Another Q&A session with President Clinton

Another Q&A session with President Clinton

The White House held a college press day last month, where
student journalists got a chance to meet administration officials
and interview President Clinton. Daily Bruin staff writer Alisa
Ulferts and wire editor James Snyder attended and are writing a
series on federal education issues. This is part two of the
interview with Clinton.

Yesterday and today: Q&A with Bill Clinton

Tomorrow: Affirmative Action

Thursday: Student loan programs

Q: I’m from Ohio University — we’re represented by a freshman
Republican in Congress. He says he opposes cuts in student aid, yet
he says we need to look at your direct funding program ­
because it builds a billion-dollar bureaucracy here in Washington.
Could you respond to that?

A: It’s just myth. It’s a myth. The direct lending program will
save the taxpayers $12 billion over six years, the same amount of
money they propose to save by eliminating the interest subsidy on
student loan. Why is that?

You know how the student loan program works now under the old
system? It’s a 90 percent guarantee. So you go to the bank and you
borrow the money ­ right? And the government guarantees 90
percent of it. And the bank gets payment in the middle. And then if
somebody defaults on the loan, unless it’s a huge amount of money,
it’s not worth it to the bank to go try to sue somebody and get the
money back. Why? Because they’re going to get 90 percent of it
anyway. And they’ll spend 10 percent or more on lawyer fees.

So what have we done? We have reduced the number of defaults. We
have been tough on this ­ over and above the previous
administrations who were here before me ­ we have reduced the
loan defaults from a cost a year of $2.8 billion down to $1
billion. This direct lending program is far less expensive to run
than the alternative. It is pure ideology to say it costs a little
money to run the direct loan program and we don’t want to hire one
government employee; we’d rather pay billions and billions and
billions of dollars to banks that could be going for lower cost
college loans to more students.

This program is working. It saves money for everybody, and we
shouldn’t limit its reach. I think it is a real error.

Q: Margretta Sundelin, from Brigham Young University. It seems
the United States is a nation founded on, and prided upon, its
diversity. However, in the course of the last few years, it seems
its diversity is dividing us. What I want to know is, in your
presidency, what have you done to bring cohesion back to the nation
and to settle the unrest?

A: Well, I’ve tried to do many things, but let me emphasize two
or three. The first thing I’ve tried to do is to focus on
initiatives that would provide opportunities to all Americans; that
would unite us in getting more opportunities by, first of all in
economic terms, by bringing down the deficit and expanding trade
opportunities for American products, by working to create more jobs
for the American people. Secondly, in education, by increasing
everything from Head Start programs to college loans. I have tried
to offer broad-based opportunity.

The second thing I’ve tried to do is to demonstrate to the
American people that you could have diversity and excellence at the
same time. That’s what I just mentioned ­ if you look at the
people I’ve appointed to high public office, the people I’ve
appointed to the federal judgeships, and the things that I have
tried to do that I think are important.

The third thing I have tried to do is to emphasize the
importance of uniting the American people around shared values.
That’s what welfare reform is all about. That’s what the attempts
of the crime bill to clean up our streets from violence are all
about. We should all be able to agree that we are going to pursue
policies that promote family, that promote work, that strengthen
communities, that look to the future. These are the things that I
have tried to do.

And I believe that the American people would think more in these
terms ­ I know that a lot of people are so bewildered by the
changes and they feel so threatened by the changes going on today,
that it’s easy to lash out at someone who is different from us. But
if we would focus on those three things I think we’d come together
more.

Q: My name is Carrie Budoff. I’m from Rutgers University. Many
colleges have policies of nondiscrimination. And your "don’t ask,
don’t tell" policy for (gays in the military) applies to ROTC
programs. And it’s an obvious conflict with universities’ policy.
The ROTC program, in the case of Rutgers, may lose funding because
they are not abiding by the (university’s) nondiscrimination
policy. How can the ROTC programs deal with the conflict if the
university has a nondiscrimination policy?

A: Well, it’s an act of Congress, so Rutgers will have to decide
what to do about it. If the policy were implemented in spirit and
in letter the way it was really written ­ if you read the
whole policy ­ I don’t think it would be in conflict. I would
urge you to go back and read the whole policy and see what it
really says. I don’t think it would be in conflict. But if Rutgers
deems it’s in conflict, then Rutgers will have to do whatever it
decides to do, because that policy was written into law as an act
of Congress and so it is not subject to change unless Congress
changes it.

Q: Christan Hanna, Western Michigan University. On our campus we
had a nonviolent protest because a faculty member told a student
that she asked "stupid ­ blank ­ questions." And instead
of dealing with the problem of racism and talking about it on
campus, the university’s reaction has been to try to quell all of
the surrounding problems instead of dealing with the issue ­
the main issue, which is racism. What do you think the university’s
role (is) in educating beyond (a specific discipline)?

A: Well, I think it’s a very important role. I mean, if you have
the luxury of going to college, and you stay there for four years
­ or in the case of a community college, two years ­ it’s
maybe different if you’ve got a family to raise and a full-time job
and all. But if basically you’re a full-time student and you’re in
your formative years, some of the most important things that happen
to you happen to you outside the classroom and involve things you
don’t get a grade on.

I’ve been really quite concerned about the challenges that both
students and faculty members face in this so-called political
correctness atmosphere. I think we need to encourage people to say
what they really think, but to do it in an atmosphere that is more
tolerant. And I think universities ought to be laboratories all
across this country for people airing their real feelings and
convictions, but doing it in a way that other people can hear them,
and really being honest and forthright about it. Because otherwise,
then the universities can just become one more island of isolation
for the American people. We don’t need that. We don’t need more
islands of isolation. We need instruments to open us up to one
another.

