    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [May 11, 1993]
    [Pages 614-624]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With High School Students in
    Bensonville, Illinois
    May 11, 1993

        The President. Thank you very much, Brian. Thank you, Dr. Meredith.
    And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad to be here at this fine
    high school. I should also note before I begin that one of many reasons
    that I decided to come here is that this high school is the alma mater
    of an important member of my White House staff, Kevin O'Keefe, who
    graduated from Fenton High School. Where are you? Where's Kevin? Stand
    up. He didn't have that gray hair when he was here. I met, in addition
    to your principal and your superintendent, I met Charlotte Sonnenfeld on
    the way in here, who said she was a teacher of Kevin O'Keefe but was not
    responsible for him in any way. [Laughter]
        I also want to thank a number of other people who are here,
    including several Members of Congress over here to my left, Bobby Rush,
    Luis Gutierrez, Cardiss Collins, and George Sangmeister. I think they're
    all here. And I want to thank Richard Dent of the Chicago Bears for
    coming. Stand up, Richard.
        I also want to--is Michael Cruz over there? Is he here? No? Where is
    he? Here he is. Come here. This young man was on the President's town
    hall meeting with students. Did any of you see it? Did you see that? And
    he became a television star because he is a good student. He goes to
    school in Chicago, and he said he was worried about the safety of the
    schools and the streets. And he asked the President to try to make all
    the schools safe for students in every part of America, no matter how
    tough the neighborhoods were. And I was really proud of him, so I
    invited him to come here today. I think you ought to give him a hand.
    [Applause]
        I know we've got students from other schools here. Where are you,
    all the students from the other schools that are here?
        Audience members. Boo-o-o!
        The President. Hey, hey. [Laughter] No, no, today's the day when
    you're supposed to welcome them here.
        I want to say how very glad I am to be back in Illinois where I met
    so many people who shaped the thoughts and the feelings that I carried
    into the Presidential campaign last year. People who asked me to fight
    for their families and the future of their children, to help to fix our
    economy, to create more jobs, to bring the terrible budget deficit down,
    to deal with the health care and education challenges facing America. A
    lot of what I learned in that campaign last year I learned from talking
    to

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    people on the streets in the cities and towns of Illinois, and I'm glad
    to be back.
        This week, some of the Members of Congress whom I hoped would be
    here are in Washington working on things of importance to you. Your two
    United States Senators, Paul Simon and Carol Moseley-Braun, are in the
    Senate today because they're going to vote on the motor voter bill,
    which will make it easier for young people to register and vote, an
    issue that's been a big issue for MTV and all the MTV watchers in the
    country who want to make young people a bigger part of the political
    process. And Congressman Rostenkowski and the other members of his
    committee are back in Washington, working on a plan that will help to
    bring the budget deficit down by over $500 billion over the next 5
    years, so that you can grow up in an America that is not paralyzed by a
    crushing debt, as we have seen in the last 12 years.
        But I don't want to talk just about those issues today. I also want
    to talk about tomorrow, about your tomorrows and about what it will take
    for you to make the most of the future all of us who have already been
    in your place and school are trying to make.
        I've spent a lot of my time in Washington, in fact, most of my time,
    working on the economy and the health care crisis today, because I know
    that unless we can bring the deficit down and invest in jobs and
    technology and building a strong economy, America can't be what it ought
    to be. And I believe that unless we attack the problems of health care
    security and coverage and the enormous contribution that health care
    costs are making to the financial problems of this country, we can never
    restore real security to the American family or strength to the American
    economy or reduce the terrible deficit of this Government so that we can
    bring our budget into balance. So that's what I spend my time doing.
        But I also know that no matter what we do on these issues, unless
    each and every one of you is a productive, well-educated, well-trained
    citizen able to take advantage of the opportunities of the world you
    will live in but also able to meet the highly competitive challenges of
    people from all over the world who will be struggling for many of the
    same opportunities that you want, that nothing I can do will change your
    individual lives. You have to do that. And that's why the provision of
    excellence in education and real educational opportunities are so
    important.
        Those of you who have been able to go to this school or the other
    schools here represented can leave your high school with the confidence
    that you've had the opportunity to get a good education. But you should
    know that in the world you're living in, the average young American
    moving into the work force will change work seven or eight times in a
    lifetime. And more than ever before in the history of the country, what
    you are able to do in your work life, what you are able to earn, will be
    directly related not just to what you know today but what you can learn
    tomorrow. In the last--yeah, you can clap for that. That's a pretty good
    idea. Thanks. [Applause]
        Now, in the last 12 years, there has been a dramatic difference, a
    widening growing-out between the earnings of young people who have at
    least 2 years of good education after high school in a community
    college, a good training program, or a 4-year college degree, and young
    people who drop out of high school or only finished high school. The
    clear evidence is that in the world in which you will live, you will
    need not only to make a personal commitment to learning and relearning
    throughout your lifetime but to getting at least--at least--2 years of
    education beyond high school and hopefully more.
        Now, more and more people have got this figured out. College
    enrollments have grown up; explosive enrollment increases at 2-year
    community colleges and technical schools have been seen. Young people
    have figured that out. But there are still some problems with it, one of
    which is purely financial. The college dropout rate is more than twice
    the high school dropout rate, and one big reason is, a lot of people
    cannot afford to go or, having gone, cannot afford to stay.
        How many of you want to go on to some form of further education when
    you get out of high school? Raise your hand. How many of you think
    you're going to need to borrow some money or get a scholarship or have
    some financial help to do it? Raise your hand. [Applause] I think it's
    nice that you can be enthusiastic about that.
        You know, last year in Illinois alone, almost 180,000 educational
    loans were made. Five million educational loans were made in America
    last year. Higher education is really important. It's important to you
    economically. It's impor-

