Did UVA kill its Uplift@UVA program because of money, or was it, ahem, something else?

The official word on the decision by the University of Virginia to discontinue its Uplift@UVA summer-enrichment program for kids from less-than-privileged backgrounds has been: it’s about money.

Odd, then, that when I reached out to the PR folks to find out how much the program cost on an annual basis, the response I got back was: “I don’t have that number to share.”

So much, then, for the money angle.

Notice something about the kids in the photo that I screenshotted from the Uplift@UVA webpage?

Yeah, they’re all Black.

The Trump administration teamed with the MAGAs on the UVA Board of Visitors to pressure Jim Ryan into stepping down as president because he was slow-walking the directive from the Trumpers to dismantle the University’s DEI program.

Guess it’s just coincidence that this enrichment program for local Black kids that, since 1967, has given scores of first-generation learners a hand-up toward higher education is just up and gone now.

To be clear, UVA says the program, which began as Upward Bound, lost its federal funding in 2022, which was in the Biden years.

No reason was given as to why the UVA program lost its federal funding, but to the school’s credit, the decision was made to rebrand, and “the University provided temporary operating support with the understanding that this would be revisited annually as part of UVA’s budget development process,” I was told by a UVA spokesperson, Bethanie Glover.

“In each subsequent year, the University has closely evaluated whether to extend the temporary funding for Uplift, alongside all other institutional needs and priorities,” Glover said.

This is where it would be helpful to know the budget for Uplift@UVA.

Glover said the Starr Hill Pathways program, managed through UVA’s Center for Community Partnerships, “is reaching increasing numbers of students in our local community,” and that “participation in Uplift’s programs has been more modest.”

No numbers were offered to back up those assertions, but we’ll take her word on it, though I’ll note, looking through the photo gallery on the Starr Hill Pathways page, first thing you notice is, not nearly as many Black faces there.

Glover said UVA staff has communicated with Uplift@UVA participants “to ensure that they have information about other UVA-affiliated and local programs available to them.”

Here’s to hoping we see more of those kids rolling over next summer.