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STRENGTHENING FEDERAL ACCESS PROGRAMS TO 

MEET 21ST CENTURY NEEDS: A LOOK AT 

TRIO AND GEAR UP 

HEARING 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, 

LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

ON

EXAMINING STRENGTHENING FEDERAL ACCESS PROGRAMS TO MEET 

21ST CENTURY NEEDS, FOCUSING ON TRIO AND THE GLOBAL EDUCATION AND AWARENESS RESEARCH UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM 

(GEAR UP) 

JANUARY 16, 2014 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut 

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

MARK KIRK, Illinois 

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina 

PAMELA J. SMITH, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

LAUREN MCFERRAN, Deputy Staff Director 

DAVID P. CLEARY, Republican Staff Director 

(II) 
C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2014 

Page 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Harkin, Hon. Tom, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 

Pensions, opening statement ............................................................................... 1 

Alexander, Hon. Lamar, a U.S. Senator from the State of Tennessee, opening 

statement .............................................................................................................. 2 

Franken, Hon, Al, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota .......................... 28 

Burr, Hon. Richard, a U.S. Senator from the State of North Carolina ............... 30 

Murray, Hon. Patty, a U.S. Senator from the State of Washington ................... 33 

Baldwin, Hon. Tammy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin .................. 34 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 34 

Murphy, Hon. Christopher, a U.S. Senator from the State of Connecticut ........ 43 

Warren, Hon. Elizabeth, a U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts ........ 45 

WITNESSES

Hoyler, Maureen, President of the Council for Opportunity in Education, 

Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5 

Giles, Scott, President and CEO of Vermont Student Assistance Corporation 

and Member of the Board of Directors of the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships, Shelburne, VT ............................................. 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8 

Griggs, Cornelius D., Senior Project Manager and Lead Estimator of the 

Walsh Group, Chicago, IL ................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11 

Sertich, Tallie, Director of Climb Upward Bound, Hibbing Community College, Hibbing, MN ................................................................................................ 12 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13 

Liang, Weiya, Director of GEAR UP, Washington Student Achievement Council, Olympia, WA .................................................................................................. 14 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 15 

Harris, Douglas N., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics and University 

Endowed Chair in Public Education, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA .. 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 17 

Haskins, Ron, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Center on Children 

and Families and Budgeting for National Priorities Project, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC ....................................................................................... 20 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.: 

Andrea Venezia, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration, 

Associate Director of the Institute for Higher Ed. Leadership & Policy, 

California State University, Sacramento, CA ............................................. 50 

(III) 
(IV) 

Letters: 

Senator Casey ............................................................................................ 51 

Hon. Chaka Fattah, U.S. Representative from the State of Pennsylvania ....................................................................................................... 51 
(1) 

STRENGTHENING FEDERAL ACCESS PROGRAMS TO MEET 21ST CENTURY NEEDS: A 

LOOK AT TRIO AND GEAR UP 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2014 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 

SD–106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin, chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Harkin, Alexander, Murray, Franken, Baldwin, Murphy, Warren, and Burr. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARKIN

The CHAIRMAN. This session of the Health, Education, Labor, 

and Pensions Committee will come to order. Today’s roundtable 

will focus on our main Federal college access programs, TRIO and 

GEAR UP, and how they’re performing in helping low-income students access and persist throughout post-secondary education. This 

roundtable marks our fifth event in a series to examine issues that 

we plan to address in the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher 

Education Act. 

These Federal programs that we’re discussing today have a rich 

history. Through the Higher Education Act of 1965, Congress created the TRIO programs to ensure that low-income students have 

the preparation needed to attend post-secondary education. GEAR 

UP came later—I remember when. I was here at that time—and 

shares the same goal. 

Our review of this work couldn’t come at a better time. Last 

week, we commemorated the 50th anniversary of President Johnson’s War on Poverty and the beginning of the Great Society’s address to Congress. There are some who claim the Great Society was 

a great failure, and I fundamentally disagree with that view. 

Thanks to these programs, millions of students have been able to 

aspire to a post-secondary education and to achieve that dream. 

However, it is crucial that we take the time to reflect on the intent and history of these programs so we can continue to build on 

their strengths to improve them for the future. Obviously, things 

are changing in higher education. So we’ll have opportunity to do 

so today and in the upcoming reauthorization. 

We all know that many low-income students need critical supports when it comes to college preparation. We all know that there 

is far more work to be done if we’re going to meet President 
2 

Obama’s goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates 

in the world by 2020. The question becomes: What should the Federal role be to encourage this? How can we best utilize the limited 

Federal dollars we have to promote college preparation? 

As I’ve stated in past hearings, the need for shared responsibility 

regarding higher education funding couldn’t be greater. How can 

all stakeholders work together to enhance and leverage these Federal higher education dollars? How can we ensure that the work 

being done by these grants is most effective? 

Today, we will hear from key stakeholders in the college access 

community: advocates, researchers, program operators, and a 

former student. I am eager to hear from each of them on how we 

can strengthen our efforts to equip low-income students with the 

tools they need to attain a quality post-secondary degree. 

I expect our roundtable participants will provide their perspectives on these programs as well as recommendations for how they 

could be improved. The goal today is to have an open discussion 

that informs the ongoing debate on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. I thank all of our participants for being with us 

today. 

This kind of a setting—this roundtable discussion was, I think, 

first started by Senator Enzi when he was chair of this committee. 

It proved to be valuable in terms of having more of an open discussion than just kind of a formal type hearing. So we can get more 

engaged in just sort of a back-and-forth, and I’ll go into the limited 

rules we have on that after, of course, I turn to Senator Alexander 

for his opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ALEXANDER

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I was trying to get 

a total number of Federal dollars spent on higher education, and 

I may or may not have it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good luck. 

Senator ALEXANDER. I look forward to this. I thank the witnesses 

for coming. This is an important effort, and I have complimented 

Chairman Harkin both here and on other occasions for the way he 

has conducted these hearings on higher education. We’ve had terrific witnesses. We’ve learned from them, and we look forward to 

reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. 

My own view is that since we’ve reauthorized it eight times since 

1965 that this would be a good time to start from scratch, at least 

for part of the Higher Education Act, and here’s the reason why. 

What happens here is that every time we do this, we have wellintentioned ideas. So we pass a law with some new well-intentioned ideas, and over the next few years, here comes more wellintentioned regulations to help implement the well-intentioned 

ideas. 

And then the next time around, the same and the same and the 

same, and we have a stack of regulations now that’s twice as tall 

as I am. It’s nobody’s fault, really. We just haven’t weeded the garden before we started over. So I’m trying to be very basic in my 

questions, and I think the way to do that with these six programs 

is to ask the question—we spend about $1.1 billion on these six 

programs. I’m told that the total amount of funding for higher edu-
3 

cation is about $37 billion. That doesn’t count the $110 billion or 

so that we loan every year. 

So $1.1 billion of $37 billion, if that’s the right figure, is a significant amount of money. It’s enough money to create a couple of hundred thousand new Pell grants. That would permit us to double the 

number of Pell grants in a State like Tennessee. So are we spending that $1.1 billion most effectively as a way to help low-income 

students whose parents haven’t gone to college to have an opportunity to go to college? 

We heard testimony at an earlier hearing here that if we just 

simplified the student aid program, a lot more students would go 

to college. Should we take this $1.1 billion and turn it into 180,000 

or 200,000 Pell grants for students? That would be one option. 

The world has changed a lot since 1965. Then, we had 6 million 

students enrolled in post-secondary education. Today, it’s 21 million students. Then, 51 percent of high school students went to college. Now, 66 percent do. Students didn’t receive Pell grants until 

1973, and 176,000 received Pell grants that year. Now, 9.1 million 

students do. And we’re in an age when it’s easier to communicate 

with students. 

So we should ask the question: If we took the advice of those who 

testified, Senator Harkin, before our committee—they said we 

should change the student aid program and let juniors in high 

school know then the amount of money they were able to get, and 

then they could shop around for college, rather than do it in the 

reverse way. Now, we can communicate with eighth graders 

through the social media. We couldn’t do that in 1965 or some time 

ago. So are we spending this money in the most effective way? 

I look forward to your advice and suggestions, and I appreciate 

the kind of hearing that the chairman has called, which permits 

more of a conversation than a formal hearing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Alexander. As you said, are 

we spending the money in the most effective way, and what 

changes do we need to make? That is the right question. 

Let me just briefly introduce our witnesses here today. I’ll go 

from left to right. Ms. Maureen Hoyler is president of the Council 

for Opportunity in Education, a nonprofit organization that provides professional development program improvement and advocacy for nearly 2,800 federally funded college opportunity programs 

at more than 1,000 colleges and universities nationwide. 

Next is Mr. Scott Giles, board member of the National Council 

for Community and Education Partnerships and president and 

CEO of Vermont Student Assistance Corporation, which houses the 

State’s GEAR UP and TRIO grants. I’m told that you worked here 

some time ago when Senator Jeffords was chair of this very committee. Welcome back. 

Next is Mr. Cornelius Griggs, a former Talent Search student, as 

well as a McNair Program scholar. He currently serves as senior 

project manager and lead estimator for the Walsh Group, a construction company based in Chicago. He received his bachelor’s degree from Chicago State University and a master’s from the Illinois 

Institute of Technology. 
4 

Next we have Ms. Tallie Sertich, a native Iowan and the TRIO 

Upward Bound director at Hibbing Community College in Minnesota, working with low-income and rural communities. She is 

president-elect of the Minnesota TRIO Board, and earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Iowa. Thank you for being here. 

Next would be Weiya Liang, director of the Washington State 

GEAR UP at the Washington Student Achievement Council. He 

has worked in the college access and student support field for over 

20 years and has been a leader in GEAR UP since Congress created the program. 

Next we have Dr. Douglas Harris. Dr. Harris is an associate professor of economics, University Endowed Chair in Public Education, 

and founder and director of the Education Research Alliance for 

New Orleans at Tulane University. With a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences, Dr. Harris is leading a large randomized trial of, ‘‘a Promise College Scholarship’’ in Milwaukee Public Schools. 

Our final panelist is Dr. Ron Haskins. Dr. Haskins is a senior 

fellow in the Economics Studies Program and co-director of the 

Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution, as 

well as a Senior Consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 

Baltimore. 

He has served in the White House as Senior Advisor to the President for Welfare Policy, and, I guess, also served in the Congress 

on the House Ways and Means Committee. Is that what my notes 

say—in the House Ways and Means Committee. So we welcome 

him back. He holds a degree in history and a master’s degree and 

a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Thank you all for being here today and sharing your expertise. 

Before we start, I’ll explain a little bit of this format. I’m going to 

ask each of you to give 1 or 2 minutes—just a very short opening 

remark. After that, I’ll start the discussion by asking a question of 

one of the panelists. That person will answer, and if one of the panelists wants to respond to that question as well or to something 

that another panelist has said, take your name tag and turn it up. 

I’ll have my staff keep track of who turned theirs up first, and we’ll 

work it that way. 

If someone says something and you want to respond, we’ll try to 

get some kind of a dialog going that way. Let me just say that we’ll 

work to keep the discussion flowing while being respectful of one 

another, and I hope we’ll have a good in-depth conversation on this 

issue. You all have statements which I went over just last evening, 

and they’ll all be made a part of the record in their entirety. 

With that, what I’d like to do is start with Ms. Hoyler and then 

work down. And like I said, I can’t give everybody 5 minutes. So 

if you’d just give us your basic one shot on what you think we 

ought to be looking at on this—in say, 3 minutes or so. 

Ms. Hoyler. 

STATEMENT OF MAUREEN HOYLER, PRESIDENT OF THE 

COUNCIL FOR OPPORTUNITY IN EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, 

DC 

Ms. HOYLER. Thank you, Senator Harkin. Chairman Harkin, 

Senator Alexander, and members of the committee, I deeply appre-
5 

ciate this opportunity to participate in this roundtable. The Council 

for Opportunity in Education’s 900 member colleges and community agencies are committed to increasing college access and success for low-income students, first-generation students, and students with disabilities. 

We view the Federal support for TRIO and GEAR UP as a necessary component of our efforts. More than 9,000 TRIO and GEAR 

UP educators are on the front lines of our country’s continuing efforts to expand college access and success and are particularly appreciative of your willingness to consider our views as you prepare 

for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. 

We recognize that as a country, we are far from realizing the 

goals of the Act, and we are deeply committed to improving TRIO 

and GEAR UP so that we as a nation can come closer to realizing 

these goals. Over the past year, each of our State and regional associations, all of those associations that are affiliated with COE, 

have sought input from our members regarding our recommendations. 

In general, these recommendations fall into six categories. Reinforce the historic connection between student financial assistance 

and college access and success. In 1965, Congress recognized that 

students faced two sets of obstacles to succeeding in college. One 

set is financial. The other set is nonfinancial—lack of information, 

lack of engagement in the academic progress, lack of appropriate 

academic preparation, lack of peer and family support. Those two 

sets of obstacles continue to plague students today, and those two 

sets of obstacles continue to need to be addressed. 

Foster collaboration with State, institutional, and privately funded college access and success programs. The Federal Government 

can’t do it alone. It is a multifaceted, complex process. 

Continue the authorization of evaluations within the TRIO chapter and maintain their focus on program improvement; protect congressional intent in the TRIO funding process; reduce regulatory 

burden where it detracts from an institution’s ability to serve students; and, finally, strengthen efforts to serve special populations 

in TRIO such as homeless students or students who are in the foster care system or aged out of the foster care system. But we could 

also look at students who are preparing for the STEM disciplines 

or other disciplines, that it is hard to prepare for coming from particular schools. 

Thank you very much for considering this. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hoyler follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MAUREEN HOYLER

Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Alexander, and members of the HELP Committee, I deeply appreciate this opportunity to participate in today’s roundtable. The 

Council for Opportunity in Education’s (COE’s) 900-member colleges and community 

agencies are committed to increasing college access and success for low-income students, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities. They view 

the Federal support for TRIO and GEAR UP as a necessary component of their efforts. More than 9,000 TRIO and GEAR UP educators are on the front lines of our 

country’s continuing efforts to expand college access and success, and they are particularly appreciative of your willingness to consider their views as you prepare for 

the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. They recognize that as a country 

we are far from realizing the very ambitious goals of the Act, and are deeply committed to improving TRIO and GEAR UP so that we as a nation can come closer 

to realizing those goals. 
6 

Over the past year, each of the State and regional associations affiliated with 

COE has sought input from its members regarding our recommendations. In general, these recommendations fall into six categories, which I will discuss in succession. 

• Reinforce the historic connection between student financial assistance and college 

access and success programs. As early as 1965, Congress recognized that low-income 

students faced two sets of obstacles in successfully preparing for, enrolling in and 

graduating from college. The first set of obstacles is financial. Today, the Federal 

Government invests well over $140 billion annually in higher education grants, 

loans, work-study programs, and tax credits so that students and families are able 

to address these financial obstacles. But for many students and families, the nonfinancial obstacles—lack of information, limitations in academic preparation, lack of 

peer and family support, and other factors—present equally troubling barriers. The 

Federal TRIO and GEAR UP programs assist students and families in recognizing 

and overcoming these obstacles and in a very real sense constitute an insurance policy for the much-larger investment in student financial aid. 

• Foster collaboration with State, institutional and privately funded college access 

and success efforts. Just as student financial assistance for low-income students requires a package made up of grants, loans and work-study support most often from 

Federal, State and institutional sources, State, institutional and private support for 

college access and success programming should be encouraged. Privately funded college access and success partners are working collaboratively with TRIO in many cities and States including Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. COE 

has introduced one such model with support from the GE Foundation. Any barriers 

to collaboration among such programs should be removed, and where possible vehicles should be made available to introduce more broadly in institutions, agencies 

and schools the practices first utilized in TRIO and GEAR UP. However, there is 

a fundamental error in the temptation to view programs such as TRIO and GEAR 

UP as demonstration programs. The Federal role in assuring equal opportunity in 

higher education is critical; the need for Federal support and leadership in this area 

remains as great today as it was in 1965. 

• Continue the authorization of evaluations within the TRIO subpart and maintain their focus on program improvement. The TRIO community understands the 

very real obstacles that low-income students, first-generation students and students 

with disabilities face in preparing for and graduating from college. We want to improve our efforts—but we also want to build on our successes. 

• Protect congressional intent in the TRIO funding process. The current TRIO legislation mandates that TRIO applications be funded in rank order based on scores 

on the application and the institution’s success in meeting previously-agreed-upon 

outcomes defined by Congress. In several of the last competitions, the Administration has introduced competitive preference priorities, which had the effect of giving 

institutions and agencies in individual States or regions preference over in institutions and agencies in other States or regions. COE recommends restricting the Administration’s ability to introduce such priorities without congressional consent. 

• Reduce regulatory burden where it detracts from an institution’s ability to serve 

students. Current legislation requires that institutions and agencies sponsoring 

TRIO programs track students for as many as 10 to 12 years following the last provision of service. In some TRIO programs, such tracking is definitely cost-effective. 

In others, particularly programs such as Talent Search, where the cost per student 

is less than $450 and the imposition of this requirement can involve tracking thousands of students, it may interfere with service delivery. We would ask the committee to revisit these requirements. 