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    tant for reasons far more important than that, even. It promotes
    personal growth and gets you in contact with things that have happened
    in the past and ties you into this great civilization of ours. But it's
    all academic, to use an appropriate word, if you can't afford to go and
    stay.
        Interestingly enough, the cost of a college education is perhaps the
    only essential in a family's spending patterns that has gone up more
    rapidly than health care in the last 10 years. And that's one big reason
    that the college dropout rate has increased. More and more young people
    have to deal with this.
        On the average, in the country as a whole, tuition fees and room and
    board cost $5,240 a year at public institutions of higher education and
    $13,237 at private schools. The cost of these educations has gone up 126
    percent in the last 10 years. That means that a lot of people who try to
    borrow money drop out and then can't repay the debt; others borrow the
    money and leave college with massive debts and don't know how to repay
    them. Still others might prefer when they graduate to be a teacher, for
    example, but they're afraid they can't meet their loan repayment
    schedule. They might wish to be a law enforcement officer or a police
    officer; they're afraid they can't meet their loan repayment schedule.
    That's a bad case of the tail wagging the dog. People actually deciding
    what to do with their lives based on the crushing burden of debt they
    have to get an education, the purpose of which was to be free to choose
    to do whatever you want to do with your life. We can do better than
    that.
        One of the reasons that I ran for President is that I wanted to
    change that, because I know no economic policy, no health care policy,
    no reduction in the deficit can change what is in your mind and whether
    you are able to do well in the world that you will live in. You have to
    do that. But my generation owes it to you to give you the chance to be
    able to afford to get a good college education, to go and to stay.
        A couple of weeks ago I unveiled a plan to do that based on four
    simple principles: First, we ought to lower the interest rates on the
    college loans that you borrow from--that you make. I don't know how many
    seniors here have already looked into college loans, but if you want a
    college loan that's guaranteed by the Federal Government, there's a lot
    of paperwork involved and a lot of hassle. That's because there are a
    lot of extra costs in there, from middle men, from banks, and from
    corporations, who profit from the current loan program.
        Your Senator, Paul Simon, was the first person who ever came to see
    me well over a year ago to say that we ought to make loans directly to
    students from the United States Government in a financially secure way
    so that we could cut out paperwork, cut out all the time it takes to
    apply for them, and eliminate excess profits from middle men. Every
    student borrower can enjoy a lower rate if we do this. And if we adopt
    the plan that I have basically developed in cooperation with Senator
    Simon and others, we can save the American taxpayers $4 billion over the
    next 5 years and make loans available to you at cheaper rates. I'd say
    that's a pretty good idea.
        The second thing we have to do is make it easier for students to pay
    the loan back. Today, the loan repayment obligation is directly related
    to how much you borrow, whether you have a job or whatever your job
    pays. What I want to do is to give every American young person who
    borrows money to get a 2-year or a 4-year education after high school
    the option of paying the money back based on how much you make, so that
    you can never be saddled with a debt burden greater than a certain
    percentage of your income. That way, there will never be an incentive
    not to be a teacher, not to be a police officer, not to work with kids
    in trouble, not to do whatever you want to do. You will be able to pay
    your loan back because it will be a percentage of your income.
    Regardless of how much you borrowed, we'll work it out so that the
    monthly payment is never too burdensome. That means nobody will be able
    to say they can't afford a college loan.
        The third thing we want to do is to give tens of thousands of you
    the chance to earn credit against these loans before you go to college
    or while you're in college or to work them off after you get out of
    college, not by paying them off but by serving your country in a
    community service program, working with the elderly, working with other
    kids, working with housing programs, working with things that need to be
    done in the neighborhood or in nearby neighborhoods, or if you do it
    after you get out of college, working as teachers or police officers or
    in other needed areas in underserved communities in America. Just think
    of it. We could have tens of thousands of people who

