Bill Clinton: “in honor of AmeriCorps Week, I am pleased to introduce legislation that will place more of our Nation's low- and…”

“in honor of AmeriCorps Week, I am pleased to introduce legislation that will place more of our Nation's low- and middle-income high school students on the road to higher education. My legislation will address the disparity that exists in college persistence between lower-income, high-achieving students and their more affluent peers. According to the National Educational Longitudinal Survey, NELS, more than 1.5 million high school students with annual household incomes of less than $85,000 do not earn college degrees despite having ranked in the top half of their high school classes. Further, a recent report from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation found that 59 percent of lower-income high-achieving students graduated from college compared to 77 percent of their higher income peers. America cannot remain competitive in the global economy if we continue to squander our college talent every year. That is why I am sponsoring the Coaching Our Adolescents for College Heights Act, or the COACH Act. The COACH Act creates a pilot AmeriCorps program to recruit, train, and place recent college graduates, or coaches, in high schools to help prepare low- and middle-income, high-performing high school students for success in college.”