A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

THE WHITE HOUSE  Office of the Vice President ______________________________________________________________________  For Immediate Release                                  August 26, 1999 

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE ANNOUNCES $10 MILLION IN GRANTS TO EXPAND OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADULT LEARNERS

Washington, DC -- Americans struggling to balance work and family and still get the education they need to get ahead will find new educational opportunities more accessible thanks to $10 million in new federal grants to expand access to high quality education for adults, announced today by Vice President Al Gore.

The new funds will be provided by the U.S. Department of Education's "Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships," (LAAP). Under LAAP, colleges, universities, companies, and non-profit organizations join together to expand access to high-quality learning opportunities students can access "anytime, anywhere" for example through the Internet. This is particularly important for adults, who often find it difficult to participate in traditional classroom-based instruction because of the competing demands of work and family.

"All Americans deserve access to educational opportunities that will help them get ahead. We must make it possible for adults to learn at a time, pace, and location that works around the constraints of their daily lives," said Vice President Al Gore. "At a time when what you earn depends on what you learn, we need to promote innovative ways of educating Americans so that they can compete for the high-wage, high-skill jobs that our economy is creating in record numbers."

LAAP is especially designed to help students in underserved geographic areas, who have limited access to the traditional college campus setting, and who need more flexible education and training opportunities to keep pace with changes in the job market. Simultaneously, the program helps meet the current critical needs of business and industry.

The LAAP grants may be used to develop:

• Model programs and software that will make distance learning possible;
• Innovative on-line student support services such as job placement, academic counseling, and library services.
• New institutional policies and practices that go beyond merely putting more courses online but truly deliver programs that are self-paced alternatives to traditional semester scheduling.
• Methods of assessing the quality and success of these new distance learning programs by charting the skills and competencies achieved by students, as well as retention and completion rates.

LAAP grants are awarded to partnerships involving two or more institutions of higher education, community organizations, businesses, and other public and private agencies. Partnerships stimulate resource sharing, reduce program duplication, and promote economies of scale.

Examples of the grants include:

• The National Telecommuting Institute will develop an at-home training program that will prepare people with severe disabilities to perform customer service jobs in "e-commerce" from their homes using the Internet.
• The Hispanic Educational Telecommunications System (HETS) will create a virtual learning community composed of students, faculty, counselors and professionals. HETS will pool faculty and staff to develop workforce training and counseling as well as courses for academic credit. The project will serve an estimated 100,000 students enrolled through the nation's Hispanic Serving Institutions.
• The College of the Mainland in Texas project will partner with some 30 Gulf Coast petrochemical companies to develop a program for industry workers to refresh their skills, learn new technologies and safety precautions, or earn an associate's degree.

LAAP grantees are required to provide 50 percent of the total project costs. The total federal funding for these grants is $35 million over the next five years. However the 29 grantees have generated $60 million to support their projects for a total public and private investment of roughly $95 million over a five-year period.

More information on the grants is available on the World Wide Web at www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/FIPSE/LAAP/
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