• Strengthen efforts to serve special populations in TRIO. A number of members 

of this committee have introduced legislation that speaks to TRIO’s effectiveness in 

serving students in foster care or aging out of the foster care system, as well as students who are homeless. Our members are particularly concerned that the language 

included in the legislation promotes the provision of long-term, continuing services 

to students from these groups, and we look forward to working with the committee 

on this issue. 

Thank you very much for considering these concerns. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Hoyler. Thanks for being so succinct. 

Mr. Giles. 
7 

STATEMENT OF SCOTT GILES, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF 

VERMONT STUDENT ASSISTANCE CORPORATION AND MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE NATIONAL 

COUNCIL FOR COMMUNITY AND EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS, SHELBURNE, VT 

Mr. GILES. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Senator Alexander, 

and members of the committee for taking the time out of what I 

know from experience are significantly demanding schedules to devote your time to this critically important issue. I’d like to also take 

this moment to thank my own home State Senator, Senator Sanders, who has been a very, very strong advocate for the disadvantaged in the United States and in Vermont, in particular, and for 

our programs. 

Today, I’m wearing two or maybe even three hats. I am representing Vermont, where we house both a Talent Search and an 

EOC program and a GEAR UP program. I am also speaking as a 

board member of NCCEP, the national association that represents 

all of the many GEAR UP grantees across the country. 

To set the table for a couple of points that I’d like to make, I’d 

like to just say something briefly about the State agency that I 

work for, because I think it gives us a unique and distinctive view 

on the question that’s in front of you. We actually have a research 

arm. We conduct research on access in Vermont. 

And as I indicated before, we administer the Talent Search program. We’ve had Talent Search since 1969, EOC since the early 

1980s, and then one of the first GEAR UP grants. We administer 

all of the State financial aid programs, the State grant programs, 

the scholarship programs. 

We are nationally recognized for the outcomes that we’ve produced with those programs. And one of the really important things 

that we try to do is we use data to drive program improvement, 

which is something that I think is critically important to this process. 

In reflecting on the question that Senator Alexander raised—if 

we were to start from scratch, what is the right investment that 

we ought to make—when my organization was created in 1965, we 

were given two charges. One was to ensure that all Vermonters 

had access to the information that they needed to make good, solid 

education and training choices after high school. The second piece 

was to make sure that they had all of the financial aid that they 

needed in order to be able to achieve those goals. 

As we have taken a look at the work that we have done over the 

last 30 years, we have come to more fully appreciate the critical 

role that the information and counseling side of that equation 

plays. In fact, I will say from an organizational perspective that 

we’ve begun to believe, based on the data that we’re seeing, the results that we’re seeing for our low-income students, that we have 

perhaps kind of created an imbalance where we focus most of our 

efforts on the financial aid side and too little of our resources on 

the career and education counseling. 

To put this in context, I’d like to just pose a thought experiment 

for you, and that is to think back on your own experiences and ask 

yourself when and why you decided that you were going to pursue 

post-secondary education yourself. What I will tell you is that if 
8 

your parents had a post-secondary education, you’ll answer—and 

we survey every high school senior in Vermont every 2 years on aspirations. They will tell you some version of they always knew. 

Why did they always know? It’s because those parents had embedded in the conversations at home expectations regarding education that included some education or training after high school. 

When we talked to students that didn’t have the benefit of a parent 

with that educational background, invariably, those that succeed 

had an adult that took a particular interest in them and sparked 

their interest or curiosity. 

One of the really troubling things that we also discover is that 

most of them made their decision not to pursue where they consciously—or I should reverse it and say they made the decision 

that they wanted to pursue education somewhere around their junior year in high school. One of the challenges that that poses—because we also know from the research that the math that you took 

your freshman and sophomore years is one of the strongest indicators as to whether or not you will be able to pursue and succeed 

in post-secondary education. 

Those students that have made those decisions late have also 

largely made academic choices in the early part of their high school 

career that create additional challenges for them. So part of what 

I want to suggest is that no amount of aid or the consumer information that we all think is critically important to enable students 

and parents to become good consumers of education will succeed 

unless we are able to provide counseling and support to those firstgeneration low-income students who need it, in part because they 

don’t know how to access it. 

I think the second thing I’d like to say as part of this thought 

experiment, really quickly, is that we—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Please sum up. 

Mr. GILES. What I’ll do is just simply stop and say that we have 

a series of recommendations with regard to improvements in the 

program. Very quickly, No. 1, continue to work on improved program assessment; No. 2, for all the programs across the country, 

strengthen the training so that the grant recipients in both GEAR 

UP and TRIO have the skills that they need to use data to drive 

program improvement within their programs; reduce the obstacles 

to data sharing across the K–12 and higher education area and 

strengthen dissemination. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Giles follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SCOTT GILES

Good morning. I want to thank the committee, Chairman Harkin and Senator 

Alexander for the opportunity to discuss this pressing need for access to post-secondary education for low- and middle-income students. 

I also want to thank the Honorable Senator Bernie Sanders, of my home State 

of Vermont, for his continuing focus and heartfelt dedication to Vermonters as they 

pursue their educational and training goals after high school. Senator Sanders has 

been especially helpful and supportive of our mission at the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. The Senator is a staunch advocate of making sure all 

Vermonters have equal access to education and other essential services. I am grateful for his leadership and support. 

We in Vermont proudly consider ourselves to be the ‘‘education state’’ and take 

great pride in both our innovations and our national leadership. From Senator Morrill of the 1st and 2d Land Grant Acts, to Senator Stafford whose name is attached 
9 

to Federal student loans, we have elected leaders who have brought our passion for 

equal access to education to the Nation’s Capital. 

Vermont was one of the handful of pioneers of the National Early Intervention 

Scholarship Program (NEISP) that in 1998 became the GEAR UP program under 

the leadership of then Chairman Jim Jeffords and Representative Chaka Fattah. 

My name is Scott Giles and I am president and CEO of VSAC. Even before joining 

VSAC in 2003, I spent much of my career in public service, primarily focused on 

Federal finance and higher education policy. I have served as chairman of the Federal Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance and currently am on the 

board of the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships, the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to increase access to higher education for 

economically disadvantaged students. 

Additionally, I have served as Deputy Chief of Staff of the House Committee on 

Science. In that role I advised the chairman on education, space and research policy 

and managed the Subcommittees on Research and Space and Aeronautics. 

Here in the Senate, I served on the staff of this committee—Senate Committee 

on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions—where I was honored to advise the 

Chairman on budget, education and research policy. It’s nice to be back. 

Briefly, let me tell you about VSAC. The Vermont Student Assistance Corporation 

is a public, nonprofit corporation created by the Vermont Legislature in 1965 to help 

Vermonters plan and pay for education or training beyond high school. 

VSAC is unique among State-based agencies because we provide, under one roof, 

a full range of services aimed at helping Vermonters navigate the complexity of educational choices and how to finance those plans. VSAC has a rich history of providing career and education planning to Vermont students and their families, particularly those who are low-income or the first in their family to continue on to postsecondary education. 

In fact, VSAC has been administering the Talent Search program since 1969 and 

we have the only statewide program in the Nation. We began the Educational Opportunity Center program for adults in 1976. Both programs, as you know, are made 

possible because of TRiO funding. 

GEAR UP in Vermont began in 1999 and we’re celebrating 15 years in 2014. 

As steadfast advocates for Vermont students and families, VSAC is always evolving and adapting to serve Vermonters’ needs for education and training after high 

school. We are proud of the role we play in changing lives during changing times. 

Most of the focus lately about pursuing education beyond high school has been 

about money. But financial resources are only half the challenge that students and 

families face. 

To try to understand this, think back on your own personal journey. When did 

you decide you were going to pursue education after high school? Who guided you? 

Our research shows that students of parents with education after high school will 

report that they ‘‘always knew.’’ Students of parents without education after high 

school report phases—some decide before eighth grade. Many, however, don’t seriously aspire until their junior year—long after ninth- and tenth-grade course choices 

have put them in an academic hole. 

We know that a high school diploma is necessary but not sufficient to enter and 

remain in the middle class. Our education system, however, is still structured 

around an old agrarian model. 

I would like to invite you to engage in a thought experiment. What would our policies look like if we truly believed in a PK–16 education model and the transition 

between high school and post-high school education or training programs had the 

purpose and certainty of the transition from middle school to high school? 

Too many students and families do not know how to select an education or training program, apply for admission, or apply for financial aid. 

We are all aware that the United States needs an educated workforce to remain 

competitive in the global economy. And Vermont students—just like those in the 

rest of the Nation—need to acquire education or training after high school in order 

to thrive and succeed. 

You may be familiar with the research from Anthony Carnevale at Georgetown 

University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. As he succinctly points out, 

the data is clear. 

Having a robust generation of postsecondary-educated workers is the key to reversing and stopping the growth of income inequality. 

In Vermont, I believe the evidence is positive: TRiO and GEAR UP programs are 

working. But I also will share some suggestions for enhancing the delivery of TRiO 

and GEAR UP services. 

So, how are Vermont GEAR UP students doing? Quite well. 
10 

• In the last year, we assisted more than 2,500 students in 54 schools. Out of this 

priority group, the high school graduation rate exceeded the U.S. rate by 20 percent. 

And, this GEAR UP group also exceeded the statewide graduation rate by 10 percent. 

• This same group also went on to post-secondary enrollment at a rate that exceeds the Nation by 17 percent and by more than 23 percent in Vermont. 

But we didn’t stop there. We have been following GEAR UP’s progress in postsecondary education for the past 7 years with GUIDE, or ‘‘Giving Undergraduates 

Important Direction in their Education’’ program. GUIDE scholars receive on-campus and online services to help them successfully make the transition. 

The program is relatively new, but 75 percent of survey respondents re-enrolled 

for sophomore year. 

Turning to Talent Search, we reached more than 1,000 middle- and high-school 

students, offering individual and group meetings to address academic skills, course 

planning, college exploration and planning for future education and financial needs. 

Of these Talent Search students, 99 percent graduated from high school and 81 

percent enrolled in post-secondary programs. 

To conclude, these efforts make a difference in Vermonters’ lives, but I do believe 

there are ways we can improve. 

While the TRiO and GEAR UP programs have unique strengths, they could benefit from enhanced collaboration of programmatic elements. At VSAC, we house the 

programs with overlapping staff, which improves cooperation. 

The goals are similar, the desired outcomes are complimentary but both could 

benefit from strengthening certain aspects: 

• Improved program assessment; 

• Provide training to program participants to enable them to use data to drive 

improvement in their programs; 

• Reduce the legal and regulatory obstacles to sharing data between high schools, 

GEAR UP and Talent Search programs, and post-secondary education and training 

programs in order to support students and build more effective programs; 

• Strengthen the dissemination model so that successful projects and programs 

can easily be replicated across the country and in both programs; 

• GEAR UP’s cohort model is experimenting with ways to build college-going cultures within middle school and high schools. Embed it in both higher education policy and elementary and secondary education policy. 

I want to turn back to the thought experiment I asked you to engage earlier in 

my testimony. I believe that every student needs education or training after high 

school. I believe that no student should graduate from high school without a career 

and education plan that includes a resume, a completed FAFSA, and an application 

to the education or training program that will enable them to achieve their personal 

goals. 

Thank you for your time today and I welcome your questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Giles. 

Mr. Griggs, welcome and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF CORNELIUS D. GRIGGS, SENIOR PROJECT 

MANAGER AND LEAD ESTIMATOR OF THE WALSH GROUP, 

CHICAGO, IL 

Mr. GRIGGS. Good morning, Chairman Harkin, members of the 

committee. Thank you for having me this morning. 

Growing up as a ward of the State, my introduction to the TRIO 

programs occurred during my sophomore year of high school on the 

northwest side of Chicago. I was introduced to Mr. Bernard Clay 

and Talent Search during an afterschool learning summit. From 

that point, my relationship with the organization would grow, and 

Mr. Clay would take me under his wing as he did with many other 

youth. He lectured me on the educational opportunities that were 

at my disposal and began to steer me in the direction of colleges 

and universities. Mr. Clay was the first individual to tell me that 

I had to take the ACT or SAT to get into college, unfortunate but 

true. 
11 

Through Talent Search, I was afforded the opportunity to visit 

colleges and universities across the State, participate in summer 

youth programs, and gain an understanding of what college is all 

about before stepping foot on the campus. But like many others 

who grew up in the gang-infested neighborhoods of Chicago, going 

to college was a far stretch of the imagination. As a young AfricanAmerican male in this environment, simply surviving was a celebration within itself. 

TRIO programs like Talent Search and McNair, which I joined 

at Chicago State University, have made it possible for me and 

many other alumni to be successful in ways we never saw possible. 

It’s been 15 years since I graduated from high school and 9 years 

since I completed my undergraduate studies at Chicago State University. 

In that timeframe, I’ve served 10 years in the U.S. Army Reserve, including a tour in Afghanistan where I was awarded the 

Army Accommodation Medal for service during a foreign conflict. 

I’ve completed a master’s at the Illinois Institute of Technology, 

and I’m pursuing my second master’s at Northwestern University. 

I’ve assisted in the development of the City College of Chicago’s 

first construction management program, an associate of science degree, primarily serving minority and disadvantaged students across 

the city of Chicago. 

In my primary role, I work as a senior project manager and lead 

estimator for the 14th largest general contractor in the United 

States. But my most rewarding duty is fulfilling my responsibility 

as a single parent to my 9-year-old daughter. 

For nearly 50 years, TRIO programs have changed the lives of 

countless individuals across this great country. My accomplishments thus far would not be possible if TRIO programs didn’t exist. 

Please understand that our work cannot stop, because there are 

others who need the same inspiration, guidance, and access that I 

was afforded. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Griggs follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CORNELIUS D. GRIGGS

My journey to this podium has been one filled with obstacles and challenges, but 

in the great words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘The ultimate measure of a man 

is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands 

at times of challenge and controversy.’’ 

Challenge and Controversy was a normal part of my life at an early age. At the 

age of 9, my mother had a very difficult decision to place me under the care of the 

department of children and family services. I spent 9 years of my life, from the age 

of 9 until the age of 18, bouncing between 3 different foster homes from Cabrini 

Green Housing Projects to Robert Taylor Homes with a brief stint at a local group 

home on the Westside of Chicago. 

Growing up as a ward of the State, my first introduction to the Trio programs 

occurred during my sophomore year of high school at Steinmetz Academic Centre 

located on the northwest side of Chicago. I was introduced to Mr. Bernard Clay and 

Introspect Youth Services during an afterschool learning summit. From that point, 

my relationship with the organization would grow and Mr. Clay would take me 

under his wing as he did with many of the youth that walked through his door. He 

began to lecture me on the educational opportunities that were at my disposal and 

began to steer me in the direction of colleges and universities. Mr. Clay was the 

first individual to inform me that you had to take the ACT or SAT to get into college, unfortunate but true. 
12 

Through Introspect, I was afforded the opportunity to visit colleges and universities across the State, participate in summer youth programs and gain an understanding of what college was all about before ever stepping foot on a campus as a 

student. But like many others who grew up in the gang-infested neighborhoods of 

Chicago, going to college was a far stretch of the imagination. As a young AfricanAmerican male, simply surviving was a celebration within itself. 

After choosing college over the Marine Corps in the fall of 1999, I enrolled into 

Chicago State University to pursue a dual degree in Criminal Justice and Computer 

Science. It was during my time at Chicago State University that I was introduced 

to another Trio program called McNair. The McNair Program afforded me the opportunity to participate in educational and career-focused conferences across the 

country. The program would later prepare me for my graduate studies at the Illinois 

Institute of Technology. 

Trio programs and organizations like McNair and Introspect have made it possible for me and many other Alumni to be successful. It’s been 15 years since I graduated from high school and 9 years since I completed my undergraduate’s studies. 

In that timeframe, 

• I served 10 years in the U.S. Army Reserves including a tour in Afghanistan 

where I was awarded the Army Accommodation Medal for my service during a foreign conflict. 

• Completed a Bachelors of Science from Chicago State University and a Masters 

from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Industrial Technology with a concentration in Construction Management. 

• Working toward my 2d Master’s degree at Northwestern University in Real Estate Development. 

• Assisted in the chartering of the city colleges of Chicago’s first Construction 

Management Program in 2009, primarily serving minority and disadvantage students across the city of Chicago (In the Spring of 2013, we graduated our first class 

of 6 students, 5 of which have went on to 4-year institutions on full scholarships). 

• And working as a Project Manager for the 12 largest General Contractors in 

the United States. I have had the opportunity to lead teams that have built such 

projects as The Tides, a 52-Story $112MM high-rise in downtown Chicago, the historic Dunbar High School, a $10MM renovation in the Bronzeville area of Chicago 

and Altgeld Gardens, a $35MM, 440 unit renovation for the Chicago Housing Authority. 

But, my most rewarding duty is fulfilling my responsibilities as a single parent 

to my 9-year-old daughter Kyla Kamora Griggs. 

For nearly 50 years, Trio programs have changed the lives of countless individuals 

across our great country. My accomplishments, thus far, would not be possible if it 

were not for the opportunities that the Trio Programs provided. I understand that 

our work cannot stop because there are others who need the same inspiration, guidance, and access that I was afforded. 

