Upward Bound

Upward Bound is sponsored by the United States Department of Education and is hosted by the University of Central Florida. It is the oldest and most successful Federal TRiO Program. The goal of Upward Bound is to help students overcome environmental, social, cultural and academic barriers to higher education. Upward Bound programs do this by providing high school students with information, counseling, academic instruction, tutoring, assistance with college admission and the financial aid process, motivation and guidance to ensure that they successfully graduate from high school and go on to college.
In the late 1960s Upward Bound was established as one of the initiatives of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” campaign. The central idea of the program was to link institutions of higher education with target schools in an effort to expose students, who have been defined as low income and first generation potential college students, to postsecondary education. This translated well into a variety of settings from Bronx to Appalachia. Each year more than 50,000 students participate in over 800 Upward Bound programs nationwide, including Puerto Rico.