Celebrating 60 Years of TRIO Excellence

President Lyndon Baines Johnson never forgot his experience as a young man teaching impoverished children in a Texas elementary school. As part of the Great Society ushered in by his Administration, the United States saw the proliferation of several anti-poverty programs, to include Upward Bound, which was created through the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act. A year later, the Higher Education Act of 1965 created the Talent Search program. In addition to these two programs, in 1968, Student Support Services was rolled out as part of the Higher Education Amendments. Together, the three programs became known as “TRIO” but grew to include four more student programs that followed over the next several decades: Veterans Upward Bound, Educational Opportunity Centers, the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Program, and Upward Bound Math-Science. In 1976, the federal government added a Training Program for Federal TRIO Programs for professional staff.