April 28, 2005
The budget will tell: Student Services likely funded but other TRIO programs may be cut
Concerns are heightened on the UW campus over the fate of the federally funded programs grouped under the title TRIO, whose aim is to increase higher education access for low-income students and those who are the first in their families to attend college.
Some of the programs face elimination if President Bush’s 2006 budget passes as proposed. Program directors say the cuts will sadly reduce the UW’s ability to recruit and prepare low-income and minority students to study and succeed here.
TRIO takes its name from an original triumvirate of programs — Upward Bound, the Talent Search outreach program and Student Support Services — all started in the 1960s to help expand college possibilities for low-income students and those whose families have little experience with higher education.
Upward Bound, which was built into the Equal Opportunity Act of 1964 and helps provide college preparation for low-income students, is facing total elimination in the Bush budget. So is the Talent Search, created in 1965, which helps identify and support high school students from the same populations who aspire to attend college.
A similar federally funded program, GEAR-UP (which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs), also is slated for elimination under the president’s budget. GEAR-UP also provides educational support to marginal student populations, and offers a popular summer program that brings up to 1,000 public school students to the UW campus in summer for a taste of college life.
Roger Grant, director of UW Student Support Services (which was founded in 1980, as part of the UW Office of Minority Affairs), said it’s important for the campus community to know that “Upward Bound and the Talent Search have only been proposed to be zeroed out. But the Bush budget does not eliminate the other TRIO programs such as Educational Opportunity Centers, Ronald E. McNair TRIO training and Student Support Services.”
In fact, Grant said, the same proposed budget that could spell doom for Upward Bound and the Talent Search is poised to re-fund Student Support Services for five more years, through the year 2011 — an award that will total $2 million in all.
Grant added, however, that though the funding continuation has been proposed for Student Support Services, it won’t be final until the budget is passed by the House and signed into law. His Student Support Services office serves about 300 low-income, first-generation and disabled students every year.
One possible mitigating factor to the elimination of Upward Bound and the Talent Search — also overseen by the Office of Minority Affairs — is an amendment to the budget successfully lobbied through the Senate by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, that would seek to restore funding for the affected programs and increase other scholarships and grants for higher education. Kennedy is urging voters to contact their legislators and voice support for the programs as the Senate and House budget committees begin their work.
Julian Argel, director of the Educational Talent Search program, said that program has focused on rural areas of Snohomish, Skagit and Yakima counties and works with up to 650 middle and high school students each year, providing needed information on admissions, financial aid and the like. Of those, he said, 150 to 180 are seniors who go on to graduate, and about half of that number go on to college.
Leny Valerio-Buford, director of the UW’s Upward Bound program, said the program serves about 80 students from three local high schools, and that students from other schools were served by a similar program hosted by the City of Seattle.
“We’ve been told (the Upward Bound program) is the most productive pipeline for the University” in attracting low-income students to the UW, Valerio-Buford said. “And they are not token students, they are strong students who compete.” She said each year about 28 of the senior cohort of 30 Upward Bound-supported students end up graduating from the UW, with the remaining two choosing other universities after their training here. Counting all four years of school, then, she said, “That would be about 112 students who are at different stages at the U in every cycle.”
The loss of that assistance would be unfortunate, Valerio-Buford said. “Such a low percentage achieves success without help,” she said, “what else can they do?”