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    could pay off their loans entirely by giving a year or two of their
    lives to make their countries and their communities better.
        Finally--this is the one kicker--I hope you will clap for this, too,
    because it's important. [Applause] Wait until you hear it. [Laughter] A
    lot of people don't pay off their college loans at all. There is an
    unbelievable default rate. We lose about $3 billion a year from people
    who don't pay their loans back. Now, there's a reason for that, and I'll
    explain it more later. But one of the things we do, if we're going to
    loan you the money directly, we're going to collect the money directly,
    too, involving the tax records at tax time so you can't beat the bill.
    People who borrow money, once you make it possible for them to repay it,
    should not be able to welsh on the loans. That undermines the ability of
    children coming along behind you to borrow the money. People ought to
    have to pay the loans back if we make it possible for them to do it.
    Everybody ought to have to do that.
        Now, this will make it possible for millions of young people to
    borrow money to go to college. I don't propose to weaken the Pell grant
    programs and the other scholarship programs; we want to keep
    strengthening them. But this will make it possible for millions of
    people to borrow money, never have to worry about whether they'll be
    able to pay it back. You won't have to pay it back until you go to work.
    When you do go to work, you can pay it back as a small percentage of
    your income. You will have to pay it back and will do it all at lower
    cost. This will open the doors of college education to millions of
    Americans.
        Now, you might ask yourself, ``Well, if it's that simple, why is
    this man here talking to me about it? Why don't you just go do it?''
    Here's why. A lot of people are doing well with the present system.
    They're making a lot of money out of the present system. There are 7,800
    lenders today, people making the student loans. There are 46 different
    Agencies that guarantee these loans against failure. Then, there are all
    these people who service the loans and who buy the loans in big packages
    in ways that you couldn't even begin to understand, probably, but
    they're all making good money out of the present system. It's confusing
    and it's costly, and the more money that goes to other things, the less
    money that's available to provide low-cost loans to the students of
    America.
        Typically, the student takes out a loan from a bank, and then the
    bank takes the note that you sign when you get the loan and sells it to
    a corporation. The corporation then makes a profit by packaging the loan
    to someone else. And the loan is ultimately guaranteed by whom? All of
    us, the American taxpayers. So nobody can lose any money on it. Now, the
    biggest middle man in the whole thing is called Sallie Mae, the Student
    Loan Marketing Association. Last year, lenders made a total profit of $1
    billion on student loans. Sallie Mae made $394 million. And between 1986
    and 1991--listen to this; this is a group that helps us get student
    loans, right, which should not be a big profitmaking operation--the
    costs of this corporation went down by 21 percent and its profits went
    up by 172 percent. But you didn't get the benefits of it; someone else
    did.
        Interestingly enough, banks make more profits and more guaranteed
    profits on student loans than on car loans or mortgages, but there's no
    risk. They don't have to worry if the student doesn't pay back the loan.
    Why? Because the Government will send them 90 cents on the dollar. And
    as all of you know if you follow this at all, there's not much incentive
    for a bank to come recover the loan because it costs more than 10
    percent of the loan to hire a lawyer and go through a lawsuit and file
    all the papers and do all that. So every year, the Government just
    writes a lot of checks to people for the loans that students don't
    repay. The taxpayers foot the bill, and that's all money that we can't
    spend loaning money to you and people like you to go to college.
        The system is not very good. The lenders do well, but the people who
    need to borrow the money for a college education are hurt as a result.
    And the taxpayers get hit coming and going: not enough money made
    available for student loans, too much money going out to increase the
    deficit by paying off loans that never get repaid.
        So, you might say, ``Why don't we change this?'' Because in the
    system we have, the people that are making plenty of money out of the
    present system will fight it. And they will hire lobbyists who make
    their money by trying to influence the Congress. No sooner had I even
    mentioned changing this system than Congress was deluged with lobbyists.
    The biggest organization, Sallie Mae alone, supposed to be in the
    business of helping you get money to go to

