    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [August 16, 1997]
    [Pages 1109-1110]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    August 16, 1997

        Good morning. As families across America start to prepare for the
    new school year, I'd like to talk about how students and parents can
    make the most of the historic higher education opportunities in our new
    balanced budget.
        The balanced budget I signed into law last week meets the Nation's
    obligation to offer opportunity to every American who's willing to work
    for it. It opens the doors to college to a new generation, with the
    largest investment in higher education since the GI bill 50 years ago.
    We have achieved a truly remarkable goal: For the first time ever, all
    children in America who study hard will have the opportunity to

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    go on to college. Let me tell you just a few of the ways our budget will
    make that possible.
        First, the budget offers HOPE scholarships, a tax credit of up to
    $1,500, as much as the average community college tuition, that will help
    to make the first 2 years of college as universal as 4 years of high
    school are today.
        Second, the budget creates a new lifetime learning credit targeted
    at college juniors and seniors, graduate students, and adults who want
    to enhance their skills. Under this initiative, for example, a homemaker
    who wants to return to school full time to become a teacher can get a 20
    percent tax credit on the first $5,000 of her tuition bill. By the year
    2003, that credit will grow even larger, applying to up to $10,000 in
    tuition and fees.
        Third, beginning this January, parents and grandparents can withdraw
    money from their individual retirement accounts, without any penalty, to
    pay for higher education expenses. They can also open up brandnew
    education IRA's which will allow them to invest $500 per child every
    year to build up money, tax-free, for college.
        Fourth, our budget agreement provides the largest increase in Pell
    grants in two decades and gives about 350,000 more students the
    scholarships they deserve. These new initiatives will greatly expand
    educational opportunity for American families.
        But there is another crucial part of the college equation, and that
    is responsibility, the responsibility of every student and every parent
    to prepare for the future. As Hillary and I have learned, parents can't
    wait to plan for college until their children are in their junior or
    senior years of high school. In fact, education experts say it's
    essential that parents sit down with their kids as early as the sixth
    grade to start charting a course toward college. In the crucial middle
    school years, parents must encourage their children to take challenging
    classes. Research shows, for example, that students who take algebra and
    geometry by the end of the ninth grade are much more likely to go on to
    college than those who don't.
        In the new economy of the 21st century, what our children earn will
    depend more than ever on what they can learn. Almost 90 percent of the
    new jobs being created today require more than a high school level of
    literacy and math skills. Yet more than half of the people entering the
    work force are not prepared with these skills. So we still have a lot of
    work to do.
        Throughout the fall, my administration will work very hard to make
    sure that parents and students learn how to take advantage of the new
    higher education opportunities they now have. As a first step, Education
    Secretary Dick Riley and his staff have prepared an extremely useful
    guide for parents of children in middle school, junior high, and high
    school. It's called ``Getting Ready for College Early.'' You can get a
    free copy by calling the Department of Education at 1-800-USA-LEARN, 1-
    800-USA-LEARN.
        From the day I took office I have been working on a simple idea:
    When my child is my age, I want our country to be a place where every
    person who works hard has a chance to live out his or her God-given
    abilities and dreams. With the education opportunities contained in our
    historic balanced budget, we have taken a large step toward that goal.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 1:21 p.m. on August 15 in the
    Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on August
    16.