Tarleton State University is supporting of the Stephenville community and surrounding communities by providing high school students with the resources to be successful in order pursue a higher education through Upward Bound.

Upward Bound, according to Jenny Watts, Director of Upward Bound, “provides college preparatory services to underrepresented high school students.”

The purpose of these programs is to help students who don’t have the resources to have the potential to become college graduates.

“Students who apply for Upward Bound must be a freshman or sophomore in high school, attend one of the Upward Bound target schools [and] qualify as a potential first generation college student or demonstrate financial need,” Watts said.

Despite having set criteria, the program does not merely seek out straight-A students. Instead, they look for students who do not seem to be meeting their true potential, according to Watts.

The goal of Upward Bound is “to ensure that students have competitive college entrance exam scores,” Watts said.

Upward Bound provides students with tutoring, academic advising, assistance with college applications and financial aid processes, college tours, a summer academic residential program, career and college exploration and mentoring.

Upward Bound serves as a personal school counselor to the students as they receive individualized academic services rather than most school counselors who have large and diverse student case loads.

By providing students with such services, they are able to go further than they were expected by social standards.

The success of the program is undeniable; students who take part in the program can attend college and receive a degree.

Watts said, “90 percent of Tarleton Upward Bound participants enroll in college after high school. 60 percent of those students are completing an associate or bachelor degree.”

Both statistics exceed state and national college enrollment and completion rates. Currently, 99 students in the Upward Bound program.

“A major misconception about first generation and economically disadvantaged high school students is that they should be able to ‘pull themselves up by the bootstraps,’ when in reality there are many invisible obstacles to pursuing higher education,” Watts said.

To Watts, this is the best job in the world because she gets to see the best of education because her “students are motivated and determined to succeed in secondary education and pursue postsecondary education.”