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    college, has already hired seven of the most powerful lobbyists in
    Washington to try to stop this process from changing.
        Now, there are a lot of people in Washington who want to keep the
    status quo. A lot of people don't want to lower the deficit, either. How
    did we get such a big national debt? How did the debt go from $1
    trillion in 1980 to $4 trillion in 1992? Because we cut----
        Audience member. Republicans.
        The President. No, because we did what was popular. It wasn't just
    the Republicans; they had the White House, but let's be fair. Because
    how do you run up a big deficit? How do you run up a big deficit? The
    President proposes, and the Congress disposes. And it's popular in the
    short run to cut taxes and increase spending, right? I mean, that's
    popular. It's easy. I'll cut your taxes and send you a check. That's
    good, right? The problem is, is that at some point you run up debt after
    debt after debt after debt.
        So what am I trying to do? What's not popular? I'm trying to cut
    spending and increase taxes, mostly on very wealthy Americans but not
    entirely, because we all have to try to recover our financial future.
    And I'm trying to do it in a way that preserves some money to invest in
    your education and new technologies for your jobs. But there are a lot
    of people who are making money out of a system that cuts taxes and
    increases spending, and it's not very popular to raise the money and cut
    the spending. That's the way it is here. There are a lot of people who
    are doing very well out of this system.
        Now, why am I telling you this? Because it is your future on the
    line, and if you would like to have a system in which it is easier to
    borrow money to go to college, 2 or 4 years, and which it will be easier
    to pay it back and in which more of your tax money will be spent to
    benefit you and your education and your future, then you need to tell
    your Members of Congress, without regard to their political party, that
    you would like to have a better future, and this is a change that you
    want made.
        This country is a very great country. It has been around for more
    than 200 years because every time we had to make real changes, we did
    it. Now the challenges we face are very much within our borders. It
    really bothers me that there are so many kids every year who are lost to
    the future as well as to themselves because of crime and drugs. It
    really bothers me that so many people drop out of college and don't get
    the future that they ought to have just because of the money involved.
    It bothers me that we spend so much more than any other country in the
    world on health care, but we don't provide health coverage to all our
    people, and all the other advanced countries do. And it bothers me that
    we're not creating jobs for you, but we're piling up debt for your
    future.
        I believe we can do better. But we can only do it if we'll tell each
    other the truth, keep our eyes wide open, and if you will say, hey, it
    is my future. Look, I've lived most of my life. Unless I beat the odds
    and live to be 94, I've lived more than half my life--or 92. I can't
    even add anymore. I've lived more than half my life unless I live to be
    92 years old. It is your life that's on the line. It is your future
    that's on the line. And our job now is to open it up for you and to face
    the problems of this time so that you have the same chance to live the
    American dream that your forebears did. That is our job, and you can
    help us do it.
        Again, let me say, I thank you for letting me come here. I look
    forward to answering your questions. But when I'm gone, if you don't
    remember anything else I said, just remember this: There's a plan in
    Washington to provide more student loans at a more affordable rate so
    that more people can go to college and stay, but we have to have the
    courage to change to adopt it.
        Thank you very much.
        Moderator. Thank you, President Clinton. We understand that you have
    some time where you could answer some questions from our students. So if
    you'd have a seat, ladies and gentlemen, and raise your hand, we'll
    begin by asking you some questions.
        Yes?

    Student Loans

        Q. My name is John Snodgrass. I'm a junior from Fenton High School,
    and I am wondering what the Government is doing about the families that
    are defaulting on the student loans?
        The President. Well, we try to collect it. But the problem now is
    that very often the people who don't pay are unemployed, or very often
    the people who don't pay--there's another problem with this, by the
    way--are people who got educations from trade schools that couldn't
    deliver what they promised. That is, they said, ``We'll train you, and
    you'll be able to get a good job, and you'll be able to get a high sal-

