The new budget proposed by President Bush Monday could eliminate funding for student aid programs such as Upward Bound and Talent Search which give first generation students an opportunity to attend college.
Upward Bound and Talent Search are used at 30 universities around Wisconsin, including UW-Oshkosh, UW-Milwaukee, Ripon, and St. Norbert's.
If the programs are cut due to budget accommodations, $9.7 million dollars in federal funding to Wisconsin would be lost and over 6,300 Wisconsin high school students would lose their college opportunity.
According to Susan Trebach, vice president of communications for the Council for Opportunity in Education, these programs are part of a group of programs called TRIO, which were started in the 1960s as part of the \war on poverty"" to help low-income first-generation students without financial resources or infrastructure obtain a higher education.
With the help of these programs, over two million students attended college and found fulfilling jobs.
""Until America doesn't have poor people who don't have college in their backgrounds these programs are clearly needed,"" Trebach said.
U.S. Sens. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said the programs are worth saving because they provide fundamental links to college educations for thousands of first generation low-income students in Wisconsin.
Kohl told The Daily Cardinal that it is unfortunate how the rising costs of tuition have made it extremely difficult for many low- and middle-income families to put their children through school.
""The investment that the federal government makes in these students is critical, and I am concerned that cuts in these important programs would undermine the important goal of making higher education accessible to all Americans, regardless of income,"" Kohl said.
Title I programs, designed to help students from lower-income backgrounds, as a whole are not diminishing.
UW-Madison Political Science Professor John F. Witte said President Bush must deal with specific programs one at a time to determine their value in the education system.
""He wants to focus his money on the general No Child Left Behind support through Title I, which is a lot of pressure on him,"" he said. ""He has to cut funds in other places unless he's going to dramatically inflate the education budget.""
The future of Upward Bound and Talent Search will be addressed at the next meeting of the House Appropriations committee.
