Oct. 24, 2007 — Thanks to help from Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia and Delegate Donna M. Christensen, the University of the Virgin Islands' Upward Bound program will continue to receive federal funding.
"There was a whole lot of lobbying," said Upward Bound Director Rosalia Rohan.
UVI's Upward Bound program had been in danger of losing the funding because the federal government changed the scoring system. While Rohan doesn't know how much money is coming with this latest grant, Upward Bound got $578,000 for the 2006-07 school year. The federal money only partly covers the cost of the program, she said.
The program offers counseling as well as remedial and development work. Upward Bound serves 100 high school students from across the territory. Programs operate on UVI's St. Croix and St. Thomas campuses. About 90 percent of them go on to college, Rohan said.
"The program does work," she said.
Two-thirds of the students are from low income families, with parents who have not attended college. The other third comes from families that are either low income or have parents who haven't attended college.
The students meet Saturdays for 26 weeks during the school year and in a six-week summer residential program to give them a taste of campus living.
Christensen wrote U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spelling in June expressing disappointment and outrage that UVI had been notified that the funding would not be renewed after almost after 30 years of grants, according to a news release issued Tuesday by the delegate's office.
Scott and her colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus were also working to reinstate funding for other historically black colleges and universities whose funding had been threatened. The funding came under the College Cost Reduction Act, recently signed by President George W. Bush.
In addition to securing the Upward Bound program, the College Cost Reduction Act cuts interest rates on student loans, increases the purchasing power of the Pell Grant, provides grants and loan forgiveness to teachers who agree to serve in underserved areas, and invests more money in minority institutions of higher learning.
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