This Monday’s the start of another academic year at Arizona Western College and while business is largely carrying on as usual, uncertainty lingers about the longevity of some of the college’s longstanding programs. Namely, CAMP, the College Assistance Migrant Program, and TRIO.
Both programs are funded by federal grants and in an ordinary year, they would already know if they’re going to continue receiving funding, but it’s anything but an ordinary year.
For TRIO at AWC, the Student Support Services program – known as KEYS (Keep Envisioning Your Success) – is just two weeks shy of the end of its cycle. The renewal application for the competitive grant was submitted over a year ago and even though program years start in September, there’s been no word from the federal government on the status of AWC’s application.
But what is TRIO?
At the national level, TRIO is an umbrella for eight programs designed to increase access to college for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The name refers to the original three programs created in the ‘60s under President Lyndon B. Johnson.
According to AWC TRIO Director Michelle Thomas, these programs arose from Johnson’s War on Poverty and the idea that “education was [the] great equalizer” and that “it would be impactful to help individuals who had not had access to higher education to gain access and be able to obtain a bachelor's degree.”
The original programs are Upward Bound and Talent Search – which focus on getting first generation, low-income students into college – and then Student Support Services, which according to Thomas was the result of a “bright idea [that] was like, ‘Okay, well, now that they're here in college now, how do we help them stay in college?”
At AWC, the KEYS program has existed since 1991, or 34 years. Upward Bound and Talent Search followed shortly after in the late ‘90s.
Funding for all three programs at the college are entirely reliant on federal appropriations.
TRIO’s funding status
Each grant operates on a five-year cycle, meaning they can be renewed every five years, but at the beginning of each year within the cycle, they receive award notifications for the funding amounts they can expect to receive.
Upward Bound and Talent Search have yet to receive their yearly award notifications, which isn’t entirely out of the norm according to Thomas, but the real concern is the lack of notification for KEYS, which is at the end of its five-year cycle.
When Thomas initially interviewed with KAWC about the subject, she was hopeful that TRIO would hear news by the end of June, but the final program year of the cycle closes out at the end of this month, leaving only two weeks for notification that KEYS will continue operating like usual in September.
In a follow-up interview this week, Thomas explained what’ll happen if there’s no notification by Sept. 1.
“Well, that's where the wonderful institution, which is the host of the grant, then develops a plan of how to close down that grant and then decides how we will continue to provide support or services to the students who were part of that program,” she said. “And I rest assured if that is what’s necessarily what’ll happen, we will be able to come up with a great way to continue to provide those students the support that they need.
“…We've seen a big change of the landscape in higher education when it comes to support services, wraparound services for students. So it's just a matter of developing a plan of action to notify students, to make sure students know where they need to go and just work within the departments and the different staff that is currently with the institution of how to support those students.”
The landscape change she mentioned is one she attributes to Student Support Services at the national level, which has pioneered wraparound services – like tutoring centers and computer labs – that have become standard offerings for college students.
“These programs allowed colleges and universities to really pilot a lot of, now, what is standard services: you know, tutoring centers, having computers available to students … that was one of the things that you may have only found in a TRIO program, you know? It wasn't something that was open or available to all students at an institution,” she said.
What does Student Support Services, or TRIO KEYS, do?
Thomas explained KEYS is an essential continuation of the work programs like Talent Search and Upward Bound accomplish in helping first-generation, low-income and disabled students access higher education.
“Because just, you know, giving people money but not providing the support and the resources to help them navigate the higher education arena does no good, you know?” she said. “Yeah, I could pay for my tuition, I could pay for classes, but if I don't know how to study in these classes, if I don't know how to access the resources or where do I go to, you know, what questions—and one of my big things is that why sometimes our students, especially our first generation students, don't tend to ask the questions is because they just don't know what questions to ask. And I know that was me. I was one of those; I'm a first-generation college student, and I struggled with that.”
Thomas has noticed a commonality between herself and other first-generation students where they don’t ask the questions they need to ask of their professors and departments like financial aid, and oftentimes, they end up not making the progress they need or they give up.
“Our programs help to provide those supports, you know, that help,” she said. “We anticipate what those challenges are for our first-gen students and we advocate for them. We'll help them, you know, go to financial aid to find out what's going on with the financial aid? What do they need? What documentation? If their progress has not been good. And so maybe their financial aid has been suspended—we will help explain that to the students: what they need to do, what are some of the different options that you have to be able to continue to go forward and to make that progress so that you can be back in good standing.”
