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TRIO Program Advocates Seek Support in Congress

WASHINGTON — With across-the-board federal spending cuts looming as a real possibility as of March 1, TRIO program advocates made a timely plea Tuesday for congressional support of the federal government’s oldest group of college outreach, readiness and retention programs for low-income and aspiring first-generation college students.

TRIO program beneficiaries, including U.S. Representative Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and other advocates such as U.S. Representative Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), spoke on behalf of TRIO programs during a Capitol Hill briefing in Rayburn House Office Building. Moore and Simpson are co-chairs of the Congressional TRIO Caucus.

“As everyone knows, we’re facing the possibility of sequestration cuts, scheduled to kick in on March 1… TRIO itself would be cut about another $43 million; the Department of Education overall would be cut about $2.6 billion,” said Joel Packer, moderator of the TRIO briefing and the executive director of the Committee for Education Funding (CEF).

“We’re facing a very immediate and deep cut,” he added.

Seven programs make up TRIO, with some of them dating back to the mid-1960s. The programs, such as Upward Bound and the Ronald E. McNair, provide low-income middle school and high school students with the guidance, support and academic help they need to apply to, enroll in and graduate from college, as well as pursue post-baccalaureate opportunities. In fiscal year 2012, TRIO programs were funded at $838.63 million, and they served 789,676 participants.

The title ‘TRIO’ came about in the late 1970s, following the founding of the first three programs. Upward Bound, the oldest of the programs, had been created by the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act. Educational Talent Search was established by the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the Higher Education Amendments of 1968 added Special Services for Disadvantaged Students, which is now known as the Student Support Services Program.

“We need to make sure that advocacy voice for TRIO is loud and clear, and (the members of Congress) know that people support it,” Simpson told more than 100 congressional staffers and other officials attending the briefing.

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