When President Trump issued his budget plan for the government’s next fiscal year, his proposed cuts in education programs hit close to home for thousands of people across the nation who count federal assistance as key to their ability to go to and complete college.
The budget plan, which ignited protests from the higher education community, is set for close and intense Congressional attention in the coming weeks, now that discussion and debate over repeal of the national health care law has been set aside for the moment by Trump and other national leaders.
Trump’s plan would reduce funding for the widely respected TRIO program, an umbrella for grant programs including Upward Bound and Student Support Services that specifically support early intervention and support for poor and first generation students. The proposed cut is seen by TRIO advocates as a mean-spirited blow against what they say is a proven lifeline to opportunity from poverty.
TRIO is among federal assistance programs they feel could greatly help Trump fulfill his promise to help uplift the poorest and least off of Americans.
“There’s a lot to be said about the power of this program,” says Dr. Harry L. Williams, president of Delaware State University (DSU). It plays a “key role” in helping first generation financially poor students succeed despite being initially viewed as high risks for college success.
Williams, president of DSU for the past seven years, knows firsthand of what he speaks. He is an alumnus of the TRIO program which, since its inception in 1965 as one of the late President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” initiatives, has helped thousands of students pursue and complete college.
Today, federal tax dollars allow the U.S. Department of Education help fund some 2,800 college programs across the country that are under the TRIO umbrella — such as the Upward Bound, Student Support Services and the Ronald McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program — that serve some 790,000 students, according to Council for Opportunity in Education.