KEYS at AWC offers:
- Academic and career advising
- Academic support services, such as one-on-one tutoring, group study sessions, peer mentoring and coaching
- Cultural enrichment opportunities through events and other programming
- Financial aid and scholarship assistance
- Financial literacy education
- Grant aid awards
- Leadership and student engagement opportunities, such as SOTE (Seeking Opportunities Through Education) and KSAC (KEYS Student Advisory Council) participant clubs
- Transfer services to help with transferring to a four-year program of postsecondary education
Although wraparound services has improved for college students at large, Thomas believes KEYS continues to matter significantly because it helps students graduate.
“Our graduation rates, if we look at them in our community colleges, you know, there’s still room for growth,” she said.
She also noted that countless students have benefitted over TRIO’s 34 years at AWC: each year, 240 students are served by the KEYS program alone.
KEYS success: alum shares experience and concerns for the future
One such student, Mireya Bañuelos, graduated last year thanks to the program’s help. She’s since transferred to the University of Arizona, where she’s pursuing a bachelor’s in Leadership and Learning Innovation. TRIO has been essential for her transition.
“It's kind of hard because it's online, but overall I know that I can fall back on the TRIO at U of A by contacting them, having zoom meetings and through emails,” Bañuelos said. “But also, I can fall back with Angie (Gebhardt), Michelle (Thomas), Chaney (Linares) and the KEYS over here at Arizona Western because, for sure they have students that also transfer and maybe need help with them, per se. So yeah, it's kind of hard from that transition, but [I] still have people to fall back on.”
Bañuelos shared with KAWC that the TRIO team at AWC is composed of “the most greatest people” and she doesn’t know where she would be today without the opportunities TRIO gave her.
Participating in Club SOTE, for example, taught her leadership and provided her with a greater sense of community.
“Not just opportunities, but I also wanted to have that physical connection with the other students,” she said. “Within my first year was the pandemic, so it was kind of hard to make that physical connection. But throughout the other two years, it was just, like, really there—like, we helped each other out. It didn't matter the age group. It didn't matter the career field. It's just that we were just there helping each other out.”
Bañuelos recalled she’s had the chance to attend conferences that were really helpful for herself and other KEYS students.
One special opportunity?
“They do this conference every year for one particular day of the year, and it’s a ‘First Gen Symposium’ and they have high schoolers and college students, but, like, it doesn't matter if it's part time or full time going to that particular conference. And they learn any information about the particular field that the students want to go in,” she said.
As a proud and grateful product of KEYS, Bañuelos is concerned for the program’s future.
“I think it all matters because there's so many people with first gen or families with low income or kids with [disability] and … to be completely honest, it's really horrible what's going on with the funding for these students because they do really want to succeed,” she said.
Remaining hope: bipartisan support and AWC's commitment
President Donald Trump’s discretionary budget request for fiscal year 2026 essentially eliminates all funding for TRIO programs. On page five of the request, TRIO is lumped with Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP). The listed reduction amount, which is $1.579 billion, adds up to the total funding TRIO and GEAR UP received in fiscal 2025.
But hope is not yet lost for students like Mireya. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill on July 31 by a vote of 26 to 3. The bill sustains TRIO funding at $1.2 billion for the 2026-2027 program year.
While the move isn’t a guarantee that the funding will be sustained since many steps remain in the appropriations process, it does indicate bipartisan support exists.
In the meantime, TRIO is still waiting for word on its grant renewal application for KEYS. Michelle Thomas, the team at TRIO and KEYS students are still hopeful for good news before the end of the month, but if time runs out, TRIO still has the college’s backing for this year.
During a summer interview with AWC President Dr. Daniel Corr, KAWC asked what the college might do if TRIO doesn’t hear back on its renewal application.
“Here's the college's commitment,” he said. “We will fund that program while this uncertainty, you know, plays itself out, right? So we will absolutely–no one is going to lose their job. No students are going to lose their scholarships or support … If the federal government doesn't come through, we will fund that program for this coming year while we sort things out. It's the only fair thing to do to the students who have committed to us. We're going to keep our commitment to them.”
This reporting is supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.
