Remarks at James Ward Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Jan 15, 2001

Eight years ago there was one charter school in America, a public school which has the freedom to chart its own mission. If every school were like James Ward, we might not need them. But the truth is, it both gives more choices to parents and provides more competition when the school system is not working, without draining resources away from the public schools. There was one 8 years ago; there are 2,000 today in this budget. We're going to be well on our way to 3,000 by the end of the year.

Eight years ago we said we wanted our kids to be safe in school, and we wanted them to have an orderly, disciplined environment. Secretary Riley has used Federal funds to help build partnerships between school districts and local police departments to support things like character education and voluntary uniform policies and zero tolerance for guns in schools. And violent crime in the schools, notwithstanding the tragic and heartbreaking incidents which have been widely reported, violent crime in our schools has fallen steadily since 1993. It is much lower today than it was 8 years ago.

Eight years ago college was priced out of reach for a lot of students. I'll never forget one night when I was Governor in the early nineties, I was in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the home of the University of Arkansas, and I went to a cafe to have a cup of coffee with a friend of mine. And I was doing what I always do; I went out and shook hands with everybody there. And there were four students there, and two of them told me they were dropping out of school. And I said, "Why?" And they said, "Well, we'll never be able to pay our student loans off--never. So we've got to drop out of school, make some money, hope we can save enough to come back, and somehow get out someday."

I also met a lot of students who thought they were going to not be able to find very good jobs if they got out. One of the things that I committed myself to do when I ran for President is to open the doors of college to all Americans. So, what have we done? With the HOPE scholarship tax credit, $1,500 a year off the tax bill directly in the first 2 years of college, and the lifetime learning credit for junior and senior year and graduate school and for adults to go back and get training, which can be worth even more, we are now helping 13 million Americans to go on to higher education.

We also have more affordable student loans. We've saved students $9 billion by directly loaning them the money from the Government--$9 billion. The average student on a $10,000 loan today is saving $1,300 in repayment costs over what they were 8 years ago. And it makes it a lot easier.

They also have the option to pay back the loans as a percentage of their income, which means if you want to be a schoolteacher and you know you'll never get rich, you can still borrow whatever you need to go to college, because you can pay your loan back as a percentage of your income. And if you strike oil in your backyard, you have the option to go out and pay it off the next year, anyway. It's a very good deal.