Remarks on Presenting Federal Funds to Wilkes College for Repair of Damage Caused by Tropical Storm Agnes.

Dr. Michelini, Mr. Carlucci, ladies and gentlemen:

I am very happy that the first opportunity to say anything in Wilkes-Barre is at this small college. If I can speak in personal terms, I took my law at Duke University, one of the larger universities in the country, a very fine one. I took my undergraduate work at a small college, Whittier College, about the size of Wilkes College. Both were great experiences. Both the large universities and the smaller colleges serve a very, very important purpose in our educational system.

The point is that we need both. So often people think only of, and they make contributions and the rest to, the large universities who naturally have lots more publicity and consequently attract much more funds.

I have found in studying the situation within the past 4 years that small colleges across this country are having an increasingly difficult time, apart from any floods, apart from anything else, because costs are going up and contributions many times are not coming in to the extent that they should. This action here, this check, I should make clear, is not from the President of the United States or Frank Carlucci; it is from all the people of the United States to this small college. But it indicates our feelings that the small college in America contributes something that is very much worth preserving, that we need. It contributes a spirit where the faculty and the students work together to build a better institution and a better community.

So, we say we know the money will be well spent. The dollars that come to this small college will probably go further than the dollars that would go to a large university. You need it more. You know what it means. You are going to spend it well, and the beneficiaries will be all these wonderful young people I have seen as I have traveled through the streets of Wilkes-Barre here today.

We wish you well. We wish your college well in all the years ahead, and we will continue to do everything that we can to keep the interests of the small college up front as well as, of course, the interests of the large universities, both of which deserve our support.