Frequency of Precollegiate Programs

Approximately one-third (32 percent) of higher education institutions reported having precollegiate programs designed to increase the access of disadvantaged students to college (table 1). Precollegiate programs were more common in large institutions (71 percent) than in small institutions (21 percent), in public institutions (45 percent) than in private institutions (22 percent), and in 4-year institutions (35 percent) than in 2-year institutions (28 percent).

Thirty-one percent of the largest precollegiate programs (based on funding) were Upward Bound.¹³ However, the focus of this study on the largest precollegiate program sometimes resulted in the exclusion of Upward Bound programs.¹⁴ Thus, while this study will often describe Upward Bound programs as forming a relatively distinctive group among all of the largest precollegiate programs, it was not the purpose of this study to provide a general description of all Upward Bound programs. Rather, the statistics presented here should be interpreted only as applying to those Upward Bound programs that were the largest precollegiate program at their institutions.¹⁵

Upward Bound programs were more likely to be found at some institutions than at others. They composed 35 percent of the largest precollegiate programs at 4-year institutions but only 21 percent at 2-year institutions, and about 40 percent at institutions in the Southeast and Central regions versus 13 percent in the Northeast.

Institutions were asked to describe what percentage of all funding for precollegiate programs was received by the largest program in terms of funding, and what percentage of all precollegiate students were in the largest program. However, institutional representatives indicated that they could not provide reliable estimates in response to these questions, so their responses were recoded to only reflect very simple judgments by the institution: whether the program was the only precollegiate program at the institution (i.e., it had all of the students and funding), it had at least half of the students and/or funding, or it had less than half (figure 1).

Institutions were asked to describe what percentage of all funding for precollegiate programs was received by the largest program in terms of funding, and what percentage of all precollegiate students were in the largest program. However, institutional representatives indicated that they could not provide reliable estimates in response to these questions, so their responses were recoded to only reflect very simple judgments by the institution: whether the program was the only precollegiate program at the institution (i.e., it had all of the students and funding), it had at least half of the students and/or funding, or it had less than half (figure 1).

By these measures, the largest precollegiate programs accounted for a substantial portion of all precollegiate programs. For approximately half (47 to 48 percent) of the institutions with precollegiate programs, the largest program was the only program. For another 38 percent, the largest program accounted for at least half of the funding, while for 30 percent they accounted for at least half of the students. Even at the largest institutions, which were the most likely to have multiple precollegiate programs, the largest program accounted for all students or funding at 34 percent of the institutions, and for at least half of the students or funding at another 34 to 41 percent (table 2). The largest program was likely to be the only precollegiate program to receive funding at private institutions (59 percent) and at small institutions (61 percent). Thus, though this study is limited to the largest precollegiate programs, often either no precollegiate program for the disadvantaged was excluded (simply because the responding institution had only one such program) or the excluded programs accounted for only a small portion of the funding or students. In short, this survey provided relatively broad coverage of precollegiate programs despite the choice to include only the largest programs.

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¹³ If one includes eight institutions that a U.S. Department of Education list showed as having Upward Bound, but that reported having no precollegiate programs, the estimate would be 32 percent. Since no data were collected on these eight programs, and since they would have only a minor effect on the statistics, these eight institutions will be ignored in this report.

¹⁴ Upward Bound programs are relatively intensive, so they typically are the largest precollegiate program at each institution in terms of funding, but are not necessarily the largest in terms of the number of precollegiate students. In fact, while Upward Bound programs comprised 30 percent of the largest programs, they had only 10 percent of the precollegiate students in the largest precollegiate programs (see table 3 later in this report), suggesting that they are relatively small from a national perspective in terms of the number of students served.

¹⁵ Most likely, statistics for all Upward Bound programs would be roughly similar to those presented here, since the criterion of picking the largest precollegiate program resulted in including 120 of the 147 Upward Bound programs (unweighted) that were identified at the institutions reporting having precollegiate programs. But this study would have been designed differently if the intention were to provide a general description of all Upward Bound programs.

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