I close with a quote from LTC Washington, my commander during operation enduring freedom, moments before our plane landed at Bagram Air force Base in 

Bagram, Afghanistan in February 2003. He looked into the eyes of his troops and 

stated, ‘‘If you wait until you can do everything for everybody, instead of one-thing 

for somebody, you’ll end up doing nothing for nobody.’’ The words have inspired me 

to no longer be ashamed of my early challenges but use them as the vehicle to initiate change. 

Thank you and God Bless. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Griggs. 

Ms. Sertich. 

STATEMENT OF TALLIE SERTICH, DIRECTOR OF CLIMB UPWARD BOUND, HIBBING COMMUNITY COLLEGE, HIBBING, 

MN 

Ms. SERTICH. Thank you, Senator Harkin. It’s an honor to be 

here. As the Hibbing Community College TRIO Upward Bound director and the Minnesota TRIO Association president-elect, I’m 

proud to speak for the low-income, first-generation TRIO students 

in my State, and I’m happy to share the ways in which TRIO programs impact students in rural areas such as the Minnesota Iron 

Range. 
13 

Advances in technology now demand higher degrees. TRIO programs provide participants with the vision and the tools to pursue 

college degrees that meet new employment standards and allow 

students to be competitive in the job market. One Iron Range Upward Bound student who exemplifies the ripple effect that TRIO 

programs have is Tony Ellis, who joined the Itasca Community College Upward Bound program in high school and went on to earn 

an engineering degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth. 

He is now Lead Engineer at Essar Steel, a new mining company 

on the Iron Range. His younger brother also joined Upward Bound 

and earned his BA at Mankato State University. Their mother also 

followed suit and is now working on her BA. Generations of this 

family and thousands of other TRIO alumni families will now earn 

higher wages, provide stable homes, and become productive, contributing citizens to the regional economy thanks to TRIO programs. 

Our TRIO students encounter challenges unique to living in a 

rural low-income region. Students often do not have access to technology at home or even transportation. Access to colleges in rural 

areas is a massive barrier for students. On the Iron Range, the 

closest universities are 75 to 200 miles away. These students may 

never dream of attaining a bachelor’s degree because they’ve never 

set foot on a university campus, let alone know how to prepare for 

and apply to such an institution. 

TRIO programs provide critical services such as tutoring, academic advising, financial literacy, college visits, college entrance 

exam preparation, supplemental instruction, assistance in filling 

out college and financial aid applications, and career exploration. 

But, possibly, the most impactful skills that TRIO programs teach 

students are how to identify their resources, advocate for themselves, and take advantage of every possible opportunity in their 

education. 

TRIO personnel can educate college administration, faculty, and 

student services staff to the specific needs of our students. They 

are critical advocates for low-income, first-generation students and 

are essential resources to colleges as these institutions learn how 

to better recruit for and successfully serve low-income, first-generation students. 

Ultimately, TRIO programs make tremendous strides in providing equal college access to low-income, first-generation students. 

Providing equal college access to rural students betters the whole 

community. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Sertich follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TALLIE SERTICH

As the Hibbing Community College TRIO Upward Bound Director, and as the MN 

TRIO Association President-Elect, I am proud to have the opportunity to speak for 

the low-income, first-generation TRIO students in Minnesota. In particular, I am 

happy to discuss the ways in which TRIO programs impact students in rural areas 

such as the Minnesota Iron Range, where Hibbing Community College is located. 

The Iron Range region of Minnesota is blessed with natural resources that once 

traditionally afforded well-paying, yet low-skill jobs in the mining industry that only 

required a high school diploma. Advances in technology now demand higher educational requirements for regional job opportunities. TRIO programs provide participants with the vision and tools to pursue post-secondary education levels that meet 
14 

new employment standards in the region and allow students to be competitive in 

today’s global job market. 

The TRIO programs in the region provide critical services to students such as tutoring, academic advising, financial literacy, college visits, college entrance exam 

preparation, supplemental instruction, assistance in filling out college and scholarship applications as well as the FAFSA, and career exploration including job shadowing and mentors. 

I’d like to tell you about one northeastern Minnesota Upward Bound student who 

exemplifies the ripple effect that TRIO programs have. Tony Ellis joined the Itasca 

Community College Upward Bound program in high school and went on to earn an 

engineering degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth. He is now Lead Engineer at Essar Steel, a new mining company on the Iron Range. His younger brother 

also joined Upward Bound and earned his BA at Mankato State University. Their 

mother also followed suit and is now working on her BA. Generations of this family 

and hundreds of other TRIO alumni families will now earn higher wages, provide 

stable homes, and become productive, contributing citizens to the regional economy 

thanks to rural TRIO programs in northeastern Minnesota. 

Northeastern Minnesota TRIO students encounter challenges unique to living in 

a rural, low-income region. Students often do not have reliable personal transportation and public transportation is nearly non-existent. Students in rural areas also 

face obstacles with the lack of access to technology. Many low income, rural students do not have Internet access or even computers at home. 

Not only do TRIO programs provide the academic services I discussed earlier, but 

TRIO programs also transport students to important academic activities and provide 

computer availability. But possibly the most impactful skills that TRIO programs 

teach students are how to identify their resources, advocate for themselves, and 

take advantage of every possible opportunity in their education. These skills help 

students problem-solve when they cannot find a ride to an ACT exam or when their 

dial-up Internet connection doesn’t work at their rural home. 

Access to post-secondary institutions in rural areas is a massive barrier for students to pursue degrees higher than an Associate’s. On the Iron Range, for example, 

the closest universities are 75 to 200 miles away. TRIO families do not have the 

time or resources to visit distant colleges. Without TRIO programs these students 

may never dream of attaining a Bachelor’s degree because they have never had the 

opportunity to step foot on a university campus, let alone know how to prepare for 

and apply to such an institution. 

TRIO programs are critical advocates for low-income, first-generation students on 

college campuses. TRIO personnel can educate and alert college administration, faculty, and student services staff to the specific needs of these students. Ultimately, 

TRIO programs are essential resources to colleges as these institutions learn how 

to better recruit for and successfully serve low-income, first-generation students. 

Simply put, TRIO programs make truly tremendous strides in providing equal 

post-secondary educational opportunities to low-income, first-generation students. 

Providing equal college access to rural students betters the whole community. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Sertich. 

Mr. Liang. 

STATEMENT OF WEIYA LIANG, DIRECTOR OF GEAR UP, WASHINGTON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT COUNCIL, OLYMPIA, WA 

Mr. LIANG. Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Alexander, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to participate in this roundtable to discuss the roles of Federal access programs, in particular, GEAR UP, in my case, in improving low-income student access to and success in post-secondary 

education. I want to express my gratitude especially to Senator 

Patty Murray, my home State Senator from Washington, for her 

role in improving the lives of Washingtonians and especially for 

low-income students in the State. It is no coincidence that she received the Champions for Student Success award this year from 

NCCEP. 

Federal access programs play a critical role in important student 

outcomes in higher education by providing academic, social, and financial support. GEAR UP, TRIO, and Federal student financial 
15 

aid programs provide support in these areas through a variety of 

services. To provide effective and targeted services, we need innovation in research and evaluation to identify services and interventions that have the greatest impact for post-secondary education. 

Washington State’s GEAR UP, together with 14 other States— 

many of the States’ senators are here—formed a College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium to study from a longitudinal 

perspective over 150,000 students in their progress. Research has 

shown that students, especially those from low-income families, 

face particular challenges at critical transition points, from middle 

school to high school and from high school to post-secondary. 

The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 has given GEAR 

UP a unique perspective, because this is the only Federal access 

program that, across education sectors, break the silos from seventh grade to the first year of post-secondary education. No other 

Federal access programs that I know have crossed that span. 

So the flexibility provided by GEAR UP and HEOA allows us to 

create programs that are responsive to the culture and needs of the 

community of students. With a high degree of intentionality and 

engagement, programs solicit strong support from schools, from institutions of higher education, and from parents and States. All of 

these have proven to be effective in helping target populations, access, and success in post-secondary education. 

A study by the Washington State University’s Social and Economic Science Research Center concludes that: 

‘‘Contrasting GEAR UP participants with a comparison 

group of other low-income students, GEAR UP students had 

more positive outcomes on virtually all measures of enrollment, 

persistence, and degree attainment.’’ 

I look forward to participating in the conversation. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Liang follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WEIYA LIANG

Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Alexander and distinguished members of the 

committee, thank you for this opportunity to participate in the roundtable on 

‘‘Strengthening Federal Access Programs to Meet 21st Century Needs’’, and to discuss the roles of Federal access programs, in particular, GEAR UP, in improving 

low-income students access to, and success in, higher education. I represent Washington State GEAR UP at the Washington Student Achievement Council. Washington State is home to one State GEAR UP program and nine partnership programs. 

Federal access programs play a critical role in improving student outcomes in 

higher education by providing academic, social, and financial support. Both the National College Access Network and the Lumina Education Foundation have identified the same three areas of support and services as being key to improving student 

outcomes. GEAR UP, TRIO and Federal student financial aid programs provide support in these areas through a variety of services that include tutoring, mentoring/ 

advising, financial literacy, family engagement, financial aid and scholarships. 

To provide effective and targeted services, we need innovation in research and 

evaluation to identify services and interventions that have the greatest impact on 

post-secondary education. Washington State GEAR UP, and 14 State programs 

formed a College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium. This longitudinal, 

self-initiated project will study over 150,000 students, to identify which interventions have the greatest impact on college going aspirations, academic preparation, 

high school success and post-secondary enrollment, persistence and completion. The 

Consortium is working in partnership with ACT, the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships, the National Student Clearinghouse Research 

Center and the U.S. Department of Education. 
16 

Research has shown that students, especially those from low-income families, face 

particular challenges at the critical transition points of middle to high school and 

high school to college. The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 has positioned 

GEAR UP to address this issue because it is the only Federal access program to 

provide comprehensive services from the middle school to post-secondary education—starting in the seventh grade through the first year of post-secondary education. 

GEAR UP’s success lies in the collaboration among program administrators, 

school districts, higher education partners, community-based organizations, and the 

State. We find that coordinated intervention efforts, a healthy learning community, 

and regular information sharing among State and partnership programs has created 

more opportunities for GEAR UP students and their families. Complementary and 

supplemental services ensure students and families have access to comprehensive 

intervention services over a 6- to 7-year period. 

The flexibility provided for GEAR UP in the HEOA allows us to create programs 

that are responsive to the culture and needs of the community of students. With 

a high degree of intentionality and engagement, programs solicit strong support 

from school district leadership, educate and engage families as partners, and provide rigorous and relevant curriculum. All these have proven to be effective in helping the target population access and succeed in post-secondary education. A study 

by the Washington State University’s Social and Economic Science Research Center 

concludes: 

‘‘Contrasting GEAR UP participants with a comparison group of other lowincome students, GEAR UP students had more positive outcomes on virtually 

all measures of enrollment, persistence and degree attainment.’’—(Mann, 2012) 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Liang. 

Dr. Harris. 

STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS N. HARRIS, Ph.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND UNIVERSITY ENDOWED CHAIR 

IN PUBLIC EDUCATION, TULANE UNIVERSITY, NEW ORLEANS, LA 

Mr. HARRIS. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Senator Alexander, 

and members of the committee. Thanks for including me in this 

conversation. 

I want to emphasize three points. The first is that the college access landscape has shifted dramatically since these programs were 

put in place. I was just in a high school yesterday in New Orleans 

where almost all the students were from low-income families. In 

the hallways were college banners from all over the country. The 

freshman class was gone because they were all visiting colleges 

around New Orleans. 

This is becoming increasingly common, not just in New Orleans, 

but around the country. There’s much greater focus in the schools 

on college access than there was decades ago when these programs 

were put in place. 

Second, a Federal role in college access services is still needed. 

As a basic principle, the Federal Government should provide resources and services that are critical for the least advantaged 

among us, especially when those services won’t be provided otherwise. 

Students need connections to adults who can encourage them 

and walk them through the social, academic, and financial demands for college and do so early in their lives. They need someone 

who can turn college from a vague notion into a concrete reality. 

Third, while a Federal role is needed, research suggests that the 

current role is outdated. So I want to focus especially on the Up-
17 

1Kirst, M.W. (2004). The high school/college disconnect. Educational Leadership, 62(3). p.51– 

55. Bailey, M.J. & Dynarski, S.M. (2011). Gains and gaps: Changing inequality in U.S. college 

entry and completion (NBER Working Paper 17633). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.) 2 Heckman, J.J. & LaFontaine, P.A. (2007). The American high school graduation rate: Trends 

and levels (NBER Working Paper No. 13670). Retrieved from National Bureau of Economic Research Web site: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13670. 3 Aud, S., Hussar, W., Kena, G., Bianco, K., Frohlich, L., Kemp, J., & Tahan, K. (2011). The 

condition of education 2011 (NCES 2011–033). U.S. Department of Education, National Center 

for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office. 

ward Bound experiment, because it’s really the study that gets the 

most attention with regard to TRIO. 

There were problems with the national Upward Bound experiment that make it difficult to interpret the main findings from that 

study. But one thing is clear, that the students in the experiment 

who had significant behavioral and academic problems early in 

high school, students who would normally be disqualified from Upward Bound, benefited greatly from this. The benefits exceeded the 

cost by a ratio of 10 to 1 for those students. This suggests that 

TRIO and GEAR UP need to be better targeted. 

The Federal role should also be changed to allow greater flexibility and individualization. The current law mandates that all 

TRIO programs provide a single set of mandatory services. But 

with the proliferation of nonFederal programs and the fact that 

students have different needs, it is increasingly difficult to justify 

a rigid approach like that. 

Finally, the various college access programs need to be better coordinated and more efficient. I know of many high schools that 

have students in four or five different Upward Bound programs in 

the same school, providing the same services, on top of the other 

college access programs that the schools are providing. 

The college access landscape has really shifted, and I think TRIO 

and GEAR UP need to change along with it. I think we need to target, individualize, and coordinate these programs in a way that 

make them a better investment in the future. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Harris follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS N. HARRIS, PH.D. 

THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE IN COLLEGE ACCESS

The landscape of college access has shifted dramatically since TRIO was first 

passed in the 1960s, and even since more recent developments such as GEAR UP. 

Students attend college at higher rates and schoolteachers and principals set college 

as the goal even for students who never would have attended a generation ago. ‘‘College-for-all’’ and ‘‘college- and career-ready’’ standards are increasingly giving disadvantaged students an opportunity to prepare for the college track. 

With high average rates of college entry, it is tempting to think that the college 

access problem has been solved, but that is far from reality. Low-income students 

continue to enter college at much lower rates.1 Only 65 percent of minority students 

graduate from high school 2 and, of those, only a little over half go right on to some 

type of college.3

Nevertheless, the problems that TRIO and GEAR UP were designed for have 

evolved. Students want to attend college and most schools offer the required academic basics, but many students remain under-prepared for the academic, social, 

and financial demands of post-secondary education. Scholars have documented the 

issues—students who are motivated but directionless, enrolled in college track 

courses while studying only rarely, conducting consequential but ill-informed college 

searches, selecting colleges that are poor matches, and floundering through higher 
18 

4 Bowen, W.G., Chingos, M.M., & McPherson, M. (2009). Crossing the finish line: Completing 

college at America’s public universities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roderick, M., 

Nagaoka, J. Coca, V., & Moeller, E. (2009). From high school to the future: Making hard work 

pay off: The road to college for students in CPS’s academically advanced programs. Chicago, IL: 

Consortium for Chicago Schools Research. Rosenbaum, J. (2001). Beyond college for all: Career 

paths for the forgotten half. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Schneider, B., & Stevenson, D. (1999). The ambitious generation: America’s teenagers, motivated but directionless. New 

Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 5 Harris, D.N. (2013). Applying cost-effectiveness analysis in higher education. In A. Kelly and 

K. Carey (eds.). Stretching the Higher Education Dollar. (pp. 45–66). Washington, DC: American 

Enterprise Institute. 6Seftor, N.S., Mamun, A., and Schirm, A. (2009). The Impacts of Regular Upward Bound on 

Post-Secondary Outcomes Seven to Nine Years After Scheduled High School Graduation. Final 

report. U.S. Department of Education. 7Field, K. (2007). Are the Right Students ‘‘Upward Bound?’’ Chronicle of Higher Education 

53(50), 16–16. Haskins, R. & Rouse, C. (2013). Time for Change: A New Federal Strategy to 

Prepare Disadvantaged Students for College. The Future of Children, 2, 1–6. 8 Cahalan, M.W. (2009). Addressing Study Error in the Random Assignment National Evaluation of Upward Bound: Do the Conclusions Change? Council for Opportunity in Education: 

Washington, DC. 9 Harris, D.N. & Nathan, A. (2013). The Effects, Benefits, and Costs of the Upward Bound College Access Program: Evidence from a National Randomized Trial. Presentation at the annual 

meeting of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, Washington, DC. 

education propelled by a compelling but vague goal of getting a ‘‘college degree.’’ 4

Given how easily we can predict who will not graduate from college, it is clear that 

something still has to be done before students finish high school if they are going 

to succeed in college. The landscape has shifted, but real college access remains a 

fundamental problem. 

