Bill Clinton: “The short answer is, a big one. The longer answer is, here's how I want to set it up. What we're trying to do at the…”

“The short answer is, a big one. The longer answer is, here's how I want to set it up. What we're trying to do at the national level is to come up with enough funds to match with local funds and to encourage private sector people to get into an apprenticeship program which will be an American version of what the Europeans have done for years. I've asked the Labor Secretary, Bob Reich, to work with the Education Department, the vocational people in the private sector to try to set up a framework within which every State in America would be able to design a program that a person, a young man or woman, could enter in high school if they wanted, and they would continue for at least 2 years after high school. Let me tell you why we have to do that very quickly. If you look at the income charts on American earnings from, oh, let's say for the last 20 years, for the last 20 years you see a bigger and bigger and bigger gap every year between the earnings of young people with college degrees and young people who drop out of high school or young people who had only a high school diploma. However, if you look at the earnings of young people who get at least 2 years of training after high school in a vocational institution, the community colleges, in the service, or on the job, if it is high-quality training, a great deal of that job gap is closed, and the young person moreover acquires the ability to continue to learn new things throughout a lifetime. The best programs are those which start in the high schools and run with some continuity for 2 years thereafter. And so there is no magic answer. We're going to have to design these sector by sector in the economy, and the National Government can't do it. We can just set up a framework and standards and provide some of the funds, but we're going to have to do it on a State-by-State and sector-by-sector basis. But that's what we have to do. We need to get--first of all, my dream would be no high school dropouts, and then for 100 percent of the high school graduates to have at least 2 years of some kind of very high-quality training that is approved by both education and the private sector. Some would be delivered in schools; some would be delivered in the job place. Health Care”