[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 44 (Monday, November 8, 1999)]
[Pages 2244-2246]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in a Discussion With Project GRAD Students at Malcolm X Shabazz 
High School in Newark, New Jersey

November 4, 1999

    The President. You know Senator Lautenberg, Congressman Payne, your 
Mayor James.
    Jayson, don't you think you ought to introduce Mr. Katz to these 
people?

[At this point, New Jersey Nets player Jayson Williams made brief 
remarks and introduced Nets co-owner Lewis Katz, who also made brief 
remarks.]

    The President. Tell us about this Project GRAD program--anybody want 
to tell me about it? Go ahead.
    Student. Project GRAD is a scholarship program that guarantees you a 
$6,000 scholarship.
    The President. If you do what?
    Student. If you maintain a 2.5 grade point average, and you have to 
take two summer institute college preps for two summers. And you have to 
go to Malcolm X Shabazz for 4 years and graduate within that 4 years. 
You can't do it in 5 years but 4 years. You have to take college 
preparatory courses.
    The President. So harder courses and two summer schools?
    Student. Not harder courses, it's like college prep.
    Student. We also have to take 40 hours of community service in our 4 
years. We can take 10 hours a year--we can do how many hours that we can 
do in our 4 years.
    The President. What community service are you doing?
    Student. Me, I'm a freshman, so----
    The President. You haven't started yet. Do you think the community 
service requirement is a good thing?
    Students. Yes, yes.
    The President. In the State of Maryland, Maryland is the only State 
in America where you have to do community service as a requirement. It's 
like taking American history or English or whatever. It's like a 
requirement for getting your high school diploma. And it's a requirement 
to be in this program.
    Are you in the band?
    Student. Yes.
    The President. What's your instrument?
    Student. Trumpet.
    The President. Good. How long have you been playing?
    Student. Six years.
    The President. That's great. It's not quite as big a thrill as 
Jayson Williams, maybe, but I also got to--I spent a lot of time with 
Wynton Marsalis. He's the only musician, I think, in the world who is 
both the greatest jazz musician and the greatest classical musician on 
his instrument. Good guy.
    What else do you want to tell me about this program?

[At this point, the program continued.]

    The President. Is there a limit to the number of young people who 
can be in the program in this high school?
    Student. No. You just have to meet all the requirements.
    The President. So anybody who meets the requirements can be in the 
program?
    Student. Yes.

[At this point, the program continued.]

    The President. How long has this program been going on, do you know?
    Student. This is the third year. This will be the third year.

[[Page 2245]]

    The President. Are there three groups of people who have already 
graduated from high school?
    Students. No.
    The President. You're the first. Just juniors. And how many juniors 
are in the program? Most of them? And do you think 100 percent of the 
juniors in the program will go to college?
    Student. Yes.

[At this point, the program continued.]

    The President. Is Bob Milliken here? Mr. Milliken started the 
Communities In Schools program--how long ago now? He's been working at 
this for 25 years, and over 15 years ago, when I was Governor of 
Arkansas, he came to Arkansas, and he put some of--the program started 
off in big cities like Newark, and then he put them in small towns and 
rural areas, too. It's a wonderful thing. People that commit their lives 
to this are real heroes in my opinion.

[At this point, the program continued.]