My comments below are based on a re-analysis of the federally funded Upward 

Bound experiment I conducted with Dr. Alan Nathan, as well as two ongoing field 

experiments in Milwaukee and published research on cost-effectiveness of college access and success strategies.5 After discussing Upward Bound, I recommend some 

general guidelines for altering Federal access programs and a more aggressive Federal agenda for research to understand how these programs work. 

UPWARD BOUND: REVISITED

Upward Bound (UB) is the only Federal access program for which we have anything approaching rigorous evidence, so naturally the results of this single, large experiment have received considerable attention. The federally sponsored experiment, 

first launched in the early 1990s and lasting almost two decades, was intended to 

estimate effects on a nationally representative sample of 67 UB sites. Students were 

offered UB at random so that the results estimates would reflect only the offer to 

participate in UB and not other differences in student characteristics. 

The original evaluator concluded that UB had ‘‘no detectable effect’’ on college 

entry or completion,6 a conclusion that has since been widely cited as an argument 

for defunding or revamping the program.7 An advocacy group, the Council on Opportunity in Education (COE) has been critical of the study,8 although there have been 

no prior attempts to objectively address their concerns. My analysis with Dr. Alan 

Nathan considers the COE and other critiques based on typical research standards.9

Our conclusions differ from both the original evaluator, as well as COE. Due partly to the design of the experiment, the conclusions are very sensitive to seemingly 

small changes in the way the estimates are made. In particular, in the sampling 

design, one of the 67 sites contributed only 3 percent of the student observations 

but was given 26 percent of the weight when estimating impacts. Put differently, 

the students in this one site counted more than eight times as much as most of the 

others. Some individual students in some estimates were given 80 times as much 

weight as others. This is highly unusual and opens the possibility that this one site 

could drive the results of the entire study. It also makes it less likely that any estimate will reach typical standards of statistical confidence. 

The site in question also appears to have been placed in the wrong category or 

‘‘stratum,’’ so that it was given more weight than it should have been. This compounded the earlier problem, further calling into question whether the large weight 

attached to this one site could be justified. The contractor team recognized these 

problems and, at the request of the U.S. Department of Education, appropriately 

carried out additional analyses with alternative sampling weights. The results became noticeably more positive when the sampling weights were handled in different 

reasonable ways. 

While driven partly by the above issues with the design of the experiment, it is 

not unusual for results to be sensitive in this way. In such cases, it is generally con-
19 

10Seftor et al. (2009), Ibid. 11 Harris, D. (2013). Ibid. 

sidered good practice to be cautious in drawing conclusions. Yet, the contractor’s 

final report concluded, in bold letters, that UB had ‘‘no detectable effects’’ on high 

school graduation, college enrollment, or college graduation.10 Given that the conclusion is nearly the opposite when other reasonable methods are used, I believe a 

more appropriate conclusion is that the results are indeterminate; that is, it is not 

possible to determine whether the program worked on average based on the usual 

standards of significance. 

But there is still much to learn from this experiment about targeting, costs, and 

benefits. Based on what UB site administrators say about the eligibility criteria, it 

appears that hundreds of students participated in the experiment who would typically have been screened out for having too many behavioral and academic challenges. For example, a national survey of UB site directors conducted in the 1990s 

reported 62 percent of respondents disqualified applicants with a history of behavioral problems or a record of disciplinary actions, while 47 percent of responding administrators disqualified students who had no specific interest in college. Since students enter UB early in high school, when students know little about college, there 

is little reason to expect that these would be good indicators of whether students 

would benefit from UB. 

The fact that these additional students were included is useful because it presents 

an opportunity to learn which types of students benefit most from UB. While almost 

none of the students in UB would ever be considered ‘‘advantaged,’’ there is great 

variety in the needs of low-income and first-generation students and some of them 

are already doing relatively well by the time they get to high school. Our results 

suggest that students with more challenges in fact benefit much more than students 

typically allowed into UB (the precise amount depends on exactly how the students 

are placed in the typically eligible group). Unlike the earlier discussion of average 

effects and sampling weights, the larger effects for typically disqualified students 

are insensitive to methodological choices. This yields convincing evidence that UB, 

at least as it was designed at the time of the experiment, is poorly targeted. 

Finally, we conducted a series of cost-benefit analyses, quantifying the economic 

benefits of the various high school and college credentials and comparing these with 

the program costs. Such a comparison is important given that UB is widely considered an expensive program.11 Are these costs justifiable? The answer seems to be 

clearly ‘‘yes.’’ Unlike the estimates of the average program effects, the benefits easily exceed the costs of the program under almost any set of assumptions, including 

the most pessimistic estimates of program effects. Importantly, the only condition 

under which UB may not pass a cost-benefit test is when we limit estimates to students who are typically served. This reinforces the importance of better targeting 

to students most likely to benefit. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

My re-analysis of UB with Dr. Nathan leads to recommendations that are consistent with other trends in observations in my college access research. 

Targeting. Current college access programs should be targeted to students who 

are more disadvantaged. This is not only consistent with the effects of UB, but also 

with the logic that college access programs are more widely available today, especially in schools serving the socioeconomically disadvantaged students. (We see this 

especially in Milwaukee Public Schools where most college access programs are not 

federally funded.) Targeting these programs to first-generation and low-income college students is a good start, but, as our UB analysis shows, many of these students 

are apparently on track for college without additional Federal access programs. 

Individualization. In addition to better targeting, services might be more effective 

if they were more flexible and individualized. Different students have different 

needs, yet Federal college access programs provide a fixed set of services, many of 

which are mandated by Federal rules. If program administrators could diagnose the 

needs of each student and individualize service delivery, the programs would likely 

be more effective. The fact that many services are federally required compounds the 

problem because site administrators are forced to provide specific services, giving 

administrators little reason to diagnose individual student needs. 

Efficiency. A better return on investment might be achieved by simply finding 

cheaper ways to address students’ needs. UB costs more than $5,000 per participant 

per year, while other recent research suggests that similar gains can be had at a 
20 

12 Castleman, B.L., & Page, L.C. (2013). Summer Nudging: Can Text Messages and Peer Mentor Outreach Increase College Going Among Low-Income High School Graduates? Paper presented at the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness Spring Conference. Washington, 

DC. Bettinger, E. & Baker, R. (2011). The Effects of Student Coaching: An Evaluation of a Randomized Experiment in Student Advising. Unpublished manuscript. Stanford University School 

of Education, Palo, Alto, CA. Hoxby, C. & Turner, S. (2013). Expanding College Opportunities 

for High-Achieving, Low Income Students. Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Palo 

Alto, CA. 

fraction of the cost.12 The traditional services being provided by Federal programs 

may still be warranted for some students, especially those who face the greatest barriers, but if there are more cost-effective ways to help these students, we should 

pursue them. 

Avoiding the Unintended Consequences with Performance Standards. Given the 

desire for targeting, individualization, and efficiency, it seems reasonable to set 

goals for programs, provide funding based on results, and let program operators use 

resources to reach those goals as they see fit. As recent efforts in school and college 

accountability have shown, however, performance requirements are fraught with 

challenges and the potentially perverse incentives. For example, one reason UB sites 

might be screening out the most disadvantaged students is that Federal funding is 

partly contingent on their getting a high percentage of students to succeed in college. Paradoxically, these Federal incentives may induce program operators to select 

the students who do not need their services—students who will likely make it to 

college regardless of whether they are in college access programs. One way to avoid 

the unintended consequences of performance standards is to send a clearer message 

to program administrators that they should be targeting not just low-income and 

first-generation students, but also those with more severe academic and behavioral 

challenges. 

The Need for More Research. I make these recommendations with some caution 

because the research basis for decisions on Federal college access programs is wholly 

inadequate. Upward Bound is the only Federal access program for which we have 

rigorous evidence and even that, as I have shown, is misunderstood. Perhaps the 

most important step is to fund additional studies so that these decisions can be better informed. 

CONCLUSIONS

Given the changing landscape, and recent research on Upward Bound, there can 

be little doubt that TRIO and GEAR UP are ready for redesign. While the current 

research base is far from adequate, it appears that targeting existing programs to 

students with greater disadvantages, diagnosing and individualizing services, looking to more efficient service options, and avoiding the unintended consequences of 

performance incentives would all help to maintain these programs as core components of the Nation’s efforts to increase college access and success. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Harris. 

Dr. Haskins. 

STATEMENT OF RON HASKINS, Ph.D., SENIOR FELLOW AND 

CO-DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER ON CHILDREN AND FAMILIES AND BUDGETING FOR NATIONAL PRIORITIES 

PROJECT, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. HASKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s a privilege to be 

able to testify before the committee today and to discuss these 

issues with you. I want to make five points that will average 24 

seconds apiece. 

The first thing is we’re all aware that a 4-year degree has great 

value for a low-income child. But I want to give you one figure that 

I think will be helpful in realizing how important it is. Among all 

the kids from the bottom 20 percent of parental income, the probability, if they don’t get a 4-year degree, that they will wind up in 

the bottom themselves is 45 percent, twice as great as other children. 

If they get a 4-year degree, the probability that they’ll wind up 

in the bottom is 16 percent. Similarly, to get all the way to the top, 
21 

the probability is 5 percent if they don’t get a degree and almost 

20 percent if they do. There is no other intervention that I’m aware 

of that produces this kind of impact. So this is a crucial issue. 

The second point is, nonetheless, despite that advantage of getting a 4-year degree, 53 percent of the kids from the top 20 percent 

of income get a 4-year degree, 11 percent of the kids from the bottom, and the dropout rate is enormous, both at 4-year schools and 

at community colleges. 

The third point is, obviously, it makes sense, given these numbers, to have better college preparation programs, and Congress realized that in the 1960s. From the beginning of the War on Poverty 

issue that was pointed out, and as Congress so often does, they created a lot of programs. So we now have a bunch of programs. I 

completely agree with the comment about coordination. And we 

spend maybe $1.2 billion or so on these programs. 

The fourth point is—and there’s a lot of room for controversy 

here—the evaluations of these programs—I would call them discouraging. I don’t think these programs are producing major impacts—some perhaps more than others. I’m sure there are fabulous 

individual programs. There’s the exact same situation with Head 

Start, which I’m sure members of the committee know. 

There are lots of crummy programs out there, and even though 

there are some good ones, on average, the results are not too impressive. So we need to do something. I have several recommendations that I mention in my testimony. I subscribe to all the things 

that Dr. Harris said. 

But I think the most important thing is that we do not evaluate 

individual programs very well. This administration has done a better job of evaluating programs at the local level than any administration before. They have great skill in doing this. 

If you look at i3, you will see a huge increase in evaluations, including rigorous, high-quality evaluations. That is the key to improve these programs. If the individual programs do not do well, 

then they should lose their money. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Haskins follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RON HASKINS, PH.D. 

A college education offers substantial benefits, especially for children from poor 

and low-income families. Since the 1980s, the median family income of adults in 

their prime earning years has increased only for those with a 4-year college or advanced degree. Equally important, young adults from families in the bottom fifth of 

the income distribution who achieve a 4-year college degree are nearly 80 percent 

less likely to wind up in the bottom fifth themselves than are their peers who do 

not achieve a 4-year degree. 

A primary reason that disadvantaged students have trouble both getting into college and completing a degree is that they are not academically prepared to do college work. One scholar’s careful analysis of data from 19 nationally representative 

studies shows that the achievement gap between students from high-income and 

low-income families has grown in recent years and is now much larger than the gap 

between white and black students. This rising inequality in K–12 achievement 

based on family-income parallels growing disparities in college enrollment and completion between students from high-income and low-income families. The Panel 

Study of Income Dynamics shows that only 11 percent of students from the bottom 

fifth graduate from college, compared with 53 percent and 38 percent of students 

from the top two fifths. 

There are four major Federal programs that attempt to better prepare disadvantaged students for success in college. These include Upward Bound, Upward Bound 
22 

Math-Science, Talent Search, and Gear Up. All of these programs have been evaluated, although the quality of the evaluations varies. The best evaluation is that of 

the oldest program, Upward Bound. Most of these evaluations have shown that the 

program has modest or no impact on college enrollment or college graduation. The 

best evaluation which meets the Institute of Education Sciences standards for toptier evidence shows no major effects on college enrollment or completion. 

Half a century and billions of dollars after these Federal college-preparation programs were initiated, we are left with mostly unsuccessful programs interspersed 

with modest successes. Preparing disadvantaged students for college is a major challenge, with no well-tested solutions in sight. That said, there are hints in some of 

the programs about what could make a difference: summer programs, mentoring, tutoring, parent involvement, and similar activities have sometimes been associated 

with higher college enrollment. These may be the threads from which we can begin 

to weave together a new kind of intervention program. 

The Obama administration has been funding and expanding social programs that 

have good evidence of success and reforming or terminating programs that have 

proven unsuccessful—a major strand of innovative social policy. The administration 

has formulated evidence-based social initiatives to prevent teen pregnancy, boost 

parenting skills, enhance employment and training, encourage community-based social innovation, and reform education. We need intense evidence-based solutions to 

the problem of preparing disadvantaged students for college as well. Thus we recommend a dramatic change in the way Federal college preparation programs are 

funded, using an approach similar to that of the Obama administration’s other evidence-based initiatives. 

We propose a five-step reform. First, we propose that the $1 billion the Federal 

Government spends annually on college preparation programs be consolidated into 

a single grant program. In this sense, the change we propose is similar to the 

Obama administration’s reform of Head Start, in which every Head Start grantee 

in the country risks losing its money if it does not perform at a high level. Similarly, 

in order to keep their Federal funding, current grantees would need to show, based 

on rigorous analysis of their performance, that they are helping disadvantaged students enroll in and graduate from college. 

Second, the U.S. Department of Education should publish a funding announcement which states that any 2-year or 4-year college, any local education authority, 

or any nonprofit or for-profit agency with a record of conducting education interventions is qualified to compete for grants from the college preparation funds. Sites 

with existing programs could apply for funds, but their applications would be considered on a competitive basis like everyone else’s. 

Third, the Department would make clear that evidence supporting the proposed 

intervention would be a crucial factor in determining the awards. Applicants would 

have to: demonstrate that they were using evidence-based interventions; demonstrate that their organization has a history of conducting programs that improve 

some measure or measures of college preparation, for example, by raising high 

school achievement scores or boosting performance on college readiness tests; 

present a detailed plan for evaluating their program, including how they would use 

data as feedback to improve it. 

Fourth, the Department would be able to decide how to distribute the money 

among various approaches to helping disadvantaged students prepare for college. It 

would have the flexibility to use up to some maximum percentage of the funds (perhaps 20 percent) to support approaches, such as the current Student Support Services program, that help disadvantaged students once they arrive at college. Fifth, the Department would use up to 2 percent of its annual funds ($20 million) 

to plan a coordinated program of research and demonstration, featuring large-scale 

random-assignment studies, that would determine whether well-defined interventions or specific activities (such as mentoring, tutoring, etc.) actually increase college 

enrollment and completion. All entities that received funds under the grant program 

would have to agree to participate in the Department’s demonstration and research 

programs. 

Social policy should be based, at least in part, on evidence, and everything we 

know leads to the view that many, if not most, social programs produce modest or 

no effects. The Obama administration’s reform of Head Start shows that a major 

ingredient of evidence-based policy is to reform or terminate ineffective programs. 

We should apply the same tough-minded approach to college preparation programs. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that was a good way to sum up. We’re trying to look at this, and all of you have said in one way or another 

that the landscape has changed since the 1960s, even since GEAR 

UP came up in the 1990s. Again, I think Senator Alexander posed 
23 

the question: Is this the most effective means of using—what is it— 

$1.1 billion, something like that, every year? 

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes, for the six programs. 

The CHAIRMAN. I first became acquainted with the TRIO program when I first came to Congress as a House member. I had 

never heard of it before. And I’ve sort of followed it in a couple of 

schools in my State since that time. 

You know, we always tend to look at the great success stories, 

Mr. Griggs’ being one, and I know a lot of others who have been 

through the TRIO program and were very successful. But I don’t 

know about what happened to the others that didn’t make it, that 

dropped out. We know that in the past, I think the figure was 

about 50 percent of low-income students who drop out their first 

year of college, something like that, somewhere near that, I think. 

We wonder about the support services. 

But here’s what I’m getting at. I’ve become aware that the college campus today is not like it was when I went to college. Today, 

over half of the college students are not campus-based, and they’re 

over age 25. So what’s happening with these low-income students 

who—their parents never went to college, and they live in maybe 

bad areas, like Mr. Griggs mentioned, where he was raised. 

And yet they’re presented with this idea that college is someplace 

you go, and you live on a campus, and you’re there. But that’s not 

what’s happening today. More and more students are opting for a 

different way of getting their higher education. 

So should we look upon the TRIO program and GEAR UP as 

somehow providing the kind of support services and mentoring to 

a student that maybe doesn’t go to a traditional college? He goes 

to a community college, maybe, or does a lot of online work. Lowincome kids know how to use those computers. 

But I don’t see that TRIO and GEAR UP is focusing on that student. It seems to me—and maybe I’m wrong—that they’re still focused on that student going to some campus somewhere, and that’s 

different. 

Ms. Hoyler, you put yours up first. 

Ms. HOYLER. I think that, oftentimes, when people think about 

TRIO, they focus on the college access component. But about half 

of our programs are retention programs. They are focused on keeping the students who start college, the low-income, first-generation 

students who start college, in college and helping them graduate. 

