. They owe the government more than $1.7 trillion. And about two thirds of all graduates leave college carrying debt. Many will work their entire careers without being able to pay it off. No wonder college debt has become a White House priority.

We can't go out as much as we used to for dinners, and we can't take as much trips as we want to unless it's in our budget. So it does affect us. One reason for the crisis? Skyrocketing tuition.

Another reason? More people going to college in the first place. In the early 1960s, only about 8% of Americans had a college degree. And now it's getting close to 40%. Wow.

Right? So it's a big difference. You were pretty special in the 1960s if you had a college degree. Peter Cappelli is a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

But you are also the author of a book relevant to our topic today. Yeah. Called Will College Pay Off?

That's right. Will College Pay Off? It depends. There's no doubt that going to college is incredibly useful for people in terms of improving their lives. What everybody's interested in more is, financially, is this a good investment? Will it pay off and that you'll be better off than in a high school graduate?

Yeah. If they graduate, for sure. If they don't, maybe not. Trouble is, most students don't. The astonishing statistic is that only 40% of full-time college students graduate in four years. And that's less than half?

Less than half. And even if you pause your schooling, your debt keeps right on growing. If it takes you six years to graduate, you've got six years of interest accumulation. So the old formula, spend four years in college, get financial security, is no longer a sure thing. I'm applying for the position of user experience designer. But some new formulas are springing up in its place.

Nothing is ever set in stone. Whether you want to go to college or go straight to the workforce, everything's changing. Natasha and Stephanie Ramos and their father, Javier, live in Connecticut. Natasha avoided massive debt by starting her college career inexpensively. I got two years at a community college. And finishing at a state college. Connecticut University student debt is way better than private school student debt. So I'll just leave it at that.

Okay. Stephanie attends a vocational high school where students can learn trades like carpentry, plumbing, or hairdressing. But she's taking a shortcut to the corporate world thanks to the Google professional certification program. Providing you with job-ready skills to start or advance your career in IT. For $39,000 a month, she can take video classes that prepare her for a career in technology.

And the courses give you a certification at the end that looks very good for employers or for colleges, whatever route you want to take. By the time you're done with high school, you'd be in the working world at, what, 18 years old? Yep. Javier, do you put any pressure on her one way or another for financial reasons? I support going college, but at a certain point, the last decision is on her. Well, seems to be working in your family.

Thank God. It looks pretty complicated. The Google program has already placed 75,000 workers into well-paying tech jobs at over 150 companies that are eager to hire them. Meanwhile, opportunities are opening up on the receiving end, too. 80% of what we call family-sustaining jobs, $60,000 or more, generally speaking, require a four-year degree. And so companies screen out people no matter what their intelligence is, their curiosity, their work ethic, their adaptability.

But if you don't have enough people to fill all the jobs that we need, in this country, I think we have to re-examine it. Ken Frazier is the executive chairman and former CEO of Merck. Ginni Rometty is the former CEO of IBM. They've led a drive to eliminate the college requirement from as many of their company's job descriptions as possible. When I became CEO in 2012, we looked at every single job and said, do we need a college degree to start? Or could we translate into a set of skills you need? So what started as over 90% of jobs needed a college degree is now less than 50%. Wow.

For example, lab techs and things of that nature, they don't necessarily need a degree in philosophy in order to do the job. Obviously, you're not doing this just because it's the right thing to do. There must be something in it for the corporations. Absolutely.

This is not philanthropy. At the end of the day, you have people who you can retain longer because they're incredibly loyal. They're hardworking.

You can access them for a lot less money. And our data has shown that their performance is equal to those with a four-year degree. But wait a minute, a college degree means you know how to apportion your time.

You learn to communicate with others. It does. But there are studies that show that people who actually have the right skills training are five times more likely to succeed in the job than people who have a college degree. It's counterintuitive. Are you anti-college? Are you saying that we are absolutely not anti-college at all?

It is about just recognizing you may start and go a different path than someone else. Eno College has lots of value beyond just getting a job. I mean, we think education is a good thing for people.

It broadens their perspectives on the world. And what we've seen in these kinds of programs is eventually a substantial majority of these people go on and get a college degree. They just didn't get the college degree before they entered the workplace.

