Federal Office Rejects Upward Bound Request

The federal government has rejected Harvard Upward Bound's $88,000 budget request for the fiscal year 1967. But it will still give the program a $5000 increase over last year's allocation to finance a "residential component."

Richard T. Frost, national director of Upward Bound, who rejected the request, explained his position in a letter to the executive director of the Harvard program, David J. Swanger, teaching fellow in General Education.

Frost said that Upward Bound tries to spend its money roughly in proportion to the number of eligible high school students from low-income families in each state. This year Congress has allocated $30,000,000 to the national program, some of which has already been used to bail out projects whose 1966 budgets were inadequate.

There is just not enough money, Frost said, both to spread around to areas where Upward Bound wants to start new programs and to improve already flourishing programs like Harvard's.

For this reason Frost had to reject Swanger's final plea for what amounted to a $15,000 increase over last year's federal grant of $72,817 although he praised the basic goals that Swanger drafted in his budget proposal.

Live on Campus

Washington will give Swanger $5155 more than the 1966 budget to incorporate a residential element into the program's summer schedule. According to Swanger, this "residential component" will take the form of "cooperative living ventures" on the Harvard campus for the 52 Cambridge high school students in the program.

Upward Bound will rent a small house from Radcliffe, Swanger said Sunday. About 12 students will live there for each of four two-week periods with three teachers. The students will cook their own meals, clean the house, and--within limits--establish their own behavioral standards.

"It would be unreal to take Cambridge students away from their homes for the whole summer," Swanger said. "We do not want to replace their homes with Upward Bound; we want to incorporate Upward Bound into their home lives."

All the students, whether living on campus or not, will participate in the Upward Bound program of high school tutoring, counseling and seminars. The seminars deal with areas not directly related to school curricula--comparative religions, computers, general psychology.

Belt Tightening

Swanger accepted the government's $5000 increase by telephone yesterday, but he said the Harvard program will have to "tighten its belt," More books will have to be shared, fewer trips will be taken--a proposed summer excursion to Montreal has already been cancelled--and the students may undertake fund-raising operations like talent shows and dances.