They’re particularly focused on persistence and graduation. 

That’s what they’re measured on, whether they graduate students. 

And about half of those programs are in community colleges. So 

while the image may be of programs focused on the baccalaureate—and our organization, particularly, is committed to assuring that all students, low-income and first-generation students, 

have access to all categories of institutions. We don’t have a dual 

system where poorest students go to one set of campuses and my 

children go to another set of campuses. 

TRIO programs and GEAR UP programs focus on all categories 

and institutions. So I think that’s really important to understand. 

And it is those retention services that are equally key to the access 

services. 
24 

As we were coming over today, Mr. Griggs was mentioning that 

because of the counseling he received, he didn’t work in his first 

year of college. He decided that he really had to focus on succeeding in college. And even though he didn’t have the strongest 

academic record in high school, he blew it out of the water when 

he got to college. He did it because he didn’t work 35 hours a week. 

Many of our lowest-income students are trying to work too many 

hours to avoid high loan burden. They’re not getting good counseling. So they’re not only not staying in school, but they’re not 

making the best use of Pell, they’re not making the best use of financial aid, and so these services are necessary, not just at the precollege level, but at the retention and access level or success level 

as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Giles. 

Mr. GILES. I think you raise a wonderful point, and I think it’s 

important for us to remember, at least with the GEAR UP programs, that we are focused on education and training for these students after high school. So for some students, it’s appropriate to 

pursue a degree, a 4-year degree. It could be a 2-year degree. It 

could be a certificate or an apprenticeship. 

But the changes that have taken place in higher education—I 

think we all recognize that not every online program is of equal 

quality, and not every proprietary school is of equal quality. Not 

every traditional institution is of equal quality. And this is an area 

that these students really struggle with, and it’s a critical role that 

our programs need to play in helping them make good choices that 

will really allow them to achieve their goals. 

The second really brief point that I wanted to make touches on 

what you said about how they perform once they’re in school, whatever that institution is. GEAR UP now has a seventh-year program, which is allowing several of the programs across the country 

to really serve as that bridge from their high school experience to 

whatever post-secondary education choice they’ve made, where we 

can work with a cohort of students, almost like a posse system, 

during that first year to try and change those continuation rates. 

And I think that that’s really one of the areas that holds particular 

promise. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Now, Ms. Sertich. We’ll do that, and I’m inviting Senators now 

to just weigh in and start asking questions. 

Ms. SERTICH. Yes. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead and respond to that, and then I’ll go 

to Senator Alexander. 

Ms. SERTICH. I’d certainly like to echo what Ms. Hoyler said. 

Coming from a community college level, we certainly have students 

that are traditional students going to 4-year institutions. But we 

have many students who do online and who do community colleges 

first and then transfer. 

But I wanted to speak about the online piece. Students are doing 

more online now. And it’s not a given that they know how to use 

the technology. The students I work with—we actually build the 

online format that our college uses into our Upward Bound program so that students are familiar with it by the time they get to 

college, because we know they will take online classes. 
25 

In our Summer Bridge program, which is right after high school 

graduation, our Upward Bound students can take a class, that Upward Bound piece or at the institution. And it really helps bridge 

and have them learn the expectations that the college professors 

and instructors are going to have of them as a student. 

But in our small community college, we have few classes, actual 

in-person classes, face to face, during the summertime. So when we 

do those bridge classes, it’s typically online. We really have to be 

there with our students and have daily contact with them and support through that online class to really teach them how to successfully be an online student, which has many different challenges 

and things to learn than being a college student in the classroom. 

The CHAIRMAN. Is what Ms. Sertich said true? I mean, do you 

all do that in your States, in Vermont and—this is kind of news 

to me. 

Mr. LIANG. Yes, we do. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Harris, do you want to weigh in on that? 

Mr. HARRIS. I have a different point. 

Mr. LIANG. Yes, we do. Actually, we provide services, and Washington has a very strong community college system. It has been 

leading the country in getting students in and graduating them. 

One of the things we do is we work with community colleges to provide services, support services, through financial aid, through other 

access programs, through wrap-around services with the institutions. So we do see that students do get individualized services and 

help them at least get through the first year of college experience. 

Mr. HARRIS. I was just going to add that I think—and your question and your sentiment about how things have changed and that 

students aren’t on campuses anymore and more often at 2-year colleges and so on. I think part of what that suggests is this coordination issue, that having these bridges between the high school and 

colleges years is important. 

But I also want to emphasize that part of what these access programs are doing is getting students on the right path to start with, 

getting them into the right colleges and the right place, because 

the students all have very different needs, different goals, and if 

you don’t get them on the right path at the beginning, it’s hard to 

get them back on that path later. So I think that’s why targeting 

these services earlier is important. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Haskins. 

Mr. HASKINS. I just want to add a quick point. The most fundamental purpose of these programs, at least in my view, is to prepare the kids academically for college. That is the reason the dropout rates are so enormous. These kids are not ready for college. 

Most 4-year and 2-year colleges in the country have remedial programs. They fail utterly. So without good preparation in high 

school, in the K through 12 system, we’ll continue to have high 

dropout rates, and these kids will not graduate, and they won’t get 

the benefits that I referred to in my opening comments. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Alexander. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

All of you are experts on college access. So let me ask you about 

testimony we heard at another hearing. We had a group of witnesses who came from different directions and all said the same 
26 

thing. This is fundamentally what they said. They said, first, that 

the Pell grant, which is most of our Federal grant scholarships— 

if we only ask questions about the size of the family and what income was 2 years before, that we could put the application on a 

post card and simplify it. 

Second, that we could tell students in their junior year how much 

money they were eligible to get rather than have them pick a college, go to the college, and go through a very confusing process of 

finding out how much money they were eligible to have. And, third, 

because of social media, that, unlike 1965 or even 1973 or other 

years, we can let students know a lot in their seventh and eighth 

grade years. 

The fourth thing was that we should have a single grant, a single 

loan, and maybe a single tax credit. The testimony was that if we 

simplified Federal aid in that way, that there would be a large 

number of low-income students who would go to college who now 

don’t. And, second, that we’d save a lot of money, which would permit us to provide scholarships to those students. 

So my question is do you agree with that? Do you think that if 

we simplified the Federal grant and aid system and made it possible for an application to be on a post card, answering two questions, and then told students in their junior year how much money 

would be available to them at any of the 6,000 institutions we have 

and used social media aggressively in the middle school years and 

simplified the programs we have to one grant, one loan, and one 

tax credit, do you agree that would save a lot of money and encourage a lot more low-income students to go to college? 

Mr. HARRIS. I’ll jump in. This relates actually to what we’re 

doing in Milwaukee, where we’re looking at the Promise scholarship. The idea of the Promise scholarship is to make a commitment 

to students much earlier, in this case, the ninth grade. I think the 

logic is kind of what you were suggesting and probably what the 

testimony focused on, which is that students get somewhat discouraged early on because they have misperceptions about cost. They 

worry about cost, and then that leads them to disengage from high 

school and get off on the wrong track at a pretty early stage. 

So the logic is if we can tell them they’re going to have a certain 

amount of money well in advance, they might be on not just a better financial track, but a better academic one as well. I think it’s 

a good idea. I think it’s a great idea. And I think if you simplified 

the financial aid system, that would help facilitate that, because 

then it would be a lot easier. 

These forms are complicated enough. Trying to get people to fill 

out complicated forms in ninth grade for college is going to be difficult. So it would have to be a much simpler process. I don’t think 

it’s going to change the world. I think, really, the way to think 

about college access programs is that we need a bunch of different 

strategies to make a big dent. 

Every one of those things by itself will matter a little bit. The 

results we’re seeing so far suggest it could matter a little bit. But 

none of these things individually is going to change—I think that 

they’re good investments. I mean, they get a good return—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. Well, the testimony was that it would save 

up to $100 billion. 
27 

Mr. HARRIS. I’m not sure I agree with that. I mean, you’re still 

giving the money to the students. So for a given amount of money 

that you decide to give to the students, giving it to them earlier 

doesn’t save money, necessarily. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Well, the argument was that now, you go to 

college, and then you find out what your financial aid will be. This 

way, you’d be told in your junior year. 

Dr. Haskins. 

Mr. HASKINS. I completely agree. I think it’s a great idea. It’s 

been a great idea for years, and every administration says they’re 

going to do it, and they don’t. So there must be some reason. If I 

was a member of the committee, I would say, 

‘‘I want to do this, but let’s get the folks from the Department of Education and other people here and ask them, ‘Why 

haven’t you done this, and what are the disadvantages?’ ’’ 

There must be some disadvantages, or we would have done this, 

because it makes such great sense. 

I can tell you—I hang out with economists at Brookings Institution, and there’s a new part of economics called behavioral economics, and it’s a simple principle that has an enormous application in 

government. If you want people to do something, make it as simple 

as possible. We would have more students applying to college earlier, arranging their financing, all the things you just said, if we 

made the process simpler. So we certainly can make it simpler 

than the FAFSA that we have now. 

Ms. SERTICH. I also think early notification and simplification of 

the financial aid process is an important tool. It would be wonderfully helpful. But my students that I work with still need that oneon-one help on how to get through that financial aid process. 

Just knowing the amount of money they would get for a Pell 

grant early on wouldn’t do everything. They don’t understand what 

the Pell grant is or merit scholarships or things like that. So they 

still need that. And, in addition, even if they got the Pell grant and 

went to college, they still need the academic prep that the TRIO 

programs provide on the front end. Otherwise, they’re not going to 

be successful college students. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Hoyler. 

Ms. HOYLER. I’d like to pick up on that. You only save the money 

if they graduate from college. So we have to focus not just on getting them into college, but making sure that the colleges have the 

capacity to serve them and to educate these low-income, first-generation students. It’s a good idea, but we have to focus on keeping 

the focus on graduation. 

We also have to understand that many of these students get constant messages that they’re not college material, that they are not 

welcome at these institutions, that it is for somebody else. And just 

making it easier to get something that they don’t really understand 

is not—as one of the other panelists said, it is a good idea, but it 

is a multifaceted problem, and we have to approach it from many 

different directions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Liang. 

Mr. LIANG. Two points. One is, Senator Alexander, early commitment to financial aid is definitely a tool to help students recognize 

that they have a chance, they have financial aid there, so—and not 
28 

only just the junior year. I know there are three or four States that 

have early commitment scholarship programs from 21st Century, 

Scholars from Indiana, College Bound Scholarship from Washington, Oklahoma Promise from Oklahoma, and Wisconsin has a 

similar program. 

These programs offer financial aid information earlier, when students are in the seventh and eighth grade. So they get that package. They get the promise from the States, in conjunction with the 

Pell grant and low-income. So that’s one piece. 

The second piece is to simplify not just the financial aid, but simplifying messaging is more important to me, from my perspective, 

because there is some reason behind the complexity of the FAFSA 

form, if you ask the financial aid officers at institutions. But simplifying messaging is more important, especially to our low-income 

students. And we know through social media—and low-income families actually have cell phones more than having computers at 

home. So using social media definitely would be a wonderful tool 

to help them. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Giles. 

Mr. GILES. Just two quick points. I think complexity right now 

is a barrier. So if we can eliminate a barrier to access, that’s a positive thing. I think the second thing on early promise is that within 

the GEAR UP program, there is a scholarship component to it, and 

many of the GEAR UP programs across the State are now in the 

process of experimenting with early notification. 

We have schools where we’re serving the whole school, and we 

can tell every student in that school that they’re eligible for a 

$1,000 scholarship when they graduate if they go on to college. The 

data is not in for our program yet, but I think it’s something that 

we’re all hoping will have a positive impact on the college-going 

culture in the schools. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Giles. 

I have listed in order of appearance Senator Franken, Senator 

Burr, Senator Baldwin, Senator Murphy, Senator Murray. 

Senator Franken. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR FRANKEN

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Sertich, thank you for being here from the Range. During 

this last recess, I re-read Paul Tough’s book, How Children Succeed, Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. Dr. 

Haskins just said that the reason that kids don’t succeed in college 

is they’re not academically prepared. And I think there’s no question about that. 

But Tough says in his book—and he relies on a tremendous 

amount of research—that character—and character can be a loaded 

term. To liberals, it can mean indoctrination, religious indoctrination, or something like that, and to conservatives, it can mean a 

political correctness or something. But non-cognitive traits like resilience and perseverance and curiosity and conscientiousness and 

optimism and self-control are more determinative of a child’s ability to succeed. 

I’m wondering to what extent you provide program support services that can help students develop these types of skills, in addition 
29 

to academic skills. And to what extent do we think that these noncognitive skills can be developed, and where in a kid’s development 

are we able to do that? 

He goes into adverse childhood experiences the kids have, which 

can include extreme poverty, not enough to eat, parents that are 

divorced, or domestic violence, drug addiction, all of these different 

adverse things that can happen that can affect a child’s—literally 

their brain chemistry. I was wondering if you provide support services—and this is open to everybody. To what extent are you focused 

on that, and does that reflect the ability of these kids to succeed 

in college? 

Ms. SERTICH. Yes. Thank you, Senator Franken. Thanks for having me here. Absolutely, it affects their ability to be successful after 

high school and college and in their lives. I recently did a webinar 

about a month ago about an organization who did research on resiliency and the effect of resiliency on students in their education. 

One thing that I found that was wonderful news was that the research showed that we can effect change with students. Even at 

the high school level, even if things have been difficult up until 

high school, and they haven’t had some of those skills and qualities, we can make changes with that student. 

So a few examples of what my program does—we absolutely 

work in this realm. We set up professional mentorships so our students can work with professionals in the community in careers that 

they’re interested in. These mentorships also, obviously, can have 

a huge impact on those students’ lives, both in long-term networking and in just learning what it is to be in a professional field. 

Also, we work with long and short-term goal setting and how students reach goals. That’s something we work with students on literally on a weekly basis. So that’s certainly within that resiliency 

piece. And we do assertiveness training for our students so they 

learn how to advocate for themselves. Those are just a few examples of some of the services we provide within our TRIO program. 

Senator FRANKEN. Mr. Griggs. 

Mr. GRIGGS. Thank you, Senator. To speak to Ms. Sertich’s point, 

I can’t speak from the research-based perspective, but I can speak 

from a personal perspective. 

I do remember distinctly as a 14-year-old when I was in high 

school the first time, I encountered my TRIO professional at that 

particular point in time. And Mr. Clay told me—he said, ‘‘Listen, 

I would rather have someone with AQ over IQ.’’ That was that ambition quota that he spoke to. I wasn’t always the brightest kid in 

the classroom. I was surely smart, but I definitely wasn’t the 

brightest. But I had a lot of ambition. 

He told me that ambition would take you further in your career 

in a lot of occasions than the intelligence piece because you can 

learn as you go. But you have to be willing to learn. So I think that 

the ambition portion of that is very important, and the TRIO programs have done a magnificent job in ensuring that they motivate 

their students and motivate the individuals that are in that program to go on and do bigger and better things. 

Senator FRANKEN. I wasn’t here for your testimony, but I read 

it last night. You have demonstrated incredible grit and determina-
30 

tion and resilience, and that seems to be your story. I just was very 

moved by what you have done. 

Mr. GRIGGS. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Hoyler. 

Ms. HOYLER. Senator Franken, I think one of the things that 

TRIO programs and GEAR UP programs do is they create peer 

groups where students who are all facing huge obstacles to their 

success can support one another. It is often peers that have more 

influence on each other than adults do. Or we can talk about adults 

who are striving to get out of a situation and achieve mobility. 

So often in the situations that our students face, most of their 

peers are trying to pull them down. So creating supportive peer situations is one of those things that gives them resilience and is an 

element of almost every TRIO and GEAR UP program. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Burr. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURR

Senator BURR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I welcome all of you and thank you for what you do. I am a fan 

of TRIO and GEAR UP. I’m a member somewhat confused right 

now because I heard the Chair and the Ranking Member attempt 

to try to suggest things that we’ve been told that make the problem 

better, or at least sort it out in a way that you’re able to handle 

it on your end, the challenges that are out there, in a simpler way. 

When Senator Alexander talked about notification to a student, 

that they’ve got the resources, the resources are available, and that 

at an earlier age, students incorporate in their mind, ‘‘I can go to 

college’’ versus ‘‘I’ve been told I can’t,’’ that sort of makes sense, 

that you’d have a student that engaged longer, that was probably 

a little more academically skilled wouldn’t need remediation. 

But then I’ve heard selectively as we’ve gone around that remediation—Dr. Haskins, you hit on it. We’ve heard it in other hearings 

that we’ve had, the retention problems that exist—Ms. Sertich, the 

continued need for counseling and mentoring. It maybe sounds like 

everything that’s sort of been thrown out doesn’t change the landscape at all. 

So let me try to ask a simple question from a group not directly 

involved, but you’re the recipients of it—K through 12. What do we 

need to fix in K through 12 that might change what you receive 

in your program, and that’s the students? 

Mr. Liang. 

Mr. LIANG. Thank you for that question, Senator Burr. K–12 is 

an environment where, I think, people are caged, if you will, to the 

K–12. So what it means is because of our political system, because 

of the decisionmaking process, the accountability is for graduation 

in most K–12 systems. It’s not beyond the graduation numbers. 