It's a question of sequence, not a question of capability. To scale up this idea, Rometty and Frazier have founded 110, a coalition of 60 major employers and counting. 110 came from the proposition that it would be useful if we sought to hire 1 million Black Americans who lack a four-year college degree over 10 years into family-sustaining jobs. The coalition works with community colleges, job training organizations, and apprenticeships, persuading them to train young people for precisely the kinds of jobs that need filling. Rometty calls them new collar jobs. In our country is a stereotype of white collar, blue collar.

And we came up with the name new collar as something different to say, no, no, no, this is something new. New programs, new sequences, new collar workers. For some careers, it's all part of a new wave of alternative paths that don't involve college or college debt.

As for Kira Cheney, she has a long range plan. I really want to go to law school. If I can start making higher money, then I can afford my monthly payments. So was college worth it for you? I mean, I had fun in college.

It was great experience, but for the lifetime of debt, I'm going to be living with it. That's so hard. It's such a difficult question. During his acceptance speech, Will Smith said, love will make you do crazy things. You know what else makes you do crazy things?

Crazy. It's fair to say before each of our Sunday mornings, there's a Saturday night. Tony DeCopel gets an update from SNL's Michael Che. From Saturday Night News headquarters, this is Weekend Update. It's the longest running sketch on Saturday Night Live.

Good evening, I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not. And in the nearly 50 years of Weekend Update, some of comedy's greatest stars have taken a tour as hosts. It's Weekend Update with Colin Jost and Michael Che. But no one has done it quite like Michael Che. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that Dolly Parton would be inducted this year, along with Eminem, Lionel Richie, and Carly Simon, which begs the question, what is rock and roll? Along with Colin Jost, his partner through eight seasons and counting, Che is now half of the longest serving fake news team in SNL history.

According to officials at the CDC, the first case of Ebola in the US has been diagnosed in Texas, and according to WebMD, you already have it. Che is also one of SNL's head writers, a voice behind sketches like Black Jeopardy, which took off in 2016 with Tom Hanks as a white guy from the South, with a lot in common with his Black Coat contestants. And later this month, Che will debut a whole new series of sketches in season two of his HBO show, That Damn Michael Che, featuring more of his signature mix of What's Funny and also True. Comedy is a magic trick I think.

I think it's truly a magic trick. I'm trying to make you laugh at something you see every day or don't see and you wouldn't expect to get that emotion out. I went to a Black Lives Matter rally right after that to support, but I must have gone too late. It was all white women. They had signs, stop racism. I was like, who are you talking to?

Each other? Michael Che Campbell grew up in public housing on New York's Lower East Side. I was raised poor black child. No, I was Steve Martin. Yeah.

No, I, um, I don't know. My childhood was, I was the youngest of seven. My mother worked like three jobs. My parents were separated, not yet divorced.

We were very poor. When did you realize you knew how to make people laugh? Maybe in school. And I was very curious. And then I would realize being curious was funny to people like to grownups because an inquisitive child can really knock you on your heels, you know?

And young Michael Che was indeed named after that other famous Che, the controversial revolutionary Che Guevara. Fitting, you might say, for a sometimes controversial comedian. I like it for maybe a very toxic reason. I do think that controversy brings people to talking.

And I think as long as people are talking, it's not all that bad. We can't even agree on Black Lives Matter. That's a controversial statement. Black Lives Matter.

One of his best known routines as a standup is about Black Lives Matter. Black lives exist. Can we say that? Can we say? And of course, its occasional counterpart, All Lives Matter. Like, well, all lives matter.

Really? Semantics? That would be like if your wife came up to you and was like, do you love me? And you were like, baby, I love everybody. What are you talking about?

Let me get this over for you. For all his sketch work, standup was Che's first love. This is hot. This is a hot mic. That's a hot mic. And as we found on a recent visit back to Caroline's Comedy Club in New York. Yes. Isn't this a great view?

Probably still his deepest as well. When you're as excited about what you're saying as they are, it feels good. And standup is what got Che to SNL after Colin Joe spotted Che on a stage like this one and invited him on as a guest writer. Che went on to become the first black anchor of Weekend Update and first black head writer in the show's history. I'm just being me.