    The President. What you're doing is better, I think, it's more 
comprehensive. We couldn't afford nationally to put it in everywhere. 
What we're doing I think can be used also by you. This GEAR UP program 
is one that Congress adopted last year that was developed based on a 
model that colleges in Philadelphia had pioneered, and the Congressman 
from Philadelphia, Chakah Fattah, got Mr. Payne and Senator Lautenberg 
and others to help, and we passed a program that basically provides 
funds to help college students go in with junior high school kids, 
middle school kids, and say, ``Look, you've got a guarantee of going to 
college if you make your grades, and we'll help you.'' And then the 
colleges come in and tutor and mentor the kids and work with them 
wherever we have this.
    This is better because it works from the beginning of school all the 
way up. But anything we can do, it seems to me, to make every young 
person know that college is a real possibility if they stay in school 
and do the work and learn the subjects I think are very important.
    How does the scholarship program work? Where does the money come 
from? Do you put up the $6,000 for all the kids?
    William M. Freeman. It's not just Lucent Technologies, Mr. 
President. It's a combination of a lot of things together. And we give 
$1,000 the first year, $1,000 the second, $2,000 the third, and $2,000 
the fourth year. And that's reserved for each child from when you start 
out. And we committed over 12 years, so that the first kindergarten 
class is guaranteed when they graduate, from that year through 12.
    The President. And you can calculate based on your family income 
whether you can also get a Pell grant. And they get it over and above, 
don't they?
    Mr. Freeman. Yes, no matter what, they get that.
    The President. And whether you're eligible for college loans and all 
that. Those of you who have families who can help, they're also entitled 
to a $1,500 tax credit for what they pay towards your college education. 
So if you get the scholarship and the Pell grant and your family puts up 
$1,500, they can get the money back from their taxes.
    So if you put it all together now, we pretty much open the doors of 
college to everybody.

[At this point, the program continued.]

    The President. I was out in Los Angeles the other day, the first one 
of these tours we took called the new market tour, trying to get more 
investment into our cities. And I went to this program where young 
people like you who were interested in automotive engineering were 
designing their own cars by computer. And they had this software program 
where they could manage--the program would allow them to drive their 
cars and see how their design worked when they took sharp curves at high 
speeds, how they handled crashes, how they did everything. It was an 
amazing thing.
    By the time you go to school on this, you could do the whole thing 
on a computer with a software program to figure out how to build the 
cars of the future. They're already building automobiles with--
experimental cars, for example, with composite materials, that is, not 
all steel. And I went to the Detroit Auto Show, and they can build cars 
now that weigh

[[Page 2246]]

500 to 1,000 pounds less than the normal car, but that don't get hurt 
anymore in crashes.
    They've always been able to make real light cars to get high mileage 
and be efficient, but they've been more dangerous. And now the materials 
are being developed so that we can make very light cars which are much 
more energy-efficient, pollute the atmosphere a lot better, and which 
don't get--if anything, they're safer in collisions and crashes.
    So it will be very exciting. By the time you get into that, we'll be 
doing things with transportation we can't even imagine now. And to avoid 
traffic jams, you'll be able to put a little computer program in your 
car and just program it, and your car will take you wherever it's 
necessary to avoid the traffic, which, for people that live in highly 
congested areas will be a welcome development. You may be the most 
popular person in your class. [Laughter]

[At this point, the program continued.]

    The President. I'll tell you, one great thing about our country is 
that, of all the countries in the world, we have the best system of 
undergraduate college education. And so, the good news for you is that 
we have--there are literally probably 300 schools in America, maybe 
more, where you can get a world-class undergraduate education in a whole 
lot of different areas, which means that it's a good thing to have it in 
your mind where you want to go to school, but you also should remember 
that you've got a lot of options, and you can't lose. So it's not like--
if you think you want to go one place, and it doesn't work out there, 
and you get a better deal somewhere else, you really should know that 
America has--we're so blessed. We've got this wonderful, wonderful 
system of undergraduate education and colleges where there are literally 
hundreds of good choices. So you'll all do well.
    And I just want to thank you for what you're doing with your lives 
and what an example you're setting for other young people in this 
community. I hope my coming here will give this program and you some 
nationwide publicity so more schools will set up things like this, 
because this is really wonderful.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:45 a.m. in the library. In his remarks, 
he referred to Mayor Sharpe James; jazz musician Wynton Marsalis; and 
former Gov. William E. Milliken, of Michigan, founder and president, 
Communities In Schools, Inc. William M. Freeman is president and chief 
executive officer, Bell Atlantic-New Jersey. The transcript released by 
the Office of the Press Secretary also included the remarks of Mr. 
Williams and Mr. Katz. A tape was not available for verification of the 
content of these remarks.