When we look at that—and post-secondary education is not 

overtly stated in many of the missions of schools and districts. And 

we have noticed some schools, for instance, in eastern Washington—when they change that dynamic, when they change that 

mission statement, they actually see a jump in students’ performance and students getting into post-secondary education. So I think 

that’s a mindset that needs to be dealt with. 
31 

Senator BURR. Let me say that I think Senator Harkin has been 

one of the most outspoken individuals about the counseling services 

that we need to provide in the high schools to guide students. I 

heard almost across the board that there’s a failure there, I think, 

with one exception, and I couldn’t distinguish whether that was the 

college recruitment of the students or whether that was actually 

implemented within the high school to bring colleges in. 

So help me as you go through this. If you can share with me— 

do we do a successful job in the school system at directing these 

students to higher education and what the requirements are? 

Mr. Griggs, it really troubles me that there could be a school that 

didn’t share with a high school student that you needed an SAT or 

ACT to actually apply and to be considered. But I do know that’s 

the reality. Hopefully, that’s a failure of one school. 

Dr. Harris. 

Mr. HARRIS. I think there’s a lot changing in what I see in the 

schools right now in that regard. Schools are very much focusing 

on college-going much more than they ever were before. Again, I’ll 

take the Milwaukee example because that’s one I know really well. 

Just in the last 5 or 6 years, partly as a result of some of the other 

Federal push—President Obama’s push—they’re really taking college-going as a goal and then trailing back to other things they 

need to get students ready for that. 

They increased the standards in Milwaukee recently to make 

them more in line with college-going standards. And some of the 

other examples I gave about having these other college access programs—they’re inviting us in to do this work on the Promise scholarship. So I see big changes. In New Orleans, I see the same thing. 

I think in the past it’s absolutely right that there has been a failure there. But I do see important improvements going on. 

Senator BURR. Dr. Haskins. 

Mr. HASKINS. Based on the research, here’s what I think the situation is. Kids from low-income families come to the K–12 system 

already seriously behind. The K–12 system makes them further behind. They don’t fix the problem. So this is very discouraging, but 

I think that’s roughly the situation we have now. 

We’ve had a lot of recent research, especially from Sean Reardon 

at Stanford, showing that even though we have closed the blackwhite achievement gap, the achievement gap between kids from 

low-income families and upper-income families has increased at exactly the time when education is really the answer to how you earn 

more money, and it’s the answer to the so-called disappearing middle class and more opportunity in America and so forth. 

So we have a big problem. The direct answer to the question is 

we need to increase literacy as well as the non-cognitive skills that 

Senator Franken mentioned in order to prepare these kids for college. If we can’t do that, we will not be as successful as we could 

be and we’ll continue to have the problems we’re having now with 

increased inequality and a lack of opportunity. 

Senator BURR. Ms. Hoyler. 

Ms. HOYLER. I just want to point out that so much of college 

preparation for middle-income families is not provided by the 

school but is provided by out-of-school experiences, provided by the 

family. And I think our business community really recognizes that 
32 

for low-income students—for example, General Electric, has been 

very supportive of our efforts to have communities and the business community very much involved in this, because the out-ofschool time, the summers, the work experiences these students 

have, are very critical to their preparation for college and their understanding of college. 

So it’s not just the K–12 system. I’m not saying the K–12 system 

isn’t a huge partner in this and isn’t hugely responsible. But we 

can’t make it the sole responsibility of the K–12 system. 

Senator BURR. Mr. Giles. 

Mr. GILES. This may be a little controversial, but I think that at 

some point we need to stop thinking about a K through 12 system 

and start thinking of a K through 16 system, or some version of 

that, because a high school diploma is no longer sufficient to support a family. There are States that are experimenting with that. 

Vermont is one right now. We just passed a law that requires individualized learning plans for every student, starting in middle 

school, that includes career and education planning and guarantees 

every student access to dual enrollment with a post-secondary institution starting their junior and senior year. That’s going to be 

our big experiment. 

Part of the value is that we will try and provide feedback to the 

schools regarding how their students are performing when they’re 

in post-secondary environments so that we can have kind of a selfcorrecting model, where if students are inadequately prepared to 

succeed at the community college or the 4-year program, we can 

take a look at what’s happening in the middle school and high 

school. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Sertich. 

Ms. SERTICH. In our rural area, one of the major challenges in 

our K–12 system that our students experience on a regular basis 

is lack of rigorous course options. We don’t have AP courses. We 

don’t have international baccalaureate courses. Only one of the four 

high schools I serve has honors courses. And beyond that, sometimes these schools can’t even offer physics every year. They don’t 

have pre-calculus classes. 

There is an initiative happening in my area, a partnership between the colleges—and TRIO programs have been a part of this 

process—and the schools districts as well as an economic development agency. It’s called Education Innovation Partners. One of the 

three things that they’re trying to do is to have technology across 

all of the schools in our area so that if Hibbing High School can 

offer physics every year, then a student in Chisholm High School 

5 miles away, who normally wouldn’t be able to take a physics 

class in high school, can take that class via online Web—that interactive classroom with a school down the road. That’s one of the 

really important things. 

At one of my target schools that I work with, a couple of years 

ago there was a cohort that graduated, and I tracked what classes 

they took and how many students actually got that sort of rigorous 

course curriculum. Only 39 percent of our target school students 

graduated with a rigorous course curriculum. And in one of those 

years, zero low-income students from that school graduated with 

that, because it is not offered, and they don’t know those are the 
33 

classes they need to be taking. So that’s certainly an issue we see 

in our K–12 system. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Giles, you said something about going to K through 16. I 

look upon it differently. It ought to be zero to 12, not K to 12. We 

must understand that learning begins at birth. The vast formation 

of both cognitive—and I think I’m speaking correctly here—both 

cognitive and non-cognitive reasoning begins much earlier in life 

than kindergarten. 

We know that low-income kids without being in any kind of early 

learning program start as much as 2 years behind, both in literacy 

and language skills, than those who went to preschool—as they 

say, preschool. I call it early learning. I would think that if we had 

universal early learning for all kids, regardless of income, a lot of 

these problems would be taken care of. Now, that’s just one. 

Why do rich families stand in line to get their kids in preschool? 

I can tell you my own experience. My kids went to preschool. We 

lived in a neighborhood that was mixed. Kids who had money, like 

my kids, went to preschool. Low-income kids, Hispanics, blacks— 

they didn’t go. 

When they went to public school later on, they were ahead. They 

weren’t necessarily any smarter than these kids that didn’t go. But 

they had that—excuse my phrase—head start. So I think we’ve got 

to start focusing on that early learning aspect for low-income kids. 

The second thing I’ll just say is that we’re trying to change the 

K through 12 system from the No Child Left Behind punitive aspects to a college- and career-ready system. Now, what does that 

mean? That means—what do you need to know, what do you need 

to have at your senior year in high school in order to go to college 

without remedial help? And what do you need in your junior year 

to get to that? What do you need in your sophomore year to get 

to that? You just keep backing that up all the way. 

That’s the whole idea behind college- and career-readiness in elementary and secondary education. That’s what’s in our ESEA bill 

that we reported out of our committee last year to try to change 

that dynamic, so at the earliest time, the goal is what do you need 

at that point in time to be college- and career-ready. 

Senator Murray—I’m sorry—has to go to the floor. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY

Senator MURRAY. Mr. Chairman, I won’t take time to ask questions. I’ll just say amen to what you just said, and I really appreciate your focus on that and couldn’t agree more. 

I do have to get over to the floor, but I wanted to thank Mr. 

Liang from the State of Washington, who has just been a real leader in our State in helping us get the collection data and evaluations 

so that these programs work. I recognize the tremendous work that 

he has done. 

I really appreciate the focus of this hearing. I think that the 

more we work in this committee to focus on making sure kids get 

what they need—I think we have to not just focus on a 4-year degree, but what path it is they need past high school to get those 

jobs that we all want them to have. It’s really important, so I appreciate it very much. Thank you. 
34 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Murray. 

Senator Baldwin. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the 

opportunity for this dialog and this roundtable. And as Senator 

Murray leaves, I’m going to let her know that I’m going to ask at 

least one question relating to your leadership role with the higher 

education access and success for homeless and foster youth in a 

moment. 

But before I get there, I note that a couple of witnesses have 

mentioned my home State of Wisconsin. Our State has a long history of participation in TRIO. Marquette University, where Ms. 

Hoyler spent some time, started participating with the Student 

Support Services Program in 1969. And the University of Wisconsin Madison is celebrating its 20th year in TRIO programs. 

Many other institutions have participated. They have produced 

some really impressive TRIO success stories. 

Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, I’m going to submit a number of those stories for the record, because I think, like Mr. Griggs’ 

testimony, hearing about the experience, what helped and perhaps 

some constructive criticism and suggestions, is helpful to our committee. They’re both moving and informative. 

There are two, though, that I would like to share while we’re 

here. One is a member of my own staff, who was a McNair scholar 

and part of the Educational Opportunity Program at Marquette 

University. He has shared with me and his colleagues on staff that 

TRIO truly leveled the playing field for him as a first-generation, 

low-income college student. He is an integral part of my Senate 

staff, and that is thanks in no small part to the education he received at Marquette and the support that was provided through the 

TRIO programs. 

Perhaps, though, the best known TRIO success story is Wisconsin’s own Congresswoman, Gwen Moore. Gwen started college at 

Marquette as a single expectant mother on welfare, who could only 

complete her education with the help of TRIO. She went on to 

serve in the Wisconsin State Assembly, the Wisconsin State Senate, before her years of service in the U.S. Congress. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN

Thank you, Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member Alexander. 

Colleges and universities in my State have produced so many TRIO 

and GEAR UP success stories from Wisconsin, I could literally 

spend hours sharing their experiences and how these programs 

changed these students’ lives. In this longer statement, I’d like to 

submit a handful of these Wisconsin success stories for the record: 

Tommy C. Walls, Jr.—Marquette University 

The TRIO Program have helped me tremendously throughout my 

high school and college experience. I first became a member of the 

Upward Bound pre-college programs to help me with academics 

and life skills and college preparation. I then became accepted at 

Marquette University’s Educational Program. Overall, with out the 
35 

TRIO Program I would have not had access to endless opportunity 

that has helped me grow today! I had the opportunity to participate in the McNair Program research disparities in Urban communities involving crimes of youth and non-violence strategies. I completed an internship with Senator Kohl and also spent 2 weeks in 

Ghana, Africa, where the Council for Opportunity In Education 

helped sponsor my trip. I studied Ghana’s Government, Democracy 

and Public Policy. Furthermore, TRIO has helped me so much in 

my preparation for graduate school, where I have currently been 

accepted to Saint Louis University and Loyola University’s Master 

of Social Work Programs! I look to eventually earn my Masters and 

Ph.D. to become a CEO/President of a Non-Profit Youth Development Agency. I would have not had such opportunities if it had not 

been for the support, professionalism and dedication of my TRIO 

programs. It had not only made my vision possible, but also any 

other scholars around the Nation. 

Xiong Her—Marquette University 

Marquette University’s Upward Bound gave me the opportunity 

to explore colleges and universities around the United States, and 

it opened my eyes to great opportunities which will help me 

achieve my dream. 

English is my third language, and education is a difficult path, 

but UB challenged me to move beyond my comfort zone and prepared me to face and experience all the difficulties that are ahead 

of me. They provided me with extra classes as well as tutors to 

keep me on track and prepare for my college path. 

UB helped me look for my passions, gave me the chance to graduate high school and attend my dream university. The program 

also taught me how to be an influential leader in my community 

as well as in the future. UB is my family, and not only have they 

improved my academic talents but as a whole person with qualities 

like responsibility and respectful manners. 

It’s my first year of college, and it is tough and difficult to adjust 

into college life, but SSS provides me with useful resources which 

help me to feel less stressed about the college workloads. SSS has 

given me personal tutors to guide me through my challenging 

courses. Both SSS and UB staff are willing to stay after their work 

times to help us, the students, study and to finish class work. 

Christian Villanueva—Marquette University 

Thanks to McNair I have been presented a wonderful opportunity to be able to attend graduate school and make life decisions 

that I believed was not realistic prior to the program. Through the 

program I have gained two nursing mentors that have been essential in my growth as a researcher and future Ph.D. recipient. 

EOP has been a blessing to me while being at Marquette. I have 

the assistance and guidance of wonderful staff that has been supportive and willing to assist me whenever I have been confronted 

with a dilemma in my personal and educational life. The EOP 

staffs at Marquette University are amazing people that are a necessity for us to continue to combat the educational disparities in 

our country. 
36 

Monica Purifoy—Marquette University 

For every year that I have been enrolled as a student at Marquette University, I have been able to build and develop both my 

skills and confidence as a student. Every year, my academic success has shown me that, regardless of the culture or demographics 

of any given institution or community, I can maintain and shine in 

that environment. The staff of Marquette’s Trio programs is responsible for a great deal of this development. 

The academic support that I have received from EOP-SSS has 

been essential to my success at Marquette. Without it, I would not 

have survived. 

Working with Upward Bound and EOP’s summer programs as a 

student counselor has helped me in discovering my passion for 

working with inner city youth in a school environment. My undergraduate experience has unveiled the potential I have to successfully achieve my aspirations and to go beyond what I thought was 

my reality. 

While working with the EOP-SSS summer program, I was introduced to a staff member of Marquette’s graduate school, Dr. Kevin 

Tate. Through my participation in the McNair Scholars program, 

we will be working together this summer on a research topic. Dr. 

Tate is also helping me apply to graduate programs in school counseling. 

Toua Thao—University of Wisconsin-Madison 

My family escaped from Laos during the Vietnam War to a refugee camp in Thailand. I spent 10 years in the refugee camp without a chance to have a formal education. Life in the camp was 

hopeless and stressful, not much different from life in a prison. 

With no other options, I decided to come to the United States with 

the hope for a better life. I arrived in Madison, Wisconsin, in the 

winter and had a chance to attend a formal education at Madison 

West High School. I started to realize that my parents’ dream of 

me being a teacher or doctor could come true as education was accessible here. Although learning a new language and adapting to 

a new culture at the age of 19 was extremely difficult for me, I 

knew that education was the key for a better life and an opportunity for future success. I finally graduated from Madison West 

High School and was admitted to UW-Madison. I was the first person in my family out of 11 children to have the chance and honor 

to walk during a high school commencement. 

I would not have come to nor graduated from UW-Madison if it 

had not been for TRIO SSS. I graduated from UW-Madison with 

an Undergraduate degree in International Relations and went on 

to complete my Graduate degree in Counseling Psychology. As a 

low-income, academically underprepared, and first generation college student, my academic experience at a large university like 

UW-Madison was extremely difficult. The campus and class size 

were big for me. I got lost, cried, and gave up so many times, but 

TRIO SSS was always there to help and motivate me. My TRIO advisor always checked with me to ensure that my academics were 

going as well as my physical and emotional health. I had great difficulty with my readings, lectures, assignments, essays, and note 

taking. Fortunately, with the support and services provided by 
37 

TRIO, such as tutoring, mentoring, note taking tactics, advising, 

courses selection, and study skills, I was able to do well in my 

classes. One very special and unique quality of TRIO was that the 

program created and provided a warm and welcoming environment 

for students. Although the campus is huge, TRIO was a place 

where I had a sense of belonging. I felt comfortable and welcomed. 

The accessibility and flexibility of my TRIO advisor and other staff 

members made a great difference in my academic success. TRIO 

was like a second home for me. There were staff members, advisors, and students who came from different cultures and backgrounds and that made me feel comfortable. With the help of my 

TRIO advisor, I also discovered the advantages of the study aboard 

programs and spent 2 months in China and a year in Thailand. I 

even returned to Thailand as a graduate student to research how 

the Thai educational system affects Hmong and other hill—tribes. 

In addition, I obtained my doctoral degree at Edgewood College. I 

will always be grateful and appreciative that TRIO has made a 

huge difference in and provided the opportunity for the success in 

my life. Therefore, I feel it’s a great honor to be able to help others 

and make a difference in their lives. I once was searching for an 

accessible educational opportunity and finally found one, it was a 

long journey. 

Consequently, I’d like to see educational opportunities be accessible and available to others as it was to me. TRIO SSS is a significant part of my successes. 

Deiadra Gardner—University of Wisconsin-Madison 

CeO has provided advocacy for me, a shoulder to cry on and another set of brains to help me figure life out when things get rough. 

It has been a place for me to go between classes and never get ill— 

vibes. It’s been a place that I can call my own, stretch out my 

wings, and show my personality 100 percent. It has been the support system I think everyone needs when coming to college. 

CeO really brought into focus how important education is and 

how there are resources out there for your college career to go more 

smoothly. If students have any questions, concerns, or need clarification on things, they are welcome to come in and ask, and any 

staff member will ensure the issue gets the attention it deserves. 

The dedication of the program is remarkable and ensures the ability to assist or get assistance for any of the CeO students. 

CeO is like a club or family that you’re a member of. Depending 

on how much you use it, that determines the depth of your connection to the program. If you ever need a place to go, need to study, 

need to chat with someone, or just need some kind of nourishment 

(LOL), come to the CeO office and the people there will help, and 

genuinely care. CeO promotes excelling in one’s schoolwork, so the 

mission and everything that is done is designed around improving 

students’ environments so they can be competitive students. 