Though he says those titles don't carry much weight with him. I don't know I'm black until you tell me. The world tells you you're black. The world tells you you're poor. The world tells you you're successful. The world tells you all of these things. When you wake up, you're not thinking about none of that stuff. I'm just trying to grow up and not get killed and just be a little bit happy. You know what I mean? Like that's all you're looking for. Everybody else tells you what you are and who you represent.

You're just trying to be funny. And though Che recently said this would be his last season with SNL. New York City will no longer require bars and restaurants to pretend to look at vaccination cards. He now says he's not really sure.

The city will be lifting its vaccine mandate for indoor dining and events. Finally said the next variant. That's what I was doing. I was at stand up and I was like boy I hate SNL.

And when I met SNL I'm like god I don't want to be on the road. It's just what you do. Oh that makes sense. But yeah I am quitting the season as you know. I'm kidding. I have no idea what I'm doing man.

It's just uh I don't know. I'd like to do more stand up. When you love comedy as much as Michael Che does, just being a part of it is not a consolation prize.

Thank you so much. It's the whole dream come true. This is weird seeing you guys all in your masks but you know this this audience is fully vaxxed. Uh I don't really.

And at just 38 years old it's a dream Michael Che plans to hold on to. You know what you know why I was skeptical? Because the vaccine was free.

Free medicine in America. Since when? 40 years from now god willing we're all around.

We will see Michael Che right here on a stage like this. Yeah I'm a lifer. I'm lucky. One time she said.

I'm lucky I figured out what I like and I get to do it. All right let's cut it. Good night. Hi podcast peeps. It's me Drew Barrymore.

Oh my goodness. I want to tell you about our new show. It's the Drew's News podcast and in each episode me and a weekly guest are going to cover all the quirky fun inspiring and informative stories that exist out in the world because well I need it and maybe you do too.

From the newest interior design trend Barbie Corps to the right and wrong way to wash your armpits. Also we're going to get into things that you just kind of won't believe and we're not able to do in daytime television so watch out. Listen to Drew's News wherever you get your podcasts.

It's your good news on the go. This is Intelligence Matters with former acting director of the CIA Michael Morrell. Bridge Colby is co-founder and principal of the Marathon Initiative a project focused on developing strategies to prepare the United States for an era of sustained great power competition. The United States put our mind to something we can usually figure it out. What people are saying and what we kind of know analytically and empirically is our strategic situation our military situation is not being matched up with what we're doing. Follow Intelligence Matters wherever you get your podcasts. Almost from the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine chef Jose Andres and his team have been on the front lines fighting back with warm meals and director Ron Howard has been capturing it all on film.

Tracy Smith shares a recipe for hope. In the sea of despair that is Ukraine here is a lifeline. Chef Jose Andres and his world central kitchen have been on the ground for months feeding thousands of Ukrainians whose lives have been upended by the war. How much are you back and forth these days? Well I've been more than 40 some days in Ukraine. And for him that's not all that unusual.

It needs to be very quick. For the past 12 years Andres has brought his not-for-profit kitchen to the front lines of catastrophe. They've served more than 60 million meals. You never know when the call is gonna arrive I'm from home or from where? From earthquake-ravaged Haiti. There's no food, no water, nothing. To hurricane-battered Houston. Again we're going through very high water.

Take a look. I'm so glad that we have this truck. But Ukraine is a little different. It's the first time Chef Andres and his people have operated in a war zone. Right here is the kitchen area. On April 16th a missile hit one of your kitchens.

How is everyone? Well the people that were with world central kitchen we had four wounded persons and they went to the hospital and things got everybody was fine. Truth is it barely slowed them down. What happened the hours after was unbelievable. The owner of that restaurant asked all the team members what do you want to do and they said we want to keep cooking we want to keep fighting. We're chefs when there is need of food we show up and we try to feed people in need.

That drive to keep serving against all odds is the subject of a documentary streaming this month on Disney Plus called We Feed People from director Ron Howard. Is it tough for you as a documentarian to remain detached from this? I wasn't really trying to be detached.

