ERIC PAUL ZAMORA/THE FRESNO BEE

Jose Chavez, 14, left, will start as a freshman at Hoover High School this fall. His brother Juan Chavez, 18, has been accepted to Cal Poly's School of Architecture and will attend this fall.

Brothers are now Upward Bound

Program helps one sibling reach college dreams, while the other is just beginning.

By Doug Hoagland / The Fresno Bee

07/06/08 21:25:49

More information

2007-08 Upward Bound at Fresno City College

71 high school students were accepted (minimum 2.0 GPA required); 60 finished

21 of the 60 were seniors; college plans: 12 to Fresno State; five to City College; one each to UC Davis, Cal Poly, Academy of Art University in San Francisco and San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton

Of the 71, 33 were Asian, 21 Hispanic, 12 black and five white

Source: Fresno City College Upward Bound

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates is helping pay for Juan Chavez to go to college, and younger brother Jose Chavez wants the same scholarship when he graduates from high school.

The Chavez brothers are ambitious, good students -- and bookends in a federal program that helps promising but disadvantaged students prepare for college and look for ways to pay for it.

Jose, a high school freshman, joined the Upward Bound program this summer at Fresno City College. Juan is finishing the program after graduating from high school in June.

Poor students who don't have family members to guide them to college need such help, supporters say.

Juan is a believer.

Four years ago, he was a shy, insecure ninth-grader struggling to feel comfortable speaking English.

Then he made some friends during Upward Bound's summer school, felt accepted and his confidence grew.

"I believed I was becoming the person I always dreamed of being," he said.

Now 18 and at ease with English, Juan is going to study architecture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in the fall. He is one of 1,000 students chosen this year to be a Gates Millennium Scholar.

More than 13,000 students applied to the scholarship program, initially financed by a $1 billion grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Juan also is getting another scholarship and other aid to cover the approximately $20,000 annual cost of attending Cal Poly.

Juan's success has stoked his brother's competitive streak. "I want to be like him, and even be better," said 14-year-old Jose.

Jose wants to become a lawyer, and already he is thinking about the best schools -- and trying to keep all the names straight.

"I want to go to Hanford," he said, prompting his brother to say, "You mean Harvard."

"Oh, yeah," Jose replied. "I want to major in law. I watch 'CSI' and I really like it. And I'm good at arguing."

Upward Bound targets students such as Juan and Jose. Juan is in the first generation of his family to go to college, following an older sister -- their parents didn't finish high school in Mexico. The Chavez brothers also are low-income: their father is a candy salesman and their mother cleans houses.

The brothers are getting help from a multimillion-dollar federal program that some officials have criticized.

The U.S. Department of Education spent $315 million on Upward Bound programs across the nation this fiscal year. The federal Office of Management and Budget gave the national program an ineffective rating in the past, and Upward Bound made changes to better target higher-risk students, said Department of Education spokeswoman Jane Glickman.

California State University, Fresno also runs an Upward Bound program.

At City College, the program works with 60 to 70 students each year from Fresno high schools, most of whom join as freshmen or sophomores. They attend summer school at City College, get tutoring from college students during the school year and receive career counseling. Some also do job-shadows in hospitals, schools and businesses during the summer.

Twenty-one seniors -- including Juan -- finished the program this spring, and all of them are scheduled to attend college this fall, said Ginna Bearden, Upward Bound director at City College.

Upward Bound serves an important purpose in Fresno, she said: "There are tremendous numbers of families who haven't been to college and they don't know how to help their children go through the process of getting in."

Juan said that his parents couldn't help him prepare for college, and that he didn't get much help from his counselor at Hoover High during his first three years of high school. Juan graduated from Hoover, and Jose will start there in the fall.

Ironically, when he was that shy ninth-grader, Juan didn't believe he needed Upward Bound.

"I felt I had the drive. I felt I didn't need extra help," Juan said. "But Upward Bound gave me the extra push to graduate from high school and go to college. Upward Bound made me stand out."

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