Dear Congress,

With all due respect, please kick rocks barefoot up a hill.  Are you seriously considering cutting funding on the TRIO programs that help get minorities and first generation students to college?  President Obama, I'm looking at you too. Simply put, during your campaign you said you had TRIO's back and would INCREASE spending.  Here's what I think about your tactics- This Request Is Outrageous!

What I can't quite understand, ladies and gentlemen, is how the government could even fathom the idea of removing funding from ANY area of education, let alone those programs dedicated to diversity, recruitment, and retention.  Do you mean to suggest that we are at a point in history where color is only referencing television screens or crayon boxes?  Have you BEEN to those schools in your constituency where minorities and first generation college students struggle to gain entry and, most importantly, STAY for the duration of a degree? Have you taught or saw how much good programs like Upward Bound, bridge programs, and other mentoring channels funded by TRIO have done for people with disadvantaged backgrounds and minority status?  A collegiate environment is difficult. For many minorities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds, its an aesthetically pleasing mine field. Why would you take these valuable resources away? If color and social-economic circumstance were non-existent, there would be no need for such programs.  Those biases, however, exist and restrict these potential scholars from fulfilling their full potential. If you MUST cut funding fom direly needed programs like these, please put alternative solutions in place to show these students they are looked out for and that a college degree is not in the realms of impossibility.

Please reconsider your approaches and refrain from cutting and eliminating funds to TRIO programs.  For those who have never considered college, these programs may be an only option or alternative.

Sincerely,
A Voter and TRIO advocate

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Folks, we need to let our voices be heard. Please sign and forward the petition below:

http://education.change.org/actions/view/ask_your_elected_officials_to_invest_in_our_future_-_support_to_keep_trio_programs_alive