Bill Clinton: “I think it's very important. The administrative cost of American public education has gotten very high. And part of it…”

“I think it's very important. The administrative cost of American public education has gotten very high. And part of it is because of the school districts get their money from the local district, from the State, from the Federal Government. Part of it is because these programs sort of built up over time that they have to manage. There are a lot of reasons for that. But in a world in which administrative overhead is going down dramatically everywhere else because of computer technology and new management techniques and where there's a limit to how much money you can raise, it's very important to be able to demonstrate I think, for matters of good education, that you've lowered administrative costs and put it back into direct education. The Federal Government today has 205,000 fewer people working for it than it did the day I became President. And we have very good severance packages, early retirement packages; we weren't just throwing people out, you know. But with the smallest Government that we've had since 1965, and by the end of the year it will be the smallest it's been since 1962, that helps us to get the deficit down and it also frees up money for real direct services to people. In the education context, that's real education programs, it's more of the things we're talking about today. I know it's not the subject we came here to talk about, but you caught my attention. [Laughter] I have to go meet with--I'm going to meet with the Governors next week. They're having an update on the educational summit we held back in 1989. And it's one of the things that I've been trying to get updated on. So I thank you. [Mr. Pepper next introduced Sister Rose Ann Fleming of Xavier University, who welcomed the President to the campus and then described the university's various scholarship and mentoring programs, including those for university student-athletes. She mentioned that in the last 14 years, every Xavier men's basketball player who had played for 4 years had graduated.]”