    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [February 4, 1998]
    [Pages 170-172]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Announcing the High Hopes for College Initiative
    February 4, 1998

        Let's give her a hand; she was great. Bravo! [Applause] Thank you
    very much. Fabiola, you can introduce me any
    time you want. [Laughter] You were magnificent, and I know your family
    is very proud of you today.
        Mr. Vice President, thank you for all
    the work you've done on our education initiatives. Secretary
    Riley, thank you for what you said and for
    what you've done. And I want to thank you and all your people, Leslie
    Thornton and the others who worked on this.
    I want to thank Gene Sperling--the Vice
    President has already blown his head up too big--[laughter]--but he has
    been working on this issue with deep personal conviction for 5 years.
    Now, all of you who know Gene know that since he never sleeps, that is
    the equivalent of 10 years' work for anyone else. [Laughter]
        I thank Harris Wofford and all the people
    at AmeriCorps, including the young volunteers who are here today; Linda
    Chavez-Thompson; and especially
    Congressman Chaka Fattah,  for whom this has
    been a life passion. I thank the Members of Congress, both Republicans
    and Democrats, who are here and those who could not come today. We have
    an extraordinary representation from Congress among those who are here
    and among those who are not. I thank the college presidents who are here
    and the over 300 they represent, and the heads of organizations who are
    here.
        And I think before I begin I should recognize a man who has been a
    mentor to all of us, and a great friend to Hillary and to me for many
    years, Mr. Eugene Lang, would you please stand.
    Thank you, and God bless you, sir, for everything you have done.
    [Applause] Thank you.
        Since this is my only public appearance of the day, before I begin
    it is important, I think, to say a few words about the situation in
    Iraq. Later today, Secretary Albright
    is going to report to me about her intensive week of meetings with our
    friends in the Persian Gulf, Europe, and Russia. I'm encouraged by the
    strong consensus she found that Iraq must fulfill all the United Nations
    Security Council resolutions and that it must allow international
    weapons inspectors full and unfettered access to all suspect sites. All
    of us would prefer a genuine diplomatic solution. I want to reiterate
    that to every single American. All of us would prefer a genuine
    diplomatic solution.
        The best way to stop Saddam from building
    nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons is simply to get the
    international inspectors back to work with no restraints. Keep in mind,
    they have done a marvelous job. They have uncovered more weapons
    potential and weapons stores than were destroyed in the entire Gulf war.
    But I will say again, one way or the other, we are determined to deny
    Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the
    missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line. [Applause] Thank you.
        Now, back to the moment. Last week in my State of the Union Address,
    when I spoke about what we had to do to strengthen America for the 21st
    century, I said I wanted an America where everybody has a chance to
    work, where everyone has a chance to get ahead with that work, where
    people have the chance to live up

    [[Page 171]]

