Study of Federal Upward Bound Program at Risk

Congress is weighing plans to scuttle a $5 million evaluation of the national Upward Bound program for low-income high school students because the federal study calls for randomly assigning students to either the program or a control group.

Established in 1965 as part of the “war on poverty,” Upward Bound provided summer learning activities, mentoring, college counseling, work-study jobs, and other services to an estimated 61,000 students last year. Its aim is to increase college-going rates among students from disadvantaged families, particularly when neither parent has attended college.

“I speak often of a ladder of opportunity that takes energy, persistence, and responsibility to climb,” Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a critic of the study, said in a statement. “Young people deserve to know that programs like Upward Bound will be there for them as they climb that ladder and that they will not lose that access for the...