    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [June 10, 2000]
    [Pages 1116-1119]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Commencement Address at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota
    June 10, 2000

        Thank you very much, President Lewis. It's nice to be around someone who is not term-limited.
    [Laughter] To the trustees and faculty members, including your longtime
    faculty member and now your United States Senator, Senator Paul
    Wellstone. It's nice to see you and
    Sheila. Thank you for being here, both of
    you.
        I congratulate Bruno Nettl and George
    Dixon on their degrees, and I thank the
    Carleton community for making me welcome. I congratulate the student
    speakers, Katy and Sachin and Faisal. They were
    really, really, I thought, very good. I'm glad there was some break
    between when they spoke and when I had to speak. [Laughter] Maybe you
    won't remember how good they were, and I'll be able to get through this.
    [Laughter]
        I want to congratulate all the members of the class of 2000, your
    families, and your friends, and I thank you for giving me the
    opportunity to share this with you.
        I've been hearing about Carleton for years. I have a staff member
    and adviser, Tom Freedman, who is here with
    me today, class of '85, and his college roommate, John Harris, who--he's on the other side in Washington. He writes for
    the Washington Post. They're both here, over here to the left. So there
    is life after college, and they have proved it.
        And they told me about the motto, ``You are part of Carleton, and
    Carleton is part of you.'' They also told me that Carleton is my kind of
    place, a school that celebrates diversity, a school whose students and
    faculty exemplify excellence without elitism, a school where the
    president of the college gets to sing like Elvis. [Laughter]
        I'm also very proud that someone painted my portrait on the water
    tower, and I thank you for that. Now, I heard it wasn't the greatest
    likeness in the world, but I still kind of wish you hadn't painted it
    over. [Laughter]
        I also got a souvenir from my stay here, and I want to show it to
    you. Thank you. And someone asked me if I would give this fellow a ride
    on Air Force One, to sort of add to the legend, you know? [Laughter] And
    I thought, why not? He looks more like me than that guy on the water
    tower did. I think I'll do that. [Laughter]
        I do want to say I love the message that Faisal and Sachin gave about
    building on our common humanity, and I wrote down what I thought was the
    best line from Katy Beebe's talk, ``Use
    cliches like they were meant to be used.'' I think that's pretty good,
    because we all have them. [Laughter]
        The truth is, I have been paying attention now to graduations for
    quite some time. And you are graduating at a time which is different.

    [[Page 1117]]