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    ary.'' And a lot of these schools have been able to rip off this system
    for years because they could charm--they would get all their kids into
    these programs through student loans, and then they didn't have to worry
    about whether they finished the program or got jobs, because they
    already had the student loan money.
        So what we're trying to do is, number one, be tougher with the
    schools. If they're not good schools and they're not really educating
    the students so the students can repay the loans, we're trying to stop
    those schools from being eligible for it. Number two, we're looking at
    ways to toughen up the enforcement.
        Here's the way I want to change it so we can collect from almost
    everybody. If I said to you, look, I'll give you a loan and you don't
    have to repay it until you actually get a job so you're earning the
    money. And then you may borrow--let's say you borrow $5,000 and she
    borrows $10,000 and she borrows $20,000, and you all take jobs earning
    $30,000 a year, right? The people who borrowed more money would be given
    the option of paying that loan back as a limited percentage of their
    income, even though it would take them longer to pay it back. At least
    they would be able to make the payments, and they wouldn't be
    defaulting. And then if they didn't pay it back, we would know that they
    didn't because the Government would have the records, and we would
    enforce it just like we enforce taxes. In other words, you couldn't beat
    the bill. If you had a job and you had an income, you would have to pay
    it back.
        But right now, we get the worst of all worlds. We let somebody else
    make the loan, and we tell them if it's not paid back, we'll pay 90
    percent of the loan, and then after all the time goes by, we've got to
    figure out how to collect it. So we're doing better, but we can do much,
    much better if we clean out a lot of the system that's there and go at
    it directly.
        Who had a microphone? Anybody? Yes, in the back.

    Drug Policy

        Q. Going back to that point you made before about drugs, I was
    wondering which direction the national drug policy is going, whether you
    want to support more law enforcement in getting drugs off the streets or
    if you're going to move more towards rehabilitation and education?
        The President. Well, I don't think you can do one without the other.
    But let me say, I believe we need to increase the emphasis on education,
    prevention, and rehabilitation because we know that's what works. That
    is, for several years in the 1980's, drug use went down among most
    groups of young people, largely because they figured out it would kill
    them. In other words, people decided to change their behavior from the
    inside out.
        Now, that does not--you can't sacrifice law enforcement to that. I
    think we should do two other things. Let me just run it out real
    quickly. The second thing we should do is to adopt law enforcement
    strategies that will reinforce people taking responsibility for
    themselves and increase the likelihood that they will move off drugs or
    out of the drug culture. I'll just give you two examples.
        One is community policing. Thirty-five years ago there were three
    policemen on the street in America for every crime committed. Today,
    there are three crimes for every policeman. It's very hard, therefore,
    to have enough police to walk the streets, to know the neighbors, to
    know the kids, and to be a force for preventing crime. Where that has
    happened, it has worked.
        The man I named to be the drug czar in our administration, Lee
    Brown, was the police chief in Atlanta, Houston, and New York City. And
    when he left New York, in the areas where they had put in community
    policing, the crime rate was going down. In some of those neighborhoods,
    for the first time in 30 years, there had been a reversal in the crime
    rate. So I think you have to do that.
        And the final thing I want to say is we still have a big stake in
    working with our friends and allies in other countries to try to stop
    drugs from coming into this country. And we are in the process now of
    reexamining whether there's anything else we can do to reduce the flow
    of drugs into the country. But I'll tell you one thing, if we all
    decided we'd stop taking them, the flow would dry up because there
    wouldn't be any demand. So we can't just worry about blaming people from
    outside.
        Go ahead. Where's the microphone? Yes?

    Defense Spending

        Q. A big issue that has been in the newspaper and on the news is
    military cutbacks. What I'm curious about is, what is being cut back in
    bases, arms, manpower. My curiosity is because I've

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    enlisted in the U.S. Army. And is it going to effect my future if I
    decide to use it as a career and go my 20 years or anything like that.
    Will it affect me?
        The President. Can you all hear his question? I'll repeat the
    question. He said he was concerned about military cutbacks. He wants to
    know what the nature of the cutbacks are, how far they will go. He's
    enlisted in the Army. Will that undermine his ability to make the Army a
    career because of the cutbacks.
        Let me say, first of all, you know why the cutbacks are occurring.
    The cutbacks are occurring because an enormous percentage of our
    military force was directed against the Soviet Union, and it no longer
    exists. A lot of our nuclear arsenal was because they had a big nuclear
    arsenal, and we were positioned against them, and we had planes and
    ships supporting that, as well as people on the ground with land-based
    missiles. A lot of our military forces were positioned against all the
    troops they used to have in Eastern Europe, which have been withdrawn,
    and the military positioning they had around the world. So we have been
    able to--in fact, we've been obligated to reduce defense spending,
    starting in about '86 or '87 because of the receding nature of the
    threat. And that's good on the whole.
        Now, the world is still a pretty dangerous place, and the United
    States is still the only comprehensive military power. And we have to be
    careful how we reduce that defense spending and how much we do it.
        Right now, we're doing it across the board in three areas: We're
    reducing military personnel with the view toward going down to a base
    force of about 1.4 million over the next 5 years, down from over 2.5
    million just a few years ago. So that's a lot of people that have been
    mustered out, including all volunteers, people who wanted to serve their
    country, many of whom would like to have stayed longer. So the answer to
    your question is, if we have a smaller base force, it will be more
    competitive to get into and to stay in the Armed Forces. The recruitment
    has already been scaled back. So if you've been recruited and if you're
    going in under the new, smaller recruitment quotas, you'll probably have
    a reasonable chance to stay in a good, long while if you choose to do
    it. But not so many good young people will. In that way, it's kind of
    sad, because the military has done a magnificent job of training and
    educating people, of inculcating them with good values and good work
    habits as well as good education. So that's one of the--kind of the down
    sides. The second thing we're doing is closing bases, and that's very
    unpopular. But you can't just cut the forces and not close the bases.
    And the third thing we've had to do is to cut back on a number of
    weapons procurements, which cost jobs in the defense industry.
        So, on balance, this has been a good thing, but I want you to
    understand there are some bad consequences to it. And one of the
    struggles that I expect to have constantly for the next 4 years is to
    try to convince people in the Congress that as we cut defense we need to
    be reinvesting that money in education and technology in America to
    create jobs to replace those lost in defense.
        And thank you for being willing to serve your country.