I mean I was trying to share what I was learning and experiencing and feeling. We're good. Whenever there is a fight so hungry people may eat we will be there.

And that feeling apparently is contagious. The camera crews shooting footage for the film would often put down their cameras and start helping out. I said okay I get it it's infectious this spirit but we only have so many shooting days. We needed every single hand to do what we did so more often than not that camera was always put away they became part of the humanitarian aid.

Life is not a movie itself life is real pain is real suffering and what we have to do is spend every single second trying to relieve people from those horror moments they're going through. It's hard to imagine how he finds the time. The Spanish-born Andres is also a wildly successful restaurateur with nearly two dozen restaurants or food trucks from coast to coast but his world central kitchen has become his calling card.

He started it in 2010 after the Haiti earthquake. Andres and his team will typically salvage whatever's left of restaurant kitchens on the ground and using locals recipes work with them to make comfort food for thousands. You know I love to go to these places because I always say that the best of humanity usually shows up in the worst moments of humanity and what I get the inspiration I get from every one of the world central kitchen members but the new people that join us in the middle of the chaos this to me is a gift I will never be able to pay back. I don't see this is a job this is a call I love your smile to the people I love to see how much they love you you embrace the spirit of world central kitchen. Thank you. Thank you. We met up with the chef for a brief moment in New York City. He was on his way to Spain and eventually to Ukraine again. And now you're part of it too Ron.

Uh well I'm I'm thrilled to be part of it it's an honor. Howard says he was drawn to Jose Andres's unbelievable story but at first the chef balked at doing the film worried that it'd be all about him. He was hesitant he said this is really world central kitchen I don't want a camera following me around trying to tell the Jose story. Howard managed to convince him by bringing up another movie he'd once made.

Houston we have a problem. I said uh did you ever see Apollo 13? Apollo 13 you recall was about an explosion aboard a spacecraft. This is what I love our teams coming together and solving a problem. I want this mark. And the people on the ground who gave their all to bring the astronauts home alive.