Q: My name is Evan Koblentz from Kean College of New Jersey.
Much progress has been made in your administration for
financially-strapped or opportunity-privileged students to get
grants and loans. What are you doing with the Republican Congress
to get more grants available for merit-based and academic-based
scholarships?

A: I don’t believe that that primarily should be the subject for
the federal government. Historically, it hasn’t been. And I’ll come
back to that in a moment. Secondly, let me emphasize that the
direct loan program is not very much income limited. It’s really
available to quite a broad range of young people to participate in.
And since there are at least four different options for repayment,
the idea is that you don’t lose the right to get a loan even if
you’re a middle class student. And if you decide to take a job that
doesn’t pay a high wage, you can afford to pay it back if you want
to be someone who’s more interested in public service early on than
higher incomes.

Now, on the merit-based scholarships, let me just say what I
meant by that. Georgia has now passed a law that says that if you
have a B average in Georgia and you go to school there, you get a
tuition scholarship. And I think you get some money for books as
well. When I was the governor of my state, I instituted a
governor’s scholarship program that was similar to that. These
programs are sweeping the country, but they are basically the
province of state government.

Let me further state that this is the second year in a row when
the economy of all 50 states has grown. They’re in a better
position to do it than they were a couple years ago. And that’s one
I would direct you to the state legislatures for.

Q: Kelly McEvers, from the University of Illinois. All day we’ve
been hearing about the growing disparity between those in the upper
echelon of income and those at the low poverty level. However,
especially after the election in November, the rhetoric that seemed
to be coming through, at least in the mainstream media, was solely
toward the middle class. I guess one example is the Middle Class
Bill of Rights. It seems to me that there’s an attitude that we’re
becoming a classless society when, in fact, we’re moving in
opposite directions ­

A: We are ­

Q: Is that because that’s the class that goes to the polls?

A: No. It’s because ­ let me just say this. The argument of
the Republicans in last November’s election was the middle class
should vote for us because all the Democrats do is take your taxes
and spend it on poor people ­ right? ­ or minorities or
illegal immigrants or criminals or whatever. That was the basic
argument ­ right? Government’s bad, vote for us, we’ll give
you less government, lower taxes, and we’ll be harder on all those
groups.

And the voters bought it ­ wrongly, I think ­ at least
those who voted, because we had done more for the middle class. But
you have to understand what middle class is. Middle class is more
than an economic designation in America. It’s a statement about
values. When we say middle class in America what we really mean is
everybody ought to have the chance to be rewarded for their work.
If you work hard, raise your kids, obey the law, you ought to have
a chance to do better.

And what is happening is we are becoming more stratified by
economic class, but it’s different than before. We do have poor
people in America. Mostly they’re young women and their little
children, but there are also a lot of working people who are poor
who are making the minimum wage or right near it, which is why I’m
for raising the minimum wage. And then we have a lot of wealthy
people in America, and our economy is producing more wealthy
people, and that is good. More entrepreneurs are becoming
millionaires today than ever before who started with nothing ­
not inherited wealth. That is a good thing, not a bad thing.

But what is happening is that the middle class itself is
splitting apart. That’s the point I’m trying to make. The great
American middle class basically rose more or less evenly with the
poor and the rich in income from the end of World War II to the
late ’70s. The American middle class itself is now splitting apart,
based largely on education, age and job description. And if you
don’t have the skills and you’re not in the workplace, where you
can hook into one of these groups that is growing, then you tend to
work harder every year for lower wages. That’s what I’m pointing
out.

So what do we try to do? In the economic plan in ’93, we had one
big tax cut. We cut taxes for working families with children to
make sure nobody who was working 40 hours a week with children
would be below the poverty line. That’s what the earned income tax
credit was about. On average this year it’s worth about $1,000 in
lower taxes to families of four with income of under $26,000. Why
do we do that? To reward work and family and lift people, keep
trying to push people toward the middle class.

We know if our government here can continue to follow
responsible economic policies, we can create jobs, we can have
growth. But that will not raise incomes. And it won’t overcome this
inequality, this splitting apart of the middle class.

So that’s what I’m saying. The middle class mentality, which has
made America great, requires us to follow policies that lift
everybody’s income.

I will close with just one thing. I had an interview with Money
Magazine the other day. Do you all know Money Magazine? They did a
readers’ survey, they told me. And they said ­ I guess I’m
jumping my interview. They’ll probably be mad at me, but ­
(laughter). They said that their readers said that they recognize
that we have lowered the deficit, created jobs, sparked an economic
recovery, and two-thirds of them were still worried about their
future. Right? Yes, you lowered the deficit, created jobs, there’s
an economic recovery. Am I worried? You bet I am. Why? Because of
all this churning instability in the global economy.

That is our challenge. We’ve got to find a way to keep the
entrepreneurship, keep the growth going, but lift the middle class
folks that are good people that have been left behind.

That’s why I’m glad to see some of the nontraditional students
(from) the community college(s). That’s means that they’re going to
make the transfer from the middle class that might be left behind
to the middle class that’s surging ahead. And we need more of that,
which is why we don’t need to be in a position of reducing our
commitment to education at the end of this century when the next
century will trigger opportunity to education more than ever
before.