[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 6 (Monday, February 9, 1998)]
[Pages 199-201]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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.

[[Page 200]]

    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 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

[[Page 201]]

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, that these High Hope 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 drop-out 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; and Gen. Colin Powell, USA (Ret.), chairman, America's 
Promise--The Alliance For Youth.