To me that is good for the taxpayers. It's not a net cost, it's a net savings. It's a lot cheaper to educate someone one year in college, than to send them to prison. You can send a young person to Harvard for a year cheaper than you can send them to the Texas penitentiary for a year. What we have to do is make sure that GEAR UP is not only a well-intentioned program but a well managed program.
Taxpayers are willing to invest in education programs that work.
They don't want their tax payer dollars wasted. I think it is incumbent upon all of us who believe strongly in the Gear Up program, to oversee it, to manage it carefully, and see that it's implemented well. Then we have to take proven results, and then convince the public and elected officials that it is a good investment in their future. In the summer of 2000, Republican Representatives in the House lead a charge to eliminate all funding for the GEAR UP projects. This amendment was defeated 319-98.