An important victory for academia sprang up recently in Hispanic news: it was announced that the U.S. Department of Education would be awarding the National Hispanic University in San Jose a $1.5 million grant over the next five years, to go towards continued funding of the school's Upward Bound program. With this announcement, the opportunities for Hispanic students to pursue higher education have never been better.
TRIO and the Upward Bound Program
Many programs offer scholarships and other incentives to disadvantaged students, to encourage them to go to college, but the Upward Bound program goes beyond that. Rather than scholarships, the federal grant money will go towards working with high school students, providing them with the tools and resources that will help them go on to college. This includes everything from tutoring in science, math, and literature, to counseling and mentoring, to cultural enrichment and work study opportunities. The program works with students who have limited proficiency in English, as well as students with disabilities, homeless students, and others, giving them the opportunities they need to succeed. It also focuses on students whose parents never graduated from college, in order to help them break the cycle.
Upward Bound is part of TRIO, a series of federal programs, specifically geared towards helping low income and disadvantaged students ultimately get their bachelors' degrees. Other TRIO programs include the Esperanza Educational Talent Search, which seeks to identify academic potential in disadvantaged students, and the TRIO Scholars Program, which works with college students step by step to help them graduate.
National Hispanic University
While the percentage of Hispanic students who graduate high school and go on to college has gone steadily up over the last 20 years, the numbers are still below that of other ethnicities. NHU strives to rectify that. Since their founding in 1981, their goal has been to help Hispanics and other minority groups get the education they need to succeed in life.
Through the TRIO Scholars Program, NHU is able to offer a summer program for incoming students looking to go above and beyond, providing them with everything from textbooks to meals. And they continue to work with students, from freshman year through to graduation, helping them with financial aid advice, academic tutoring, and more. Now with this grant money, NHU hopes to be able to provide over 70 disadvantaged high school students with the opportunity to pursue a college career and a bachelor's degree.
There are now more opportunities for Hispanic students to succeed than ever before. Hopefully, Hispanic news stories like this will give them the encouragement they need to reach for the stars, regardless of their class status, home life, or any other obstacles that stand between them and the pursuit of their dreams.
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