    to their God-given potential, where our Government provides opportunity
    and our citizens exhibit the responsibility to give something back to
    their communities. This is the kind of America the High Hopes initiative
    we announced today will put within our reach.
        Thanks to the new $1,500 HOPE scholarships, the lifetime learning
    tax credits, the education IRA's, education grants for serving with
    AmeriCorps, streamlined loans, and expanded Pell grants, we have opened
    the doors to college wide to those willing and able to work for it. Now
    we have to make sure that all our students, especially those from our
    hardest pressed families, have a guardian angel helping to guide them to
    those doors and to make sure they are ready to walk through them. That's
    what this is all about.
        You know, I was listening to Secretary Riley's lilting southern
    accent, looking at the Vice President, thinking about all three of us
    white southerners up here, overrepresented on the platform--[laughter]--
    and remembering the last 20 years that Dick Riley and I have worked together on these issues. There's a
    reason we feel so passionately about this.
        When I was born in Arkansas, the per capita income of my State was
    56 percent of the national average. That's what the average income was.
    And I came from a family without a lot of money. Nobody in my family had
    ever been to college before, but by the time I got out of Ramble Grade
    School in Hot Springs, Arkansas, I never had any doubt that I was going
    to college. My family told me I was going to college; all my teachers
    told me I was going to college; all the people at my church told me I
    was going to college; everybody told me I was going to college. It never
    occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college, and yet no one in my
    family had ever been to college before. I was in an environment which
    made it very difficult for me to fail. That's the environment I want for
    every child in America.
        Now, Congressman Fattah has a similar
    story. His grandmother set him early on his path to college. She used to
    tell him and his five brothers, ``Unless you're dead or dying, you're
    going to school.'' [Laughter] Apparently, the acorn does not fall far
    from the tree. I just found out that on this, perhaps the most important
    day of his public service, Chaka Fattah would not let his son,
    Chip, come to the ceremony because he wouldn't
    permit him to miss class.
        But you know, a lot of our young students are not as lucky. They
    grow up without realizing how important or how possible college is.
    There may not be anyone in their homes to push them to take algebra, to
    take those other classes that are important to college. They probably
    don't know how to secure scholarships or grants or loans. And maybe most
    important, there may not be anybody pumping them up with hopes and
    dreams.
        That's why we have to make mentorship a way of life in America. The
    High Hopes initiative will enlist colleges and community groups to form
    partnerships with thousands of middle schools and give more than a
    million students both the information and the inspiration to seize the
    opportunity of college.
        Our balanced budget for 1999 includes $140 million to help these
    groups harness the power of citizen service and reach out to students,
    no later than seventh grade, and work with them all the way to high
    school graduation. Trained mentors and role models will help children
    pick challenging courses, tutor them when they need some extra help,
    take them on college visits and other academic field trips, and help
    them during the college application process.
        And with Representative Fattah's
    leadership, we will make sure children and their parents receive a 21st
    Century Scholar certificate telling them how much aid for college they
    will receive well in advance, so they will never have any doubt that if
    they do their part they can, in fact, go on to college.
        I want to thank the more than 300 college presidents and more than
    50 major education, religious, civil rights, and service groups who have
    embraced this initiative. And to show you the depth of support--we've
    already seen how many Members of Congress have come here for this
    today--I'd like to ask the leaders of these groups and the college
    presidents who are here today to stand and be recognized. Look at them.
    Thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you.
        Again, I want to thank the Republican and Democratic Members of
    Congress who are here. I want to thank Linda Chavez-Thompson and the rest of the members of my Race
    Advisory Board for their help with this initiative. They found already
    that early mentoring and tutoring has made a remarkable difference in
    the lives of minority students. And they believe, as I do,

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    that these High Hopes scholarships--partnerships--will help close our
    Nation's opportunity gap and help us to build that one America.
        I want to thank General Colin Powell and
    the people who are working in the Presidents' Summit on Service.
    Remember, when we had that summit, they identified making sure that
    every child in America who needed it had a mentor as one of the five
    things we ought to be able to guarantee to all of America's children.
        I want to thank, as I said, Eugene Lang, and
    all others who have gone into their personal pockets to give children
    this kind of guarantee long before the rest of us were involved in the
    endeavor.
        The High Hopes partnerships are just one of the ways we're working
    to raise expectations and lift the sights of our young people. Because
    we know that high school dropout rates are still too high, especially
    among Hispanic students, the Vice President
    just announced a $600 million effort to focus more classroom attention
    on those most at risk. We're also expanding Head Start to a million
    children; enlisting thousands more college students to make sure all our
    8-year-olds can read; working to add 100,000 qualified teachers to the
    first, second, and third grades to get average class size down to 18;
    challenging our States to adopt high academic standards and to ensure
    that all our children master the basics.
        In every community in this country, there are children with an
    enormous ability, who just need a little spark to go on to great things.
    There's a child in rural Tennessee who, with a helping hand and a higher
    education, will go on to a career in medical research; a child in
    southwest Washington who, with the guidance of a caring college student,
    will go on to become a college president; a first generation American in
    Texas who might go on to become President of the United States.
        We have to have high hopes for all of our children. And we have to
    make them know that they can have high hopes for themselves. A great
    nation that aspires to even greater things in a new century in a new
    millennium cannot afford to leave a single child behind. And we don't
    intend to.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:40 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Fabiola Tafolla, a recent college
    graduate and mentorship program participant who introduced the
    President; Leslie Thornton, Chief of Staff, Department of Education;
    Eugene Lang, founder and chairman emeritus, ``I Have a Dream''
    Foundation; President Saddam Hussein of Iraq; and Gen. Colin Powell, USA
    (Ret.), chairman, America's Promise--The Alliance For Youth.