UPW ARD BOUND

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Your January 17 issue carried a lead story on Upward Bound in which David Swanger said that I could not provide a substantial increased in Federal funds for Harvard's Upward Bound program because of "political considerations."

I understand that phrase as a decent one and want to tell you what those considerations are. There are about 1,400,000 American high school students in poverty. Some number have the smart and the persistence to negotiate some college somewhere. We think it's about one-half--or 700,000. We have hold of a piddling 20,000 of these in Upward Bound from Guam to Maine. The distribution of these students is important. Some per cent of all poverty high school students live in each state. We try, not always successfully, to spend Upward Bound money roughly in proportion to those per cents.

To have substantially increased Harvard's Upbound budget would have meant less youngsters in Upward Bound somewhere else where OEO has been much less responsive than we have been in the Boston area.

Alas, this agency--and its constituency the poor--must live within the budgets provided by Congress. RICHARD T. FROST Director Project Upward Bound