LBW Community Colleges Losing Upward Bound Programs

Lurleen B. Wallace Community College campuses are losing funding for the Upward Bound program this year.

Upward Bound has been at LBWCC for 40 years and helped thousands of students, according to the LBWCC Upward Bound Director Bridges Anderson.

“So I was in the first summer residential program in 1977,” Anderson adds. “I’ve been part of this program over half my life. Upward Bound program really has raised me.”

Anderson says a grant has to be written every four years to ask for more funding for Upward Bound. The programs at each college are graded on several categories such as community involvement, budget/planning, and logistics of the program. LBWCC’s program missed the qualifying score to renew its grant by a fraction of a point.

“They’re going to lose a very effective and efficient program, and hopefully one day we may can get it back,” he adds. The program will stop assisting students and families in Septemeber and officially leave LBWCC campuses in December.

Former Upward Bound students, like Rheta McClain, say it’s like losing a family member.

“A really, really extensive family that’s equipped with many different people, resources, they’re going to be missing all of that for the next five years,” she says.

McClain is a 1995 graduate of the program, and now works with the Butler County School System. She credits her success in life to LBWCC’s Upward Bound program.

“It’s a tremendous loss. For everyone in the surrounding area, especially for LBW,” she adds. “Upward Bound allows students to identify what it is they want to do in life, and then they help them with the steps in order to get there.”

LBWCC will have to wait another five years before it can apply for another grant to try and get the Upward Bound program back.