The HECC was charged by the Oregon Legislature with launching a statewide direct admissions program, and agency staff are working closely with partners to design and ultimately implement the program statewide. The $65,000 grant, awarded as part of the Meyer Memorial Trust’s Our Empowered Youth funding, will ensure that the design of Oregon’s future direct admissions program is shaped by the young people it is designed to serve.
In 2024, the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 1552 requiring HECC to establish a direct admissions program with all Oregon public higher education institutions, and 2025 legislation expanded the effort to eligible private institutions. Much work has been done already on statewide program planning, including the recent development of a welcoming student-friendly name for the program. Open Doors Oregon (and in Spanish, Abriendo Puertas Oregon) will ultimately be the program names that students and families see when they receive news of Oregon’s direct admissions opportunity. Numerous processes are still being refined to best structure and roll out the program for students; the grant will help HECC to complete this design work.
Veronica Dujon, director of the HECC Office of Academic Policy and Authorization (APA), emphasizes, “Student perspectives are essential to ensure that this future program does what it intends: directly connecting public high school seniors with the colleges and universities that they qualify for, simplifying current processes, and truly opening doors to promising futures for Oregon youth. We are thankful for the support of Meyer Memorial Trust, and excited to expand our capacity to meaningfully engage young people on a program that will serve Oregonians for years to come.”
The Meyer Memorial Trust grant specifically supports the convening of a Youth Advisory Council for one year to embed student voice into the refinement and rollout of Oregon’s direct admissions initiative. The grant project, including the convening of the Youth Advisory Council and opportunities for wider student and community input, will be led by Mariana Zaragoza, direct admissions academic policy specialist in the HECC APA office. The HECC will recruit and support a council of 12 high school students from across Oregon, with a focus on underserved and underrepresented student populations in higher education, including Black students, Indigenous students, and communities of color; first-generation, rural, and low-income students; and students with disabilities.
The student engagement work supported by this grant builds on ongoing HECC engagement with representatives from Oregon universities, community colleges, school districts, and the Oregon Department of Education. The HECC has been working with these partners on creating processes for identifying, admitting and welcoming high school students; necessary data systems; best practices; clarification of responsibilities, and more. The added focus on youth engagement in this initiative is part of a broader effort to prioritize the goal of belonging, a goal established in the HECC Strategic Plan, which directly calls on the agency to elevate learner voices and support inclusivity across postsecondary settings. In addition to this one-year youth engagement project, the pilot effort supported by the grant will help HECC determine how to best make youth engagement an ongoing feature of the future program.
Open Doors Oregon is not yet available for Oregon students; however, partners who wish to learn more about the statewide planning can see implementation updates on the HECC website. In addition, students and families who are interested in exploring postsecondary opportunities can find key links at Access College and Training.
Meyer Memorial Trust is a private philanthropic foundation focused on accelerating racial, social and economic justice for Oregon's lands and peoples. The foundation's Our Empowered Youth funding area is focused on cultivating leadership opportunities for youth and communities to advocate for educational justice.
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