Upward Bound Gains Support

Harvard's Office of Community and Governmental Affairs has assumed financial responsibility for the University's share of the Upward Bound program, thus reassuring HEW's Office of Education of Harvard's commitment to the program.

The Graduate School of Education will continue to administer the program, one of several hundred such programs designed to prepare disadvantaged high school students for college.

For the past four years the Office of Education has provided 80 per cent of the funds and the Graduate School of Education the remaining 20 per cent. "We began to get signals from Washington that we needed signs of support from the University in order to get Federal funds next year," Barbara Lass, executive director of the Upward Bound program, said.

Harvard's commitment was in question because it has admitted only one student from its own program, and because Upward Bound here is associated with a graduate school rather than with the University as a whole. "It has not been in line with the Federal idea of how the program should operate," Lass said.

Funding through the central administration "speaks to one of the problems," Lass said. "But it doesn't speak to all of them. There is the question of undergraduate admissions, for example."

The exact sum involved has not been decided. "Our office will pay the out-of-pocket monies, and the School of Education will provide the rest-staff time, volunteer time, administration." Donald C. Moulton, assistant director of Community Affairs, said.