A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

The Impacts of Upward Bound:
Final Report For Phase I of the National Evaluation
Analysis and Highlights

Planning and Evaluation Service
Office of the Under Secretary
U.S. Department of Education
April 1999

The Upward Bound Program

Upward Bound, initiated in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty, is a federal precollege program designed to help economically disadvantaged students complete high school and to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. It is the oldest and largest of the federal TRIO programs, all of which share the objective of helping disadvantaged students achieve success at the postsecondary level.

There are currently 566 Upward Bound projects serving about 42,000 students. At least two-thirds of each project's participants must be from households that have low income (under 150% of the poverty level) and in which neither parent has graduated from college; the remainder must satisfy both criteria, which in practice about 80 percent of Upward Bound applicants do.

Upward Bound projects offer extensive academic instruction as well as counseling, mentoring, and other support services. Students meet throughout the school year and generally participate in an intensive residential summer program that lasts from five to eight weeks. Most students--about 90 percent--enter Upward Bound while in the 9th or 10th grade, and about 35 percent remain with the program through high school graduation. Upward Bound projects are generally operated by two- or four-year colleges. The annual average cost per participant is about $4,200.

Evaluation Objectives and Methods

This evaluation report describes the impact of Upward Bound on students during high school and the first year or two of college. Future data collection will more fully assess the longer term effects of Upward Bound on college entry, persistence, and completion.

The central issue in this study is to determine the "value-added" from participating in Upward Bound. The focus is not on whether Upward Bound participants are doing well in school but upon the difference the program makes in their achievement. The main questions addressed in this report are:

• What is the effect of Upward Bound on students' preparation for college, college enrollment, and early college achievement?
• Who benefits most from participating in Upward Bound?
• How does length of participation in the program influence outcomes?

Impact findings are based upon a nationally representative sample of 67 Upward Bound ^{[ 1 ]} projects hosted by two- and four-year colleges, from which 2800 eligible applicants were randomly assigned to Upward Bound or to a control group. Impacts are usually estimated by comparing students in the two groups on a range of measures, including grades, high school course-taking, educational expectations, college enrollment, type of postsecondary institution attended (2-year or 4-year), and college selectivity. A baseline survey was conducted beginning in December 1992, with follow-up surveys undertaken and transcripts collected in 1994 and 1996.

Findings

Results reported here are based on information collected two to three years after students applied to Upward Bound. About two-thirds of the students in the sample had completed high school but only one-quarter were enrolled in college. Because many of the students had not had an opportunity to attend college, the most credible results pertain to studentsÆ high school experiences.

Summary of Upward Bound Impact Findings on Selected Outcomes

* Statistically significant at .10 level or less.

• The overall effects of Upward Bound on students during high school and postsecondary education are very limited. Roughly two to three years after entering Upward Bound, participants had slightly higher educational expectations, earned more credits in math and social studies, earned more earned credits from 4 year colleges, were more likely to have received financial aid, and were more actively involved in college activities. However, participation in Upward Bound had no effect on such key outcomes as total high school credits earned, high school graduation, GPA, college enrollment, enrollment in a four-year college or selectivity of college attended
• Upward Bound has large impacts on some groups of students. Considering a wide range of key outcomes, three groups of students who benefited substantially were students entering Upward Bound with lower educational expectations ^{[ 2 ]}, academically high risk students ^{[ 3 ]}, and boys. The table above shows substantial positive impacts for these groups of students across a wide range of outcomes. Other groups who also benefited from Upward Bound are students who are Hispanic or white and those eligible for the program because they are either low-income or low-income and first-generation ^{[ 4 ]}. Students who qualify as first-generation students do not appear to benefit from Upward Bound.
• Duration Matters but Program Completion May Not. Longer exposure to Upward Bound was associated with greater program impacts. Results indicate that students who participate in the program for less than 12 months gain few benefits; those participating for at least two years show a consistent pattern of benefits across a wide-range of outcomes, but students participating from 13-24 months may benefit as well. The median length of participation is 19 months. There do not appear to be significant benefits associated with program completion, per se, for those entering the program in the 10th grade.

Conclusions and Implications

Results in this report describe the impact of Upward Bound on the high school and early college (for a small portion of the sample) experiences of program participants. While the results indicate limited effects overall, they also indicate that Upward Bound makes a substantial difference in the lives of certain groups of students, especially students entering the program with lower educational expectations, students with serious academic problems, and boys. Results also show that duration of participation is linked to positive program outcomes.

The findings from this study strongly suggest that two ways in which to improve the program's overall effectiveness are to enroll more at-risk students and to improve student retention.

Future reports will examine the longer term effects of upward Bound on students' college persistence and completion, fields of study and employment outcomes. The next report will be issued in 1999.

Links

Strategic Plan, 1998-2002 (41KB), Table 3: Support for Strategic Plan Goals and Objectives by Department of Education Programs. Upward Bound is among the TRIO programs.

Fiscal Year 2000 Annual Plan (837KB) of the U.S. Department of Education. Page 154 covers the TRIO programs, which include Upward Bound.

Biennial Evaluation Report (55KB) of the U.S. Department of Education, 1995-96, Chapter 508. This Chapter contains legislative and funding history for the program, as well an analysis of program performance dealing with the goals and objectives of the program and strategies to achieve the goals. The Chapter also give information on other studies and voice mail numbers of Department contacts.

The office of Higher Education Programs, in the Office of Postsecondary Education of the U.S. Department of Education, administers Upward Bound. This link gives further information about the program, including how to apply.

The President's Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Request for the U.S. Deparmtent of Education. This link shows the TRIO programs.

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assitance. This Catalog comes from the General Services Administration. Type in the catalog number for this particular program, which is 84.047, and press enter to retrieve information about this program.

United States Code: Authorizing Statute for the TRIO programs . The link is to a piece of Title 20 of the United States Code (the compilation of the laws of the United States), which deals with education.

Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet is a general search engine developed by the Library of Congress. The progress of a law from Subcommittee Hearings to signing by the President can be followed here.

Program regulations can be found in 34 CFR 645 (Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 645). Click the links below to get the five subparts.

CFR Title 34, Part 645, Subpart A (text)
CFR Title 34, Part 645, Subpart B (text)
CFR Title 34, Part 645, Subpart C (text)
CFR Title 34, Part 645, Subpart D (text)
CFR Title 34, Part 645, Subpart E (text)

For a printed copy of this document, call (1-877-4-ED-Pubs) (877-433-7827) or the TTY/TDD toll free number: 1-877-576-7734.

Please send questions or comments to frank.forman@ed.gov

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