Africa Lozano—University of Wisconsin-Madison 

‘‘Go and get your Educations Worth’’ no matter what your circumstances are!!! I am originally from Montebello, Cal but moved 

to Madison, WI when I was 13 years old. I had a very drastic 

change in weather, climate and most of all, PEOPLE. I went from 

a predominantly Mexican community in Montebello to an all-white 
38 

school in Madison. I attended Edgewood High School, a community 

that was totally the opposite of my upbringing. Students with high 

income, parents driving Lexus, Mercedes and much more to offer 

than my parents who did not have a bachelor’s degree but offered 

me the best support that I could have because without them, I 

would have not made it as far as I did. 

My academics and athletic performance were my tickets into 

UW-Madison until I met Mr. Kirk Malnor at Edgewood’s Edgefest. 

He was very supportive and eager for me to learn about TRIO Student Support Services (known as CeO). Once I got to learn and 

hear more about the program, I knew that the program was going 

to help me with my transition into college and succeed as a doctor. 

Upon matriculation into UW-Madison, I knew that I wanted to 

play softball at the collegiate level because it was always a dream 

of mine to play at a top ten university while pursuing a degree in 

medicine. 

Once I attended UW-Madison, I became very familiar with campus and organizations, and started my social network as an 

undergrad but, unfortunately I could not be as involved as I wanted to because I was a full-time athlete and student. I had my share 

of ups and downs while being a woman of color on the softball team 

but that did not push me away because I was determined to stay 

and overcome my obstacle as I have all my life growing up. While 

pursuing my goals and overcoming the many obstacles, I found 

many outlets like the TRIO program that helped my whole college 

transition be a more pleasant one. With the many experiences that 

I had, I soon realized that my passion was working with students 

who had similar life experiences as myself. I graduated with my 

bachelors in Human Development Family Studies and Women 

Studies Certificate. 

Due to the student support services program and my determination, I later pursued a degree in Educational Leadership Policy 

Analysis in Higher Education at UW-Madison because I too wanted 

to show my appreciation to my parents and community. And most 

importantly, I wanted to demonstrate that no matter how rough an 

individual’s life is, there is always a way out and people who are 

willing to help if you make the time. ‘‘Hard Work pays off !’’ 

Sarah Axtell—University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Upward Bound 

Upward Bound completely changed my life! Without it I never 

would have had the opportunity to see so many colleges and never 

would have dreamed of applying to some of the colleges that I did. 

I was very lucky to have the opportunity to be part of such a great 

organization. 

Amanda Flannery—Ripon College 

In 2006 Amanda Flannery entered Ripon College following participation in the USDE TRIO Talent Search-Upward Bound program sponsored through the Crandon, Wisconsin public high school 

system. Upward Bound identifies and prepares talented but relatively underexposed first generation-low income students for college entry. On one of Amanda’s Upward Bound visits to Ripon College, she learned about the next level of TRIO programs operating 

at the Ripon called, Student Support Services, which guides and 

supports similar students through college to graduation, offering a 
39 

wide variety of academic and cultural information and services. 

Amanda was an extremely motivated individual and took full advantage of the SSS program and achieved Dean’s List honors in 

every semester during her Ripon undergraduate career. During 

Amanda’s sophomore year at Ripon, Student Support Services applied for and received a 5-year TRIO McNair Scholar’s graduate 

school preparation grant from the United States Department of 

Education and Amanda, with a degree in anthropology and history, 

was accepted in to the program following her application and interview. One of the major components of McNair is giving scholars the 

opportunity to undertake research with a faculty mentor, which 

Amanda completed as she researched how collaborative efforts between students and the community was the most valuable way to 

educate both groups about archeological investigation. In the summer following graduation from Ripon College with honors, Amanda 

participated in archeological work for the State of Wisconsin and 

also participated in archeological field work at the University of 

Southern Illinois before being accepted for graduate study under a 

fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Anthropology, with an emphasis in historical archeology leading also toward a certification in museum studies. Amanda graduated from 

UW-Milwaukee in December 2013 and is currently employed in a 

public library inventorying their local history collections and facilitating public programming. 

Senator BALDWIN. The stories are powerful. The statistics are 

also very, very powerful. And not to keep on picking on Marquette, 

but the Student Support Services Program’s average 6-year graduation rate is 67 percent compared with a national graduation rate 

for first-generation, low-income students of 11 percent. 

The University of Wisconsin McNair scholars are similarly remarkable. In the past few years, 100 percent of the McNair scholars completed a bachelor’s degree, and 85 percent have been accepted into graduate programs, which is really encouraging and impressive. 

I wanted to say just a couple of things about GEAR UP. In preparation for this hearing, we asked some of our stakeholders across 

the State of Wisconsin for feedback, not only on the successes, but 

also where there is room for improvement. Along with the success 

stories, we heard numerous—and I’ll submit them for the record for 

the committee, also—ideas like providing greater support for advanced placement test preparation and increasing minority teacher 

recruitment. 

I’d love to hear—and if you want to submit ideas in followup— 

ways in which we might improve GEAR UP successes and opportunities to grow the program’s impact. Does anyone want to jump in 

now? 

[No response.] 

Well, then, let me jump on to the other topic I indicated that I 

wanted to address. 

Mr. Griggs, you talked in your testimony about the unique barriers you faced, and, certainly, we know that homeless youth and 

youth in foster care encounter an incredible set of unique barriers 

to accessing higher education. I am proud to be a supporter and cosponsor with my colleague from Washington State, Senator Mur-
40 

ray, of legislation that will help remove some of the barriers that 

homeless and foster youth have and help provide what they need 

to succeed. 

I do have questions, however, about how well our current college 

access programs are serving homeless and foster youth and other 

people who might be the most disadvantaged among those that 

we’re serving with TRIO programs. So I guess I’d like to hear your 

perspective on how we’re doing there and certainly from others on 

the panel on what we need to do to ramp up services, particularly 

to homeless youth and foster care students. 

Mr. GRIGGS. Well, from my own personal perspective, growing up 

as a ward of the State in Illinois—my birth mom lives in Wisconsin. She’s in Milwaukee. Being a ward of the State from the age 

of 9 until I was 21 was a challenging process. And TRIO programs 

in themselves allowed me the opportunity to have someone that I 

could communicate with that could give me not only just guidance 

from an educational perspective, but also guidance on life and 

where I needed to go and how I needed to get there. 

When you’re going through the system, as I like to call it, as a 

9-year-old living in a shelter for a few years, bouncing from a group 

home, and then living with multiple different families, you get a lot 

of different advice. All of it isn’t good, because a lot of times, you 

get placed in homes that only want you there because a stipend 

comes with you, and they’re not providing you with the access that 

you need to be successful, because a lot of times, they can’t see past 

the next day. 

TRIO professionals were there to give me that guidance past the 

next day, to say, ‘‘Look at your future and see where you could be. 

What do you want to be when you grow up? Where do you see 

yourself?’’ And without that type of mentoring and guidance, I definitely would not be able to sit here and have this conversation with 

you intelligently because I would not have gained the necessary 

skills at a younger age to be able to have a dialog like this. 

Ms. HOYLER. Our concern as the organization that represents 

TRIO programs is that services provided to students in foster care 

or aging out of the foster care system be continuing. Our experience is that students in foster care get a lot of stop-and-go services, 

and that when we are successful in TRIO in serving students in 

foster care, it is because of the long-term relationship. 

A program like Talent Search, which Mr. Griggs was in, is a lowintensity program. It costs, on average, less than $450 per student. 

And in order to make that effective broadly, we have to think about 

it. We can’t just say, ‘‘Well, let’s require all Talent Search programs 

to serve students in foster care.’’ 

In terms of homeless youth, many times our programs learn that 

students are homeless after they are serving them, because high 

school students and college students move from friend to friend or 

uncle to aunt to neighbor. We are serving many, many homeless 

students, and we definitely want to serve this population, but we 

want to make sure that the regulatory requirements that we serve 

particular schools or particular areas don’t limit our ability to do 

that, and that everything possible is done to make sure that we can 

have long-term relationships with these young people. 
41 

Another thing that I think is an important distinction to make 

is that many young people in foster care are not in what we kind 

of conceive are in foster homes. They’re oftentimes in group homes. 

They’re in an institutionalized setting. The numbers in terms of 

transition to adult life are really awful, and so we have to have 

people that are really able to work those systems, with the expertise to work those systems. It takes a lot of expertise, as Mr. Griggs 

said. It is complex. It is not just good will, so we want to do it 

right. 

Mr. GILES. I want to echo what Mr. Griggs and Ms. Hoyler said. 

I think that there are just two concrete things that I’d like to suggest. One of the advantages of the GEAR UP program—and we administer both GEAR UP and Talent Search in my agency—is that 

the cohort model allows us to serve a broader range of students. 

One of the challenges that we faced—we actually took over administration of the Chafee ETV Grant just because the silos between human services and education and college access were so 

great that we felt this was our responsibility to start administering 

that program. So very concretely, the ETV program, the Chafee 

program, doesn’t have enough college access counseling, but it has 

some money. 

Folks in human services are not trained or prepared to provide 

the support that the TRIO and GEAR UP programs provide. So I 

think that’s one area where we could actually make some concrete 

changes that would make the money that we’re already investing 

significantly more valuable. 

The other thing that we started doing is working with caseworkers to actually train them, at least in rudimentary career and 

college planning services, so that they can also start to reach some 

of the students that we’re not getting. 

Mr. HARRIS. I want to talk a little bit about some findings from 

the Upward Bound experiment that I think pertain to what you’re 

saying. One of the things we did is we looked at what the program 

operators in Upward Bound report about who they would screen 

out of the program. And they are statutorily required to serve lowincome, first-generation students. 

But it looked like in the surveys that they would say that students who have high rates of absences and who don’t have high college expectations and have more behavioral difficulties are likely to 

be screened out and not included in the program. I think a lot of 

the students you’re talking about, homeless students and foster 

care students, are going to be the kinds of students who get 

screened out in that process. 

My guess is the perception from the program operator’s standpoint is that they see students in that situation who don’t end up 

making it to college at very high rates. But I think that’s missing 

the point. The point of these programs should be for whom are they 

likely to increase the odds most? How can we help these students 

the most? 

It might be that only 20 percent of those students who are in the 

homeless category end up making it to college. But that’s going to 

be higher than it is without the program. So I think when we start 

thinking about it that way, and if we can do more in the way the 
42 

rules are set to encourage the programs to include those students, 

that would be a big help. 

They’re also under the gun from the regulations to make sure 

they meet performance standards, to make sure a certain percentage of their students served are making it on to college. So it implicitly discourages them from bringing in students who have a 

very low probability of getting in. Something would have to be done 

in the regulations to encourage that on a widespread basis. And 

given the results we’re finding, it suggests that those are the students who will benefit the most. 

Mr. LIANG. In Washington, we recognize that the foster children 

are really an integral part of our services. We work with children’s 

services to get messages—the early awareness and also other support for the foster care children. We have a summit annually to 

work together as partners with nonprofit organizations and with 

children’s services to provide services. 

Some of the services are delivered through what Scott mentioned, 

the cohort model of GEAR UP, so students in the GEAR UP cohort 

would receive services, in particular. Because of some restrictions, 

we sometimes cannot identify who they are, but we’re able to provide a more blanket service to the cohorts or through the cohort 

service. 

This is one of the three support areas that we’re thinking 

about—academic services, social support services, and financial aid 

services. And especially for foster children, the social support services is most important. 

The other thing—I want to go back, just for your information, to 

Wisconsin GEAR UP. Wisconsin State GEAR UP is one of the 

members of the 15-State consortium for college- and career-readiness evaluation. So Bonnie Dockery is a leader in that area. She 

just retired, unfortunately. We will miss her. But Wisconsin is one 

of the members. 

The CHAIRMAN. I’m going to call on Senator Franken who wants 

to have an intervention. 

Senator FRANKEN. I just want to make a short comment about 

foster kids. We had some testimony from a young woman named 

Kayla from Minnesota that actually—I remember how struck you 

were by her testimony, Mr. Chairman. These foster kids very often 

are changing foster homes very frequently. It’s very common that 

they’ll have 9, 10, 11 foster homes throughout their childhood. 

It’s important to keep them in the same school, or give them that 

option, because, very often, the one constant in their lives is the 

school. So in some of our reauthorization bills that have passed 

through this committee are provisions to make sure that kids who 

are in foster care, even if they change school districts—well, when 

they change school districts with a new foster parent, that they’re 

able to stay at the school they’re in. 

I think that continuity—especially when it might be a teacher or 

a counselor or someone else who is the one adult who is being constant in their life. That is just so important. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Sertich. 

Ms. SERTICH. Yes, thank you. 
43 

Senator Franken, I’d like to respond to you briefly, and then I’d 

love to come back to Senator Baldwin’s question about the proposed 

language regarding homeless and foster youth. 

The TRIO programs are a constant in our students’ lives, and 

even if they change to another district, oftentimes, it’s within the 

geographic region that they live in. So we work as hard as possible 

to continue serving those students. Even if they go to a high school 

that’s 25 miles away, we find ways to serve them and to help them 

so that they have that continuity. Thank you for bringing that up. 

And, Senator Baldwin, I’ve seen at least a version of the proposed language regarding homeless and foster youth. I’d like to 

speak a little bit to the financial aid piece of it. I’ve seen some language that says that TRIO programs can designate students as 

homeless. Otherwise, there are other hoops to jump through on a 

FAFSA to be able to be eligible for certain things because of your 

homeless status. 

If TRIO programs were allowed to have that power because of 

our relationships with the students and knowledge of their situation, that would certainly remove barriers for those students to get 

their FAFSA filled out correctly and in a timely manner. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Murphy. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURPHY

Senator MURPHY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you to all of you. This has been really wonderful to hear. 

I just want to make two very quick comments and then a question. 

First, I just want to underscore how important this program is, especially for families where English is not the primary language. 

I’ve been long involved with our TRIO and GEAR UP programs in 

Connecticut, and like Senator Baldwin, I got a lot of input in preparation for this hearing. 

A lot of the testimonials were very similar to this one from Jessica Coraizaca, who said, 

‘‘As a first-generation student going to college, I did not 

know anything about the process. My parents did not know 

about the college process, and their English skills were not too 

advanced. That’s why I will always thank my advisors at Upward Bound for helping me develop the skills that were needed 

to survive in college and for helping me with an application 

process.’’ 

The second thing I just wanted to mention is that one of our panelists repeated what I believe to be some mythology that has developed around the effectiveness of Head Start. I am, along with Senator Franken, a member of the Paul Tough caucus, who reminds 

us in that book that though there is a study that says that on certain academic skills, the advancement that happens in Head Start 

can disappear by third grade, most or all of the long-term longitudinal studies of kids who participate in Head Start show that on 

a host of long-term measures, whether it be how many of them go 

to college, measures of their physical health, do they end up in 

trouble with the law, all tell you that because Head Start is build-
44 

ing character as well as actually helping kids with academic skills, 

there are tremendous long-term benefits. 

My question, though, is off of Senator Burr’s question. He asked 

a great simple question, which is what can K through 12 do better. 

My question, at its essence, is pretty simple. What can colleges do 

better to help at-risk kids once they walk in the door? 

What we know is that there is a really wide divergence of retention rates from college to college. Some schools get it, and they 

identify kids who need a little bit of help early on, wrap their arms 

around them, and help them. And other schools, frankly, are not 

doing the work necessary to help those kids. And there’s all sorts 

of new innovative technological tools that can help schools identify 

kids who in that first 6 months just aren’t measuring up. 

So I guess my question to you all is twofold. What, in your experience, can colleges and institutions of higher education do better 

to help your students once they come in the door? And, second, are 

we doing enough within GEAR UP and Upward Bound and TRIO 

to help students who are applying to schools identify those schools 

that are actually going to provide the support services and identify 

the schools that have pretty low retention rates and might not be 

the best place for kids to end up? 

Ms. Sertich. 

Ms. SERTICH. Yes, thank you. When we are looking with our Upward Bound students at college choices, one of the first things that 

we do—and, obviously, we know off the top of our head in Minnesota which colleges have them. But does the college they’re looking at have a student support services program, because the TRIO 

SSS programs do the intensive advising. They provide tutoring. 

They, at the community college level, help with looking at transfer 

options for students who are seeking a bachelor’s degree. 

So they’re really critical programs in helping the students you’re 

talking about, who gets there, but then what? 

Senator MURPHY. Mr. Giles. 

Mr. GILES. I think that, really, there are kind of two things going 

on right now that I think are interesting. Within the GEAR UP 

program, there are two different kinds of grants. There are partnership grants and State grants. The partnership grants are really 

housed at institutions of higher education, and they’re doing some 

really interesting things to work back into the high schools and 

middle schools in their communities and work with those students 

from middle school through high school, and then continue to support them once they enter their particular campuses. 

The second thing I would say—I just want to echo what Ms. 

Sertich said. One of the challenges for these students is that we 

have provided them a great deal of support, and they may have 

been part of a group that has gone through this process together. 

There’s some experiments that we’re engaged in right now. It’s 

called the Seventh Year Program in GEAR UP, where we’re continuing to follow that group of students for that extra year. And I 

think part of the power of this is that if we can have a group of 

students that have been together in some context with common experiences—this is all new to them in the same ways—and we can 

wrap some of the support services around them, we expect that 

we’re going to see much higher continuation rates. 
45 

Senator MURPHY. Ms. Hoyler. 