We gotta find a way to make this fit into the hole for this using nothing but that. Apollo 13 is also the movie that got Ron Howard interested in telling real life stories even though at an early test screening one of the audience members actually thought Howard had made it all up. This is honesty it's good to see you again. I remember it was a 23 year old Caucasian male rated it poor wouldn't recommend it terrible more Hollywood bull with two exclamation marks they would never survive three exclamation marks I realized he didn't know it was a true story and to him it was hokey and I thought well this is why you choose these subjects this is why you tell a story based on real events because you choose a subject where you say how the hell could that have happened yeah I mean that's a great question for World Central Kitchen how the hell could this have happened really yeah that's there I mean I know that very often people think we do the impossible possible and I would love to tell you that but we do we are the only people capable in planet earth to do it but this is far away from the truth what we do is not so special of course what makes them special is that they step up to help not next week not tomorrow but right now why do you think it works I know you say we don't have meetings we don't make announcements we just go if we say we don't plan it's because every hour you are planning for something is one hour you are missing of being on the ground feeding people and sometimes you say but you need to organize to start feeding people well not really you can always be driving and you may decide to make right to make left and you don't know if you are taking the right turn but let me tell you one thing my friend you will only be able to turn right or left if you are moving forward it's never a wrong decision in an emergency if actually you are making things happen because you have the next day to correct that decision at the end it's always good because you are moving you are driving forward you are he's a man whose name is forever linked to a small town located in our collective imagination but radio host and writer garrison keeler tells anthony mason the news from lake wobegon is a bit more complicated these days the crowd at the buel theater in denver colorado earlier this month traveled from all over i came in from uh florida we live here in golden we just met some nice people from new york they came to they came to see a reunion of a prairie home companion the show garrison keeler hosted on public radio for some 40 years i've been listening to garrison keeler since 1985 very missed glad to be here tonight the night would mark the return of renowned keeler characters guy noir private eye of the show's imaginary sponsor this first half hour of our show brought to you as always by powder melt biscuits in the big blue box and of nostalgic tales from the fictional lake wobegon well it's been a quiet week in lake wobegon minnesota my hometown at its peak a prairie home companion reached more than four million listeners on more than 700 public radio stations i went in the radio started out the show a long years ago keeler retired from the radio show in 2016 it's a comfort to become a tourist in old age and enjoy my irrelevance he wrote in his recent book serenity at 70 gaiety at 80 he will become an octogenarian in august it's a great age because great age because you lose your ambition but you still love your work and this is such a blessing keeler has never stopped writing in his latest lake wobegon book boomtown the author returns to the community he invented and the people who live there correct me on the details why did you take such a sunny view of life in lake wobegon you know you left out adultery you left out drunkenness and corruption why did you do that how do you answer when they say you left out the alcoholism and the adultery i accept being corrected i appreciate correction but keeler's plans for aging gracefully have been clouded by me too accusations that surfaced just after his retirement me too was uh was a very noble undertaking you know to fight bullies there are bullies and uh and uh i'm in favor of fighting them i'm not one myself you've said basically that you felt you were the victim of an injustice in a good cause well i wouldn't use the word victim i've met too many people who really are victims and i'm not in the fall of 2017 keeler was accused of sexual misconduct by a female colleague minnesota public radio the distributor of his show cut ties with keeler effective immediately there are some people who are going to be not happy that we're even here sitting talking to you i don't know that's going to be your problem five years later he is making no apologies and there are some people who felt they didn't see on your part enough reflection or regret what would you say to that i can only tell what i honestly feel it was a mutual flirtation there was no kissing there was no hugging there was i mean it was you know a sort of a sort of flirtation that thousands of people did before me and i hope they take my case as a warning that you should not you should not be friends with a female colleague it's dangerous well you could argue that you should never put your hand on a female colleague ever it's dangerous you could argue based on the emails that you released but it was more than a friendship well call it what you will what would you call it friendship but minnesota public radio found a pattern of improper behavior after the woman a researcher for the show accused keeler of dozens of sexually inappropriate incidents she also accused him of three instances of unwanted touching according to the minneapolis star tribune in his defense the married keeler shared hundreds of emails with the woman with the newspaper in one they reported he imagined them having sex on an airplane later he imagined them naked in bed in his hotel room she replied that the image of us lying together is sweet is sweet before a settlement was reached the woman told the associated press through her attorney that keeler was her mentor and employer adding he had power over me every time i said no or tried to avoid him i feared i was saying no to my future in a news statement to cbs news her attorney said our client disputes assertions that there was a mutual attraction or consent i would have been grateful if an angry person had walked up to me and and and said this is what you did to me this was the effect that it had on me do you think you crossed the line in any way in that relationship evidently i did but but do you think so if so i crossed the line in a way that if you were to dismiss everybody else who had crossed the line there would be no staff left and there would be no management whatsoever the culture changed the culture the culture changed keeler reached a settlement and signed a confidentiality agreement but it was a dreadful dreadful mistake a person should never sign away your right to tell your side of the story perhaps his greatest anger though was directed at minnesota public radio i worked for the company for 40 years and i was dismissed with a phone call the phone call took about a minute and a half there was no thank you you know but i had already retired so yeah that makes it easy but you lost your book deal you lost your newspaper column yeah keeler doesn't spend much time in his native minnesota anymore so do you think of new york is home now oh sure you do that's it's where my wife wants to be he does occasional one-man shows mostly in smaller cities me too issues don't seem to deter his audiences i do not doubt part of the accusation but i completely doubt that the the punishment fit the crime absolutely not everything's got a season but his season ain't done yet i guess what i'm asking is do you feel like you've been unfairly tarred by this i'm not taking a poll about my reputation my public image or anything do you care about it i don't i have friends and family and there are a certain number of people who still love to come out and hear about lake wobegon and that's enough what more does one want that's the news from lake wobegon where all the women are strong all the men are good-looking and all the children are above them thank you for listening please join us when our trumpet sounds again next sunday morning so now streaming i used to believe in progress that no matter what we do we just end up back at the start we're in crazy time the paramount plus original series the good fight returns for its final season the point isn't the end the point is winning yes there are bad people in the world the best way to protect the good people is to convict the bad so here's to us the good fight the final season now streaming exclusively on paramount plus