    Yes, there are a lot of common elements in this ceremony. Yes, there are
    a lot of common elements in your feelings. Yes, you're a remarkably
    diverse group. I could tell that just by shaking hands with you and
    exchanging a few words. One of you even asked me to change a Government
    policy. [Laughter] Good job. You have to ask Senator
    Wellstone. It's an act of Congress now. I
    can't change it. [Laughter]
        But the truth is, this year marked more than a millennial turning of
    the calendar. This country and the world have entered an era that is
    different, in the way we work and live and relate to each other and the
    rest of the world.
        For us, it's a time of unparalleled promise. We have the strongest
    economy we've ever had and the longest expansion in history, the lowest
    minority unemployment rate ever recorded. And yet, it's also a time of
    increasing social cohesion: the poverty rate at a 20-year low; the
    welfare rolls at a 32-year low; the crime rate at a 25-year low. It is--
    in my lifetime, anyway--the only time we have ever had at once so much
    economic prosperity and social progress and at the same time so little
    internal crisis or external threat to our existence. We have an
    opportunity to shape a world, therefore, that is more free and more
    decent than ever before.
        I can't help noting that this is the one-year anniversary of the day
    when the Serbian troops accepted NATO's terms and began to withdraw from
    Kosovo,* and we reversed the tide of ethnic cleansing and religious
    cleansing that was present when almost a million people were driven from
    their homes. We still have 5,500 Americans there with troops from 39
    nations. Almost all of the refugees have gone home. They're going to the
    polls for the first time in history this fall. So I'm very proud of
    that.
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        *White House correction.
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        But it shows that it's a very different world. Not so many years
    ago, it would have been unthinkable that America would be part of a
    multinational force deployed just to stop people from being murdered or
    uprooted because of their race or ethnic background or religion, and I'm
    glad we did it.
        The world is moving to the beat of two great forces: globalization
    and the revolution and knowledge of information technology, the
    biological, environmental, and material sciences. And our whole pulse is
    quickening with all this new discovery and interaction.
        I have worked very hard to prepare this country for the 21st
    century, and now it belongs to you, and it's up to you to decide what to
    do with it. I hope very much that you will use this moment to deal with
    the big challenges and the big opportunities that are still out there
    for us: to bring prosperity to people and places that are still poor and
    haven't been caught up in this recovery; to end child poverty and give
    all our children access to a good education; to give families the time
    and tools they need to balance their work at home and their work at
    work; to deal with the challenge of the aging of America; to reverse the
    tide of climate change; to put a human face on a global economy; to
    maximize the potential of science and technology and minimize its new
    risks; to build one America across all the lines that divide us; and to
    build a world where the forces of peace and prosperity and humanity are
    stronger than the old demons of war and disease and poverty.
        Now, you have a chance to do that, in no small measure because you
    spent the last 4 years here. And I want to talk just very briefly today
    about one specific subject, our common obligation to give all young
    people the chance you've had to develop the abilities, the
    understanding, the feelings, the outlook that you have developed here in
    your years at Carleton.
        It's important because in the world we live in, it's the only way to
    guarantee our Founders' dreams of opportunity for all, so it's important
    individually. But from my point of view, it's even more important
    because unless we can more generally spread the benefits of education,
    your generation will not be able to build a future of your dreams.
        Two centuries ago, opportunity meant having a chance to carve out a
    farm on the forest frontier. A century ago, it meant a chance to work in
    a factory with reasonably decent conditions and give your children a
    chance to get a high school education. Today, opportunity requires the
    constant ability to learn and relearn, to master new tools and new
    technologies, to think broadly, to adjust quickly, to put things in
    context. It means every American needs more than a high school
    education. It means a college education is not a luxury.
        In the coming years, the number of new jobs requiring at least a
    bachelor's degree will grow twice as fast--more than twice as fast--as
    those that don't. The three fastest growing occupations

    [[Page 1118]]

    require at least a bachelor's degree, and their pay, of course, is much
    better than average.
        So I have a simple message today, which is that our country cannot
    afford to leave any students behind simply because they can't afford to
    pay for college.
        I came from a family where nobody had ever gone to college before,
    and yet, from the time I was a little boy, I never had any doubt I was
    going, because that's what my family told me I was going to do. And
    thanks to my family and scholarships and loans and jobs, I got
    opportunities that eluded all my parents' generation and, unfortunately,
    eluded all too many of my contemporaries in high school. When I became
    President, I was determined to do what I could to give every student
    that chance. I am well aware, if it hadn't been for that chance that I
    had so long ago now, to go to school, I wouldn't be standing here today.
        So, what does it mean to give every young person the chance to go to
    college? First, we have to begin at the beginning. We've worked on
    education reforms to make sure all of our kids start school ready to
    learn, finish high school ready to succeed. We've expanded early
    childhood education; supported higher standards, more choice, and
    greater accountability for results in our schools; extra help for kids
    who need it, from after-school to summer school to mentoring programs;
    new efforts to attract talented teachers, reduce class size, modernize
    classrooms, connect all of them to the Internet. That's the first part
    of this.
        But the second thing we've tried to do is to open the doors of
    college to every American. In 1993 we created something called the
    Direct Student Loan Program. It has lowered the cost of all borrowing
    and all loan programs and saved America's students, in lower interest
    costs and charges, $9 billion over 7 years. That program also allows
    students to pay back their loans as a percentage of their income.
        In 7 years, we expanded Pell grants more than 40 percent and
    increased the work-study program so that now a million young college
    students are in work-study. On a thousand campuses, a lot of them are
    earning money by teaching young children to read in elementary schools.
    AmeriCorps is now giving 150,000 young people a chance to earn money for
    college and serving in their communities. Education IRA's now let
    families put savings in IRA's and then withdraw them for college
    expenses tax-free.
        We created the $1,500 HOPE scholarship tax credit to make the first
    2 years of college as universal as high school and to help families
    afford the last 2 years, as well as graduate school and job training. We
    set out to launch a lifetime learning tax credit which provides a 20
    percent credit against tuition and fees. Now, this year alone--those
    things were done in '97--well over 10 million Americans will use HOPE
    scholarships and lifetime learning credits to open the doors of college
    and opportunity.
        In the past 7 years, most of which we spent trying to get rid of the
    deficit, America has more than doubled college aid, the greatest
    expansion since the GI bill 50 years ago. It has proved to be a great
    investment. Today, coincident with this speech, I am releasing a report
    which demonstrates that as student aid has increased, so has college
    attendance, now to record levels. Fully two-thirds of our high graduates
    go straight to college. That's an all-time high. And for the first time
    in history, a majority of young African-Americans are enrolling in
    higher education.
        The report also documents what you already know: The value of a
    college education in sheer economic terms is going up. The earnings gap
    between those who have a degree and those who don't is growing
    dramatically. Over the course of a career, a person with a bachelor's
    degree will earn, on average, $600,000 more than a person who has a high
    school diploma. The return on a college investment is now nearly double
    the stock market's historical rate of return.
        Now, this report, on balance, is good news. But it has some sobering
    information. With all the new financial aid and even though the rise in
    tuition costs have slowed over the past few years, most families still
    have to stretch to pay the college bills. Over the past 20 years, the
    cost of college has quadrupled. I'll bet there are a lot of parents here
    who have taken second mortgages or second jobs to help pay those tuition
    bills.
        So I'd like to do one other thing in this area before I go, and I
    hope the Congress will do it this year. I would like to build on the
    success of the HOPE scholarship and the lifetime learning credits with a
    $30 billion college opportunity tax cut. It would allow families,
    whether they're in the 15 percent or the 28 percent tax bracket,