Ms. HOYLER. There are a lot of factors in higher education right 

now that work against institutions wanting low-income students 

and wanting those students to succeed. The whole ranking system, 

the financing systems—there’s many factors that are large factors. 

This committee’s leadership on the importance of low-income students being successful in all categories of higher education is really, really important, because, ultimately, it is a matter of will. If 

college presidents and Governors and Senators want low-income 

students to graduate from our institutions of higher education, they 

will graduate. And if it is not a priority for the country, they won’t. 

Senator MURPHY. Dr. Harris. 

Mr. HARRIS. I have a few observations on this. I think there’s another effort going on right now to change the performance measures for colleges that I think would change the incentives a bit to 

encourage the colleges more. But in terms of specific programs, I’ve 

come across a few that I think make a lot of sense. 

I think one general theme is that there needs to be more kind 

of active involvement of the colleges in tracking students who are 

having difficulties rather than passive. So you could have services 

available, but students are generally not going to avail themselves 

of those. They’re not going to seek it out. 

The problem with the way colleges are set up, unlike K–12 

schools, is that they don’t have an attendance system, per se. 

That’s the professor’s responsibility. So you don’t necessarily see 

right away when a student stops showing up unless the professor 

reaches out to somebody at the university. Tulane actually has a 

program like that where they actively remind the faculty to let 

them know if there’s a problem so that they can intervene. 

There’s an interesting program at a community college in Iowa, 

actually, Des Moines Community College, where they have a call 

center, and if somebody starts off in classes and stops showing up, 

they call them and ask, ‘‘What’s going on that we can help you 

with?’’ And if they started, and they’re attending, and then they 

don’t enroll the next semester, they call them and ask, ‘‘What’s 

going on? Is there anything we can help you with?’’ 

So I think it’s really cheap. It doesn’t cost a lot to do something 

like that, and I think it’s more a matter of the change in perspective at the college level. But in having a more active engagement, 

I think part of the perception is that these are adults now. They’re 

18. They’re on their own. They have to figure it out. And I think 

for a lot of these students, that’s not going to work. 

Senator MURPHY. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Warren. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARREN

Senator WARREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to ask another question about the GEAR UP and TRIO 

programs. As I understand it, these are really the only significant 

programs that really aim toward completion and access issues. And 

if these programs were running perfectly, and you were all the way 

out at the edges of what you were able to accomplish—you get 

about 800,000 kids through in a year—I have a scale question. 
46 

By the year 2020, we know that about 65 percent of all jobs are 

going to require some kind of post-secondary education. If we stay 

on our current trend line, we’re going to be about 5 million young 

people short of meeting that goal. We also know our current college 

completion rates. We’ve got about 55 percent completing within 6 

years. 

So this tells me we’ve got to get more people into school, postsecondary. We’ve got to get more of them out, that is, all the way 

through. And I’ll just make the note off to the side that it has a 

powerful impact on things like whether or not they can pay their 

student loans. So all these pieces intersect. 

The question I have is a scale question. The direction that we’re 

headed says we’re going to fall short in getting the kind of results 

that you are working toward. So what ideas do you have for how 

we can scale up? And we have to think about this in a cost-effective 

way. Are there specific things that you can identify where it’s 

something we can scale up cheaply? Are there other approaches we 

should be using? That’s really where I’d like to start this. 

Ms. HOYLER. TRIO programs have two components, access programs and completion retention programs. If you take the completion and retention, however, as they’ve been administered, the 

grant sizes are equal regardless of setting, based on historical 

issues. However, if you take institutions that are serving tens of 

thousands of low-income students, they may have the same size of 

a grant and the same capacity as an institution that is serving or 

enrolling 600 low-income, first-generation students. That issue of 

institutional capacity needs to be looked at if you want to scale up. 

The same thing is true at the pre-college level. If you’re serving 

schools where 90 percent of the students are low-income, first-generation students, there’s issues of scale where we could serve the 

whole school at a lower cost per student than we—and now we’re 

not serving the whole school. 

I would defer to some of my GEAR UP colleagues. But one of the 

problems I have with GEAR UP is—and I think the TRIO community does—because of the cohort model, you might serve a class of 

ninth graders, but then the next class of ninth graders doesn’t get 

served. And in our view, you need a continuing Federal commitment. If you’re going to be in a school, you should have that continuing Federal commitment. So that would be a question that I 

think needs to be explored. 

Senator WARREN. Very interesting. 

Ms. Sertich. 

Ms. SERTICH. Just to speak to that scale and to speak to who we 

serve, how many we serve, in my area—and I’m in rural northern 

Minnesota—I serve four schools, and 48 percent of the school population that I serve are eligible for free and reduced lunch. So they 

are TRIO eligible students at these high schools, and that doesn’t 

even take into consideration whether they have first-generation 

status or not. So it’s a larger number than that. My grant serves 

15 percent of the students in my target schools, and more than half 

of them qualify for TRIO programs. 

Senator WARREN. So I’m hearing two things. I’m hearing allocate 

the grant dollars differently or at least look into whether we want 
47 

to allocate differently. And the second one is you’ve got to put more 

dollars into it. Fair enough? 

Ms. SERTICH. Yes. And within the programs themselves, we need 

money to match the services that are in legislation for us to provide and that we agree that we need to provide. But we’re not able 

to fulfill all of those to the limits, as you said, which we would like 

to do, and those, obviously, would get better results if we were able 

to do to the limits—what we have written into legislation. 

Ms. HOYLER. Can I clarify what I said? I’m not saying that we 

should take money from somebody and give it to somebody else. I’m 

just saying that where you have a huge number of unserved individuals, you need to look at how to expand your ability to serve 

those unserved individuals at colleges, particularly in terms of retention services, and in high schools, particularly when you’re serving only a small percentage of the students that you’re serving. But 

to take it from a high school so that no—I’m not saying you take 

it from somebody else. 

Senator WARREN. I understand your point. But we do have both 

questions on the table. I fully understand the notion just to say 

let’s put more money into the program. But we’re also going to 

have to find some scale here. It’s not just going to be about pumping more dollars—I mean, it’s just not going to happen. We may 

get some—willing to fight for it. But there are allocation questions 

that we’re going to have to address. 

Mr. Giles, you wanted to add? 

Mr. GILES. Yes. I just wanted to add a piece to that, because I 

support both points that were made with an additional one. I think 

that there’s something we need to explore further. 

One of the things that GEAR UP allows us to do is work with 

that cohort model, where we can adopt a whole school. And I think 

that to your scale point, in addition to allocating the resources, the 

question is how you embed the work that we all do in the education 

system so that we’re able to amplify the expertise that we have by 

training teachers, training school counselors, training everybody 

within that institution from the leadership on down to support our 

work. 

Senator WARREN. Mr. Liang. 

Mr. LIANG. In terms of scaling up, definitely, there’s a dollar 

issue. In the 2011 GEAR UP competition, there is about a million 

students that are not served because of the reduction of the funding. 

But in Washington, what we’re doing now is we have just—by 

the request of the Governor and the legislature, our agency led the 

study of a roadmap for the next 10 years. And we find that our goal 

matches what you described in 2020, and we’re saying in 2023, 

we’re going to have 70 percent of students with credentials. 

So we’re aiming high, and in order to scale it up—Washington 

State is the only State that I know of to put actual money into 

GEAR UP, and that could be a partnership in that way. Institutions could be a partnership if they recognize the value of the 

GEAR UP and TRIO services. So those are all potential ways to 

scale it up. 

Senator WARREN. That’s an interesting point. 

Dr. Harris. 
48 

Mr. HARRIS. A few observations. At a fairly general level, you’re 

talking about scale, and you’re talking about getting millions of 

students to graduate. I think the only way to reach a goal like that 

is really through the community colleges. 

The community colleges are important for several reasons. One 

is they are less expensive than the 4-year colleges. Second, the 

kinds of jobs that are available are the ones that are more targeted 

toward 2-year graduates right now. And that’s where the students 

are in vast numbers. 

You’re not going to move large numbers of students from being 

high school graduates to 4-year college graduates. But you can 

move students from being high school graduates to 2-year college 

graduates much more readily. So I think having a focus on the 2- 

year colleges is important. 

I had a paper, actually, that the Brookings Institution published 

a few years ago on this, on things we might do at the community 

college level to encourage greater success there. This included 

things like just simply basic stuff, like reporting the persistence 

rates, you know, publicly reporting those things and having some 

sort of a report card to put a little bit more pressure on getting students through those programs. 

Senator WARREN. Thank you. 

Dr. Haskins. 

Mr. HASKINS. If we think that we’re going to have a shortage of 

people with degrees to meet the needs of our economy, the first 

place to look, I think, is low-income kids. Because they’re less likely 

to go to school, and they’re much more likely to drop out, the dropout rate is more like two-thirds from 4-year institutions for kids 

from low-income families. 

And I think the most effective way to make sure that those kids 

don’t drop out at that rate, thereby increasing the number of people 

with degrees and increasing the efficiency of our investments, is to 

improve their performance during the K–12 years. That’s the main 

reason they drop out. They’re not prepared. The remedial programs 

don’t work. 

So we lose a lot of money that we invest in those kids. If we can 

improve that by improving the K–12 education and preschool as 

well, we’ll do better, and we’ll meet the need and do it more efficiently. 

Senator WARREN. All right. Good. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Warren. 

This has been a good discussion. Mr. Liang brought up something that I wanted to kind of close on, and that is ways in which 

maybe TRIO and GEAR UP can partner with other entities. These 

have always been essentially Federal programs. My staff has informed me that Washington State is the first State to actually 

partner on the GEAR UP program. 

But we haven’t seen that in TRIO—even with institutions. I 

mean, the institutions that TRIO students go to benefit, obviously, 

from this program. I’m wondering if institutions shouldn’t be somehow folded in to partner with some of these TRIO programs. 
49 

Ms. HOYLER. I think at the college level—the retention programs 

and student support services—about 40 percent of the institutions 

that host student support services programs contribute funding. 

The CHAIRMAN. They do? 

Ms. HOYLER. They do. However, I think that the recommendation 

that you are considering is a very important one that we should 

look into. How do we incentivize both States and institutions to 

better support college access and success programs? 

The CHAIRMAN. Did you say to me that 40 percent of the institutions provide some funding for support services? 

Ms. HOYLER. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Why don’t all of them? 

Ms. HOYLER. That’s an excellent question. 

The CHAIRMAN. I’m going to ask my staff to find out which institutions make up that 40 percent, and why they are doing it, and 

how much they provide, and what about some of the other institutions. I don’t understand that. I should find out about that. Maybe 

we can figure out some way of also incentivizing—maybe in our reauthorization incentivizing States to come up and support these 

TRIO programs. 

It’s been my experience here that if you get States involved with 

the Federal Government, you usually get more than just one and 

one equals two. You get one and one equals three. You just have 

a good multiplier effect when you get the institutions more involved 

in that. 

Did you have anything else you wanted to add? 

Senator ALEXANDER. No. 

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything else anybody wanted to add to 

this before we adjourn? 

[No response.] 

Again, I thank you all very much for being here. Thank you for 

this discussion. I hope that we can continue to be in touch with you 

as we develop our Higher Education reauthorization bill, and that 

my staff can continue to be in touch with each of you for suggestions, advice, things like that. 

With that, again, I thank you all very much for being here and 

providing some good insight into these programs. 

Thank you. The committee will stand adjourned. 

[Additional material follows.] 
50 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANDREA VENEZIA, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHER ED. 

LEADERSHIP & POLICY, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO, CA 

It is an honor to be asked to provide testimony regarding the Reauthorization of 

the Higher Education Act. I will focus my comments on pre-college outreach programs. When these Federal pre-college outreach programs started, they were focused on access to college, not on success in college. Now we are asking them to ensure that students will succeed in college. 

Based on current knowledge, we do not know how to replace the programs in 

ways I am confident will be more successful. The Brookings/Princeton proposal lists 

the following strategies as having some evidence of success: mentoring, summer programs, tutoring, help with financial aid, help with academic preparation, involving 

parents, and so forth. Those are the strategies that the current programs employ, 

so I am unclear about what new programs would be asked to do differently in terms 

of the heart of their work with students. 

There is evidence that current programs are succeeding; such data are even cited 

in the Brookings/Princeton proposal. For example, Upward Bound students who did 

not expect to complete a 4-year degree in their middle school years enrolled in college and finished their degrees more often than did similar students who did not 

participate in Upward Bound. That is precisely what we want. 

It’s hard to compile useful evidence when we’re comparing apples and oranges. We 

need greater clarity about: 

1. Outcomes. The field has not clearly defined which outcomes it is trying to 

achieve. The proposal suggests college enrollment and completion. There are also 

well-documented predictive milestones regarding college graduation, such as nondelayed entry into college, earning 20 credits in the first year, entering college without needing remediation, passing certain gatekeeper classes, and continuous and 

full-time enrollment. Monitoring student progress on such measures could help programs do course corrections and would help with evaluations. 

2. Students. Do we want to serve the students who can fairly easily tip over into 

a ‘‘success zone’’ with some additional supports, do we want to help the Nation’s 

most underserved students, or do we strive for a middle ground? Those require different strategies and a different kind of intensity regarding the interventions. 

3. Strategies. While there are common terms being used—mentoring, tutoring, 

etc.—there is little consistency in how they are implemented, and there is little information about the basic principles that underlie sound practice. For example, is 

tutoring once a week for an hour sufficient? Or should programs embed tutoring 

into courses so that students receive daily supports? It is impossible to evaluate the 

effect of tutoring if the implementation of that practice varies across sites. Finally, 

ensuring that these programs offer interventions through college seems critical, if 

college completion is the goal. 

There are two other important issues I’d like to mention. The proposal focuses 

just on academic preparation. We know that academic preparation is the #1 indicator regarding college success. But we are learning that many students are not 

able to learn academics at high levels because they do not have the skills to be able 

to calm down, focus, bounce back in the face of adversity, organize effectively, and 

so forth. We’re starting to see that leading with academics might not succeed until 

students are ready to learn academics at the levels required for post-secondary readiness. 

Second, the proposal appears to take a programmatic approach. There is evidence 

that students need a systemic/comprehensive approach—not just a program-based/ 

siloed approach, especially for the big lift required to help students get ready to succeed after high school. How would the new program be integrated into existing 

structures (schools, communities)? 

Let’s support existing networks and leverage knowledge from those networks; 

allow for new networks to be created; support experimentation within clear parameters; research and send crystal clear messages about who to serve, what works 

when serving them, for how long and at what level of intensity, and which metrics 

should be used; employ the best qualitative and quantitative methods at our disposal so that we not only know ‘‘what’’ is happening, but we also know ‘‘why’’ and 

‘‘how’’; and help these programs succeed at new levels. 

Thank you. 
51 

HON. ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., 

U.S. SENATE, 

WASHINGTON, DC 20510, 

January 16, 2014. 

Hon. TOM HARKIN, Chairman, 

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, 

U.S. Senate, 

428 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 

Washington, DC 20510. 

CHAIRMAN HARKIN: Thank you for holding today’s important hearing, ‘‘Strengthening Federal Access Programs to Meet 21st Century Needs: A Look at TRIO and 

GEAR UP.’’ Please accept this letter from Congressman Fattah as part of my statement for record. 

Sincerely, 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., 

U.S. Senator. 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, DC 20515, 

January 16, 2014. 

Hon. TOM HARKIN, Chairman, 

Hon. LAMAR ALEXANDER, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, 

U.S. Senate, 

428 Dirksen Office Building, 

Washington, DC 20510. 

CHAIRMAN HARKIN AND RANKING MEMBER ALEXANDER: I write in continued support of the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs 

(GEAR UP). Signed into law by President Clinton in October 1998, GEAR UP has 

positively impacted the lives of students of all ethnic and racial backgrounds 

throughout 49 States and the U.S. territories. To date, the program has served approximately 12 million students, with an average of 700,000 low-income students a 

year. 

The proven model starts early in high-poverty middle schools and follows students 

through high school and into their first year of college. Incorporating scholarship 

funds, Advanced Placement classes, financial literacy, and college visits, GEAR UP 

builds college-going cultures in schools where even high school graduation cannot 

be taken for granted. A distinguishing characteristic of the program, GEAR UP 

serves all students in a grade (or cohort) understanding that all students possess 

the potential to succeed academically. 

Recognizing the benefits of this program, the New America Foundation, in their 

Rebalancing Resources and Incentives in Federal Student Aid report last year, called 

GEAR UP the ‘‘most promising’’ program ‘‘aimed at raising the college aspirations 

and improving the academic preparation of disadvantaged students’’ and called for 

‘‘triple funding for GEAR UP.’’ Although short of triple funding, the program will 

receive a $15.2 million increase in funding for fiscal year 2014. 

I wish to thank you for your support of this vital HEA program over the years, 

and I welcome the opportunity to discuss ways in which to make it better. If you 

have any questions or concerns, please contact Jared Bass in my office at 202–225– 

4001 or jared.bass@mail.house.gov. 

Very truly yours, 

CHAKA FATTAH, 

Member of Congress. 

[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

Æ