Austin student wins second prize in C-SPAN competition

AUSTIN, Texas - Austin homeschool student Carson Collins took home second prize in C-SPAN's 20th annual StudentCam video documentary competition.

C-SPAN received over 1,600 entries from 42 states.

"I know I have one more year now and the grand prize continues to elude me. So next year, hopefully, I can finally get that first prize for the grand prize," said Collins.

For the competition's 20th anniversary, C-SPAN asked students what they think is the most important change in America, either 20 years in the future or over the past 20 years.

"This year, I created a documentary about liberal education in colleges and universities across the country. I really wanted to kind of emphasize the parallel issues here of college graduates being able to make money after they graduate and pay off any student loans they may have," said Collins.

Director of C-SPAN education relations Craig McAndrew says this project helps students to dig deep into the issues the country is facing.

"I'm always looking for experts to interview, which is part of the competition. And then that's really helped me get a sense of what I want to talk about, how I want to present it, and what message I want to get across," said Collins.

Now in his junior year of high school, Collins has been making films since he was in eighth grade.

"I want to go into the military. I want to go to the Naval Academy and then commission into the Marine Corps after that, and then potentially after I'm out of the military, I'd like to kind of continue this process of creating documentaries," said Collins.

Collins' documentary "Resurgence of Wisdom: Reviving Classical Liberal Education in America" will air on C-SPAN on Friday, April 12 at 5:50 a.m., and throughout the day.