Student Support Services’ TRIO Scholars Program assists eligible students with navigating their college journey to earn their bachelor’s degree.
TRIO Scholars meet eligibility requirements for being first-generation, low-income, and/or disabled. Disabilities must be documented with Services for Students with Disabilities. TRIO Scholars include both traditional and non-traditional students.
TRIO History
The history of TRIO is progressive and is rooted in the Civil Rights Movement.
The first TRIO program was Upward Bound (serves students grades 9-12), which came out of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 in response to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration's War on Poverty, which itself was an initiative spurred on by everyday activists.
In 1965, Educational Talent Search (serves students in grades 6-12), the second program, was created as part of the Higher Education Act. In 1968, Student Support Services (serves undergraduate college students) was authorized by the Higher Education Amendments and became the third federally funded educational opportunity program.
By the late 1960s, we started calling these three programs “TRIO.” Now there are many more programs, like McNair, which helps students get into graduate school, but we still go by the name TRIO.