    Government Gridlock

        Q. Mr. President, I think the American people have become
    increasingly disenchanted with the lack of progress in our Government.
    How are you going to convince the American people and all the Members of
    Congress that your programs are good ones, and how are you going to
    break the filibusters that have been----
        The President. Well, we've only had one. We broke them all but one.
    Keep in mind that I've just been there 100 days, and I had 12 years of a
    different direction before I took office. It's hard to turn it around in
    100 days. I'm actually quite optimistic.
        The Congress passed the outline of the budget I presented which, as
    I explained earlier, is a very tough thing, you know, to bring the
    deficit down in a record time, the first time in 17 years under
    Democrats and Republican Presidents the Congress had ever passed the
    budget resolution within the time limit. So I think we're moving fairly
    rapidly.
        Just shortly after I took office, Congress passed the Family and
    Medical Leave Act, guaranteeing people the right to take a little time
    off from work when they have a sick child or a sick parent or a baby is
    born, without losing their jobs. That had gone through 8 years of fights
    and two vetoes. The Congress is trying to pass today this motor voter
    bill, which would really open up the political process to millions of
    Americans. So I think we are making progress.

    [[Page 621]]

        Now, let me also tell you that some of this stuff is really hard. I
    mean the reason that these things have not been done before is that
    we've done easy things for 12 years. What I'm asking the Congress to do
    are things that are really hard, and it may take a while to do it. But
    I'm not prepared to say, at the moment anyway, that we've lost the
    battle to gridlock. I don't agree with the minority of Senators who
    filibustered the jobs bill. But that was not just a political battle;
    that was an idea battle. A lot of them thought that we shouldn't spend
    any money on anything until we pass the overall budget which reduces the
    deficit, even though I knew we were going to.
        My view was: We're going to pass this budget, we're going to reduce
    the deficit, and we've got to get some jobs in this economy. So that was
    an issue I didn't win on. I'm not going to win every issue I'm fighting.
    But I believe that we have a real chance to make this Government work,
    and I'm basically quite optimistic about it.
        The one thing I would urge you not to do, any of you, is to put too
    much faith in just the day-to-day development of the news. You have to
    take a long-term view of this. And we've had this health care problem
    for a long time. We've had this economic problem for a long time. And in
    just a very short time we've been able to put these issues back on the
    national agenda and move them forward. So I think what you need to do is
    to remind everybody you can remind--if you want to know what you can do
    and what the American people can do, it's to try to make everybody think
    in a less partisan way, not worry about the fights between Republicans
    and Democrats, and think more every day about what are the problems of
    this country. And if you don't like what President Clinton says, what's
    your alternative?
        In other words, let's just keep moving the ball forward. What I try
    to do is to put these problems high on the national agenda and try to
    ask people to lay down their partisan armor and look at these problems
    in a new and different way and keep pushing the ball forward. So if you
    don't like what I want to do about it, then if you're not going to
    support that, then come up with some alternative so we can do something.
    The worst thing we can do is stay in paralysis. Let's do something.
    That, I think, ought to be the message.

