While financial aid programs help students overcome financial barriers to higher education, TRIO programs, such as Upward Bound and Talent Search, help students overcome social and cultural barriers to higher education. Last year, TRIO programs operating in Maine helped nearly 6,000 Maine students and displaced workers by raising their aspirations and providing them the counseling, confidence, and academic support they need to pursue higher education. As the Educational Testing Service''s Policy Information Center has reported, "The education staircase . . . is getting steeper and harder to climb, particularly for those in lower income groups." The Center has reported the alarming fact that students from lower-income backgrounds, in addition to having much lower rates of entrance into college, have much higher dropout rates than those from higher-income families. In 1979, a student in the top quartile of family income was four times more likely to obtain a baccalaureate degree by age 24 than a student from the bottom quartile. By 1994, this gap had worsened. Individuals from the top quartile were 10 times more likely to attain a 4-year degree by age 24. When you couple this statistic with the well established relationship between educational attainment and lifetime earnings, the consequences of the education gap are obvious. We keep reading about the growing gap between the rich and the poor in this country. That gap is, by and large, an education gap. If we are able to provide educational opportunities to lower-income families, we will help narrow that gap, because the differences in the lifetime earnings of people who complete only high school versus those who go on to post-secondary education are enormous. Moreover, in the State of Maine, more than 80 percent of the new jobs being created require some sort of post-secondary education.
Unless steps are taken to narrow this educational gap, a gap rooted in economics rather than in ability, we will lock the children of America''s lower-income families into a self-perpetuating cycle of inadequate education and low-income status. Without educational opportunities, a significant part of American society will never have the chance to participate fully in the American dream.
The TRIO programs help raise the aspirations of these students. Just last month, I received a letter from a young man in Maine whose story epitomizes everything admirable about the TRIO programs. He wrote: "I am an alumni of the University of Maine Upward Bound program (1994).... [The TRIO] programs work to make post-secondary education a reality for many students who have neither the guidance at home or at school to make the transition to college. I grew up in a house with a single parent mom who supported my older brother and myself on less than $6,000 per year. My mother has not attained a college education, and where she was unable to help me with the fine details of college such as financial aid and admissions processes, she made up in emotional support. The Upward Bound program filled in those gaps. They showed me what I needed to do to achieve a college education. Upward Bound showed me how to fill out financial aid forms and how to look for scholarships. I can state without hesitation that my academic success .... is largely due to the guidance and skills provided to me by the University of Maine Upward Bound program." This young man went on to receive his Bachelor's and Masters' degrees from the University of Maine. And what is even more admirable, and my favorite part of this story, is that he is now an Academic Counselor for the University of Maine Upward Bound Program. It is wonderful to think about a program having so much of an impact on a young person, that he decided to join the program and make assisting other students his life's work as well. Another outstanding person who was helped by TRIO is Father James Nadeau, a native of my hometown of Caribou. Father Jim's story is one of those that inspired me to support the TRIO programs so strongly. Father Jim participated in the Bowdoin College Upward Bound program. His loving parents did not have the opportunity to pursue an education beyond the eighth grade and could not give Jim much guidance about college. Father Jim''s participation in Upward Bound changed his life and opened up a world of opportunity to him.
Beginning in 1977, Father Jim spent three summers enrolled in Upward Bound and then attended Dartmouth College and studied in France and Scotland. Subsequently, he studied for five years at the Gregorian University in Rome, received two graduate degrees in theology, and was ordained as a priest. His ministry has spanned from Mother Teresa in Calcutta to school children in Portland, where he serves as the rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. He is an excellent role model for the youth of Maine and remains a terrific example of the impact of the TRIO programs.
In Congress, the TRIO programs have enjoyed broad-based support on both sides of the aisle for more than 30 years. I recently joined with Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln and 33 other Senators in seeking an increase in funding for TRIO. This extra funding is needed, for, nationally, the current funding level for TRIO only allows approximately six percent of the eligible population to be served. Because of the great success of the TRIO programs, we set the goal of trying to reach 10 percent of the eligible population throughout the country within the next five years.
I will continue to advocate on behalf of TRIO funding until our goal of reaching 10 percent of the eligible population has been met so that many more graduates in all professions and in all walks of life will reach their full potential. The TRIO programs change lives for the better and deserve congressional support.