I'm very excited to be here today. I know we're actually close to the place where the battle of San Jacinto occurred. Sam Houston, in addition to having an interesting life which was amazing - he lived with the Cherokees; he led the Texas Army in the battle for independence; he was a president of the Republic of Texas and a United States senator - he also was a teacher. If you have read much about Sam Houston, you may have seen that he said that his time as a classroom teacher was "the most satisfying time of my life."

I think that I would be remiss not to say to all the educators who are here,... I thank you for your devotion to education, and I hope it will always be something that brings you great satisfaction.

Here, so near the site where Texas fought a battle to win its political independence, you are all gaining your economic independence by being in this marvelous institution. And the way the community college system works here in Texas and across America, in my view, is a model of the way America ought to work.

You think about it. This place, first of all, is open to all. Nobody gets turned away because they're too old or too young or because of the color of their skin or because of their gender or anything else. If you're willing to work and take responsibility for yourselves and your course of study, it's open to all.

Secondly, it very much focuses on results, not rhetoric, because the graduates of community colleges either succeed - that is, they get a job or they go on further with their educationor they don't get a job based on what they studied, and so you have to change the curriculum. So there is not much room for a lot of hot air and talk. You either produce or you don't.

The third thing about the community colleges is that they're always about change, not the status quo. Because of the way they're hooked into the economy of every area in our country, they are, much more than other educational institutions or institutions of any kind, supersensitive to what's going on in people's lives. Because otherwise the students wouldn't show up after a while, if the institution weren't relevant to the future, to their future, and to the community's future.

So, open to all; results, not rhetoric; change, not the status quo. And the last thing that I think is very important is, it's much more about partnerships than politics. Nobody asks you whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. Nobody asks you whether you like or dislike some person or thing. The whole thing only works when people are working together to build a community.

I say that because I really believe, as I have said all over this country, that America would be better if we all worked in the way the community colleges of our country work, in the way San Jacinto works.

By investing in education,... we knew we would enable more Americans to actually win the race over the long run that the global economy imposes on all of us. And we did. We've expanded funding for Head Start; for public school programs like putting more computers in the schools and trying to hook up every classroom and library to the Internet by the year 2000; by expanding Pell Grants and work study programs, even before this last budget.

But the most important part of the budget, in my judgment, over the long run will be the work we did so that we could finally say, for the first time in history, we have opened the doors of college to all Americans who are willing to work for it.

After all, the new economy is a knowledge economy. In the 19th century, opportunity came from access to a land grant, like one that gave many of your ancestors here in Texas a little bit of land to start their homes. In the 21st century, instead of a land grant, people will want a Pell Grant, because they know that what they know is their key to the future - not, what they own, but what they know and what they can learn.

Our goal is simple. We want education in a community college like this, the 13th and 14th years of education, to be as universal when we start the new century as a high school diploma is today. That is a simple goal, and if we achieve it, it will explode opportunity in the United States and change the future of every young person in this country.

Now, let me just briefly explain how this budget supports that goal... . First, and foremost, this balanced budget gives nearly 6 million students a $1,500 a year HOPE Scholarship. That's a tax cut for the first two years of college.

Here at San Jacinto and community colleges across Texas and in six other states, that means that your tuition and your fees will be completely covered by the tax cut... . But, in fact, all across America, those who get the maximum HOPE Scholarship will find that it covers about 90 percent of the national average not only of full-time tuition, but also of fee costs for community colleges. It is a great thing.

Now, the budget also gives further higher education and training tax cuts after the first two years to 7 million Americans who are juniors and seniors in college, who are graduate students, or who are older workers who went back to school to take classes to upgrade their skills, because we want to continue education for a lifetime.

What my objectives are here are, number one, open the doors of college to all; number two, make the first two years of college as universal as high school is today, number three, make it possible for everybody to keep on learning for a lifetime, so they never have to stop.

Now, in addition to the tax cuts - because not everybody has enough income to pay income tax - we also had the biggest increase in Pell Grants in 20 years. The average Pell Grant will be about $2000 a year for 1.4 million community college students. We created another 100,000 work-study positions; we created 200,000 more last year - so in two years we will have gone from 700,000 to a million work-study positions.

All these things are very, very important. In addition to that, we have created an IRA - individual retirement account - that you can put money in every year, then you can withdraw from it tax-free, penalty-free, if the money is being used for education, health care or to buy a first-time home.

So I say to you, this I think - when people look back on this budget 30, 40, 50 years from now, if they can say about it, this is the first time they opened the doors of college to all, they made the first two years of college as universal as a high school diploma, they created a system where people could keep on learning for a lifetime...that is a legacy than everybody in the United States Congress who supported this [budget] can be proud of, because they are giving you the tools you need to make the most of your own lives and your future.

We need an educational system that works for all.

These remarks are excerpted with permission from a speech given by President Bill Clinton at San Jacinto Community College, Pasadena Texas, on September 26, 1997.

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