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    to claim a tax deduction worth up to $2,800 for up to $10,000 in college
    tuition costs. It would make a big difference to a lot of families in
    this audience today, and I think it ought to be done.
        Again I say, I know it's important for individual opportunity, but
    we have to recognize that we're living in a time when investment in
    human capital is even more important than investment in physical
    capital. This would be some of the best money this country ever spent.
        I also hope we'll do more this year to help young people out there
    who are still, believe it or not, unaware of how important and how
    possible college is. Maybe nobody is pushing them to take the classes
    they need, or they don't know how to get the financial aid. I have
    asked, and I ask again, the Congress to work with us to expand our
    initiatives, called GEAR UP and TRIO, to reach out to students as early
    as the sixth grade to give them the dream that they can go to college
    and to determine to do what it takes to succeed once they get there.
        Now, if we do these things, we can provide more students with the
    support they need, give more families the relief they need, give our
    economy the skilled work force we all need, and give our Nation more
    active, informed citizens. At long last, we've got the money to do it.
    The only question is whether we have the vision and will to do it. We
    owe it to your generation to do that.
        Think about this. A hundred years from now, the Carleton class of
    2100 will be sitting where you are. They'll look up at this podium, and
    perhaps they'll see a President reflecting on the 21st century, the good
    old days. I hope that he or she can say that we began this century in
    the right way.
        I offer all of you my congratulations for the challenges you've
    conquered, the projects you've completed, the goals you've reached. You
    should be very proud. And as you embark here, I hope you'll never forget
    one other thing, implicit in what all other speakers have said. All your
    individual lives will unfold in the context of community, your local
    community, your national community, and increasingly, the global
    community. If you want to make the most of your own lives, you have to
    give something to all of your communities.
        As the years pass, I am convinced that your generation will be
    judged most, and you will tend to judge yourselves most, on the ways in
    which, large and small, you give something back to the whole. If you do
    that, then you will be more than leaders in arts and science, business
    and industry. You will be great citizens of our Nation and the world.
        I honestly believe the next 50 years can bring the greatest period
    of peace, prosperity, and humanity the world has ever known. It depends
    upon whether we do the right thing for the future and whether we
    understand that our common humanity is far, far more important than all
    the things that divide us.
        May Carleton always be with you. Good luck, and God bless you.

     Note:  The President spoke at 10:38 a.m. in the Bald Spot Quad. In his
    remarks, he referred to Carleton College president Stephen R. Lewis,
    Jr., honorary degree recipients Bruno Nettl and George H. Dixon, and
    students Katherine Beebe, Sachin Patel, and Faisal Mohyuddin; and
    Senator Paul Wellstone's wife, Sheila.