    Financial Aid for Education

        Q. In the past, the financial aid has been based upon a quota system
    for racial and ethnic minorities. I'm wondering if you're planning to
    continue this quota system or will it be based on talent and merit and
    needs straight across the board?
        The President. There may be certain minority scholarship programs in
    certain universities. But the program that I would speak of, both
    national service and the student loan program, would be available
    across-the-board. I mean--and I believe--and the student loan program
    should be available across-the-board virtually without regard to income
    once you can guarantee that the repayment is going to be there so you
    don't have to worry about loaning too much money. That's what I think. I
    favor broad-based and inclusive programs and national service will also
    be broad-based and inclusive.
        I think you have to make efforts to include people from all races
    and income groups, and I would want to see that done because we have a
    big stake in making sure that we close the disparity in income and race
    of people getting an education, because if you come out the other end of
    the educational system, then the income differences tend to vanish. But
    I don't think anyone should be excluded, and I don't want to ration this
    program. I want to open this program to all Americans.

    Space Program

        Q. Mr. Clinton, I'd like to know what your views are on the space
    program, if you are in favor of cutting anything or improving anything?
        The President. In general, I support strongly the space program and
    the NASA budget. I have some problems with the space station itself for
    a couple of reasons. One, it's a hugely expensive program, and there's a
    lot of debate within NASA itself about whether the old designs should be
    continued, whether we need that space station design. Secondly, it's had
    staggering cost overruns. Every time we turn around they're coming back
    for hundreds of millions of more dollars. And with the deficit the way
    it is and all these other problems, we can't afford it. So what NASA is
    doing now is trying to redesign the space station and come up with a
    multi-year space program that I hope we can get strong bipartisan
    support for.
        I think it would be a big mistake for America

    [[Page 622]]

    to drastically cut back its role in space. Now I've been criticized for
    cutting back on the space station, but I haven't cut back the NASA
    budget. We have cut back the rate of increase that they want to cover
    all the cost overruns for anything that happens. I just don't think we
    can do that with the old space station design.
        So we're now looking at three alternatives for the space station to
    take a new and modified course. But I think it would be a great mistake
    for America to withdraw from space exploration and from work in space.
    For one thing, it's one of the ways that we may find answers to a lot of
    our environmental problems as well as to continue to build our
    scientific and technological base after we cut defense. So I hope we can
    continue to support it.
        Q. Mr. President----
        The President. Go ahead. We'll take one more and then I'll take this
    young man's. Go ahead.

    Bosnia

        Q. Mr. President, I was wondering with all the news about Bosnia, do
    you see any differences in sending troops to Bosnia where you were
    strongly opposed to civil war in Vietnam in the late sixties?
        The President. Well, first of all, I do. That's a good question. But
    I have never advocated the United States unilaterally sending troops to
    Bosnia to fight on one side or the other of the civil war.
        Let me just say what's complicated about it. There plainly is a
    civil war in Bosnia that is, among other things, a fight primarily
    between the Serbs and the Muslims but also involving the Croatians. It
    is complicated by the fact that Serbia, a separate country, has
    intervened in it, and complicated by the fact that the United Nations
    before Bosnia, the nation of Bosnia was even recognized, imposed an arms
    embargo in the area. But the practical impact of the arms embargo that
    the United Nations imposed was to give the entire weaponry of the
    Yugoslav Army to the Serbian Bosnians and deprive any kind of equal
    weaponry to the people fighting against them. So the global community
    had, not on purpose, but inadvertently, has had a huge impact on the
    outcome of that war in ways that have been very bad.
        My position has been pretty simple and straightforward from the
    beginning. I think that without the United States unilaterally getting
    in, or without even--I don't think the United Nations should enter the
    war on one side or the other. But I think there is much more that we can
    do to induce the parties to stop the fighting, to do what we can to stop
    this idea of ethnic cleansing: murdering people, raping children, and
    doing terrible acts of violence solely because of people's religion.
    Biologically, there is not much difference between the Muslims, the
    Croatians, and the Serbians there. The ethnic differences are rooted in
    religious and historical factors.
        Thirdly, we want to try to confine that conflict so it doesn't
    spread into other places and involve other countries, like Albania and
    Greece and Turkey, which could have the impact of undermining the peace
    in Europe and the growth and stability of democracies there.
        So I think the United Nations, the world community can do more in
    that regard. That's quite a different thing than what happened in
    Vietnam where the United States essentially got involved in what was a
    civil war on one side or the other. There are some remarkable
    similarities to it which should give us caution about doing that. There
    are similarities to that. There are similarities to Lebanon. But that
    does not mean, just because--I wouldn't propose doing exactly what the
    United States did in Vietnam. That does not mean that the United States
    should not consider doing something more, especially if we can get the
    Europeans who are after all closer to it, who have a more immediate
    stake in it, to try to help us to stop the ethnic cleansing, the
    continued fighting, and minimize dramatically the risk of the war
    spreading.
        So that's what we're struggling for an answer to. It's a very, very
    difficult problem.

