Upward Bound at LMU

Each year at Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnets, just blocks from the LMU campus, 58 students from disadvantaged backgrounds reap the benefits of LMU’s Upward Bound program through wide-ranging activities and counseling services aimed at increasing college enrollment rates. Now the program, housed in SOE, has received a $1.2 million U.S. Department of Education grant to support these students for the next five years.

In its first decade, Upward Bound at LMU has transformed the lives of WESM participants, who come from low-income families in which neither parent has a bachelor’s degree. “Nationally, the six-year graduation rate for first-time, full-time undergraduate students who began seeking a bachelor’s degree at a four-year degree-granting institution in the fall of 2009 was 59 percent,” notes Norma Romero, director of Upward Bound at LMU. “By comparison, the six-year graduation rate for LMU Upward Bound alumni is 76 percent.” Among the program’s 126 graduates is Fatima Galvez, who completed her bachelor’s degree in 2014 and started SOE’s master’s-degree program in bilingual education this fall.

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