Kofi A. Annan

We are now embarked on another venture to put the American dream to work in meeting the new demands of a new day. Once again we must start where men would improve their society have always known they must begin – with an educational system restudied, reinforced, and revitalized.

You must work on improving your skills every day and never quit.

Studying in countries like China isn’t only about your prospects in the global marketplace. It’s not just about whether you can compete with your peers in other countries to make America stronger. It’s also about whether you can come together and work together with them to make our world stronger. It’s about the friendships you make, the bonds of trust you establish and the image of America that you project to the rest of the world.

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. Our requirements for world leadership, our hopes for economic growth, and the demands of citizenship itself in an era such as this all require the maximum development of every young American’s capacity. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I – if I’m not interested in something, I don’t grasp it.

Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasure, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime that ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the highest return.

It is only the ignorant who despise education.

Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it. And if we cannot educate today’s youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary enrollment will be 5 million greater than 1960? And high school enrollment will rise by 5 million. College enrollment will increase by more than 3 million.

Education not just preparation for life, but part if life itself-a continuous art.

I grew up in a working-class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago where most folks, including my parents, didn’t have college degrees. But with a lot of hard work – and a lot of financial aid – I had the chance to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School, and that gave me the confidence to pursue my ambitions.

As precious as knowledge itself is the learning. As precious as any reward is the earning.

Over the years, I have again and again asked fellow believers in a free society how they managed to escape the contagion of their collectivist intellectual environment. No name has been mentioned more often as the source of enlightenment than Friedrich Hayek’s.

Women who earn a certificate or degree from a community college, especially in STEM-related field, will be ready to move into a good-paying job in the growing global economy. Community colleges also offer mentorship and support that goes far beyond the classroom.

Let us not think of education only in terms of its costs, but rather in terms of the infinite potential of the human mind that can be realized through education. Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.