Saying that the first two years of college should be as much of a birthright as twelve years of primary and secondary school, President Bill Clinton has asked the Congress to increase federal spending on education by $51 billion.
In the budget Clinton submitted to the Congress on February 6, he asked for: $35 billion in tax credits for college tuition; and $16 billion in more funding for existing federal programs such as Head Start and Title I, and new initiatives such as the repair of crumbling school buildings — particularly in cities.
“It includes historically high levels of investment in every area of education from preschool to high school to college,” Education Secretary Richard Riley said.
In his State of the Union address to Congress, Clinton said that investing in education had the same urgency as it had at the beginning of the Cold War. For higher education, the particular of the president’s proposed budget include:
