A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Good evening. Thank you Peter Stanley. I also want to thank the incoming chair of the AACU Board of Directors, Yolanda Moses, and Carol Geary Schneider, for inviting me to speak here today. And I want to recognize my new assistant secretary for postsecondary education, Lee Fritschler.

This organization plays an important role in the development of higher education policy in this country. I think that much of what we are all talking about concerning the promise of education today is captured in the title of your initiative "Greater Expectations." The expectations we have for our young people go a long way toward helping them achieve success.

Higher education certainly has a critical role to play in this future. For many years I have described our higher education system as the jewel of our education system-and the envy of the world.

Today's announcements by President Clinton demonstrate that we are serious about building on this foundation-and about continuing to expand our commitment to open the doors to higher education to all Americans.

But today's announcement should also serve to reinforce just how important a role each of you can and needs to play to ensure a continued strong future. And I want to talk a little about this with you today.

We already know about the economic advantages that a college education provides. But we also know that the meaning of a university or college education is, at its core, both broader and more significant than this. Indeed, I think it is captured in the very term "higher" education.

Your role is to provide academic excellence and advanced training in preparation for professional success. But within and beyond this mission is the equally important goal to support and enhance the value and importance of knowledge-to cement the power of learning for learning's sake.

Participants at a session of a recent international meeting about education got it right when they stated that higher education has a role "as a beacon for society" to help move civilization forward.

Indeed, with a quality education, the enlightened individual can apply himself or herself in many different areas. As Robert Hutchins, the great educator and former president of the University of Chicago wrote, "The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."

So this brings us back to the present-and to the important role that colleges and universities have in this Education Era. It is a role of educating a broader mix of people to be our next generation of leaders and to prepare all Americans to succeed in the competitive global economy of the 21st century. And it is a role that includes educating the next generation to be good, caring citizens who give something back to their community.

President Clinton and Vice President Gore have worked hard to help open wider the doors to higher education and to give more Americans the opportunity to create a bright future. We have expanded student aid opportunities by significantly boosting Pell Grants, work-study opportunities, and student loans, and creating the Hope and Lifetime Learning tax credits.

I was pleased to be with the president earlier today when he announced that our commitment to expanding these opportunities will grow in the coming years.

In the President's proposed 2001 budget, for instance, we called for raising the maximum Pell grant to $3,500, and increasing Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants (SEOG) by almost 10 percent ($60 million) and boost College Work-study funding to more than $1 billion. As you know, these initiatives make a real difference in the lives of your students.

And today, the president and first lady proposed to greatly expand the tax deductibility of college tuition and fees. This new proposal-the College Opportunity Tax Cut-will treat tax deductibility for college tuition similarly to tax deductibility for homes. I am particularly pleased that we have designed this tax credit so that it benefits lower income families as much as upper income families.

Using the tax code to help families pay for college is truly an idea big enough for the beginning of this 21st century. Don't you think it's terrific? Starting in 2003, $2,800 can be written off the bottom line of a family's tax return if they spend $10,000 or more on tuition and fees. And this tax deductibility for college will be available every year.

When we first proposed the Hope Tax Credit, critics scoffed at using the tax code to promote investment in a college education. Well, the first year's results are in. Nearly five million students took advantage of the Hope and Lifetime Learning tax credits last year. The benefits these young people and their families reaped amounted to $3.4 billion.

And, listen to this-fully one-half of the students who used the credit had incomes under $50,000. One-fifth of the beneficiaries had incomes under $20,000.

What that means is that these tax benefits did exactly what they were supposed to do- create and increase the college-going opportunities for millions of students who otherwise wouldn't have had them.

Now these numbers are very rewarding. But they also reveal that the potential for what we can do is even greater. When we created these initiatives, we estimated that nearly 13 million students would be eligible for $7 billion in benefits. So there is plenty of room for improvement and growth.

I am hopeful that all of you will help fulfill this opportunity. Help spread the word. With all of these initiatives, including the new College Opportunity Tax Cut, the potential of increased opportunity is great-but only if families and students hear about them.

The efforts you can make are similar to the kind of outreach many of you have done in another area-our GEAR UP and TRIO programs. As you know, the GEAR UP Partnerships link colleges with middle and high school students in low-income communities to help them make the critical decisions to prepare for college.

The reason these initiatives are so important and so successful is because they build on the understanding that federal programs by themselves aren't the answer. They require individuals from communities and from institutions of higher education to commit themselves to bringing more young people into the college-bound pipeline earlier.

Changing American society tomorrow requires a change in the face of education today. And that means eliminating the inequalities that exist in access to higher education.

It also means promoting greater participation and more diversity in study abroad by U.S. students. Just as we need to have students in the K-12 years learn more than one language, so to do we need students at the undergraduate level who are engaged in learning about issues that will build international partnerships and strategies for years to come.

This kind of competence is particularly important in a global economy where knowledge-particularly knowledge of the world-is at a premium.

That is why I am pleased that we are working to develop a Presidential Directive on international education policy that will outline an effective strategy for developing partnerships among federal, state and local organizations, as well as within the education community, business, non-governmental organizations, and other community groups.

I hope I can count on your support in all of these efforts. And one way in which you can immediately become engaged is through the U.S. Department of Education's Agenda Project, led by Lee Fritschler and the Office of Postsecondary Education. This project is designed to stimulate a more meaningful dialogue about these issues and encourage the communication of new ideas.

Over the next several months, we will be conducting meetings and forums across the country-with education organizations, college presidents, and experts on specific subjects like distance learning and international education, to name just a few.

My staff will then analyze and categorize the information we receive and publish a document next fall that sets out a higher education agenda reflecting the input we received. I encourage you to get involved and be a part of this important effort.

Over the last seven years, this administration has worked with you to make what I believe is strong progress in improving the quality of and access to higher education. But we cannot stop now. We must continue to build on this progress. I hope I can count on your help and hard work.

Thank you so much.