By Hillary Speed
Florida State University’s Center for Academic Retention & Enhancement, or CARE, has been awarded additional federal funding to expand its college preparation efforts to a fifth county in North Florida.
The U.S. Department of Education will award $1.2 million over the next four years to CARE to run an Upward Bound program in Madison County. CARE also runs Upward Bound programs in Gadsden, Jackson, Hamilton and Suwannee counties.
Upward Bound Math and Science Suwannee Valley students on summer
college tour at Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico Orlando campus.
“Madison County became a target for our expansion after I went to a career and college fair there,” said DeOnte Brown, CARE director and assistant dean of Undergraduate Studies. “It was evident that it is a place committed to preparing for life after high school.”
The new Upward Bound program will serve 60 students from Madison County, in the north-central portion of Florida, starting Sept. 1.
“Our hope is that we are building more recognition of FSU in rural areas to create a pipeline to the university from some of those high schools and communities,” Brown said.
The new funding supplements the $3.5 million for the Upward Bound programs FSU runs in Gadsden and Jackson counties and the $1.4 million awarded last year to Suwannee and Hamilton counties for a program that focuses on math and science.
All students in the existing programs graduated from high school and 96% of them are anticipated to attend college in the fall.
The U.S. government created Upward Bound as part of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. FSU launched it in Gadsden County in 1989, and administrators hail it today as one of the longest continuously funded Upward Bound programs in Florida.
The program provides resources to 9th-12th grade students who come from low-income families or from families where no parent earned a bachelor’s degree. Students get tutoring, personalized instruction, testing help and instruction about applying to college.
For more about CARE and Upward Bound, visit care.fsu.edu.