    Students and the Educational System

        Q. Mr. President, what do you feel we as students can do to better
    the U.S. educational system?
        The President. Read more. Read more. I think you can read more. I
    think you can establish tutoring groups in schools where the students
    that are doing well help those which aren't. There's a lot of evidence
    that by the time somebody reaches your age that you all have more
    influence on one another than I would on any of you. And there's a lot
    of evidence in schools that are succeeding that when students work with
    each other either in the same classroom or across grade lines, that the
    overall performance of the school goes up.

    [[Page 623]]

        Interestingly enough, there are a lot of studies even showing at
    elementary schools that this is true and certainly true in high schools.
    So I think one of the things that I have seen work repeatedly over the
    last dozen years that I've spent countless hours in schools with
    students and teachers is that kind of working together.
        The third thing that I think you can do is to speak out in a way for
    a culture of learning and for good values in the schools. I think that's
    important. I think if the students want a school to be a place where
    learning is valued and where everybody counts and where violence or
    drugs or other bad behavior are not tolerated, the students can have
    more to do with getting rid of it than anything else if it is a bad
    thing, if everybody looks down on it. And I think that can make a huge
    difference.
        It's so limited what the rest of us can do to help the schools
    unless there is a right sort of feeling in the hearts of the young
    people involved. And I think anything we can do to convince all students
    that they count, that they matter, that we need them all, that they
    shouldn't drop out, that they can learn, anything we can do in that
    regard school by school, class by class, year by year, is going to make
    education in this country a lot better.
        The last thing I think you can do is to decide what you think is
    wrong with education and how we can make it better and tell people like
    me about it. In other words, tell us from your perspective how we can
    make your schools a lot better, what you need, how we can give you a
    better future, what we're not doing that we could be doing. Those are
    the things you can do.
        Moderator. President Clinton, I understand we have time for one more
    question.

    Women in the Armed Forces

        Q. Yes. I have a question about women in the military. I heard that
    they're going to be able to go in combat now. Is it going to become a
    law that they're going to be drafted also?
        The President. I'm sorry I didn't hear you. Go ahead.
        Q. I've heard rumors that women are going to be able to be in combat
    now in the military. So I'm wondering, are they going to be able to be
    drafted like men?
        The President. First of all, men are not drafted. We have an all
    volunteer service. There are no draftees. Anyone who goes into the
    service is like this young man. The men or women choose to go. And we
    have a lot of people who want to go now because of the justifiably high
    esteem in which our military is held. I can tell you that you can talk
    to any career service officer, and he or she will tell you that we have
    the best educated, best trained, best equipped, highest morale military
    service we have ever had. And it also, by the way, is the most diverse
    one we've ever had, opening up more opportunities to women and to all
    members of all races that we've ever had. And yet it's the best
    educated, best trained, best equipped, best able military service we
    have ever had although it's under a lot of stress now because of all the
    downsizing.
        The Service Chiefs in the Joint Chiefs of Staff have decided that
    they ought to open up some more combat roles to women, principally on
    combat ships. The Navy, for example--I bet a lot of you don't know
    this--the Navy now has three noncombat ships under the command of women,
    the United States Navy does.
        But Admiral Kelso, the Chief of Naval Operations, had decided that
    some more combat ship roles should be open to women. And then there was
    also a decision made that women ought to be eligible to fly combat
    missions in the face of clear evidence that the airplanes they fly today
    require not strength so much as response, the capacity for quick and
    agile response. And there's a lot of evidence that women are at least as
    good in some of those functions as men, so the Joint Chiefs made that
    decision. That was a military decision in which I did not intervene at
    all. I think if the evidence supports it, it's a very good decision. But
    I want you to know it was made based on the evidence in the case and
    made by the military, and they deserve the credit.
        Well, I could do this all day long. You have been terrific and I'm
    very proud of you, and you've asked wonderful questions, all of them
    were very good. I wish you well. Have a good day. And don't stop
    thinking about these educational issues. Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:55 a.m. in the gymnasium at Fenton High
    School. In his remarks, he referred to Brian Shamie, student council
    president; John G. Meredith, superintendent

    [[Page 624]]

    of schools; and Kevin O'Keefe, Special Assistant to the President. A
    portion of the question-and-answer session could not be verified because
    the tape was incomplete.