Future Ready Oregon Year Two Report
The Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) Office of Research and Data has completed the second annual report on Future Ready Oregon for the Governor and Oregon Legislature. This report primarily evaluates the implementation of and participation in Future Ready Oregon programs.
We are pleased to share some highlights from the second annual report, which you can read in full here. You can also watch a recent presentation on the Year Two Report by Amy Cox, director of the HECC Office of Research and Data. This presentation was part of an update on Future Ready Oregon to the Oregon State Legislature’s Joint Committee on Ways and Means – Subcommittee on Education on February 5th. Click here to view the presentation (beginning at 33:10).
Scope
The Year Two annual report describes the continued implementation of Future Ready Oregon from May 2022 through fall 2023. The report includes initial participation and completion rates through June 2023 and considers how these initial outcomes relate to statewide labor force and education trends. All eight Future Ready Oregon programs are reviewed in the report, including those administered by the HECC’s agency partners, the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) and Youth Development Oregon (YDO).
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Key Findings About Participation and Outcomes
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9,441 participants have been served by Future Ready Oregon.
- This number includes 3,854 participants in Prosperity 10,000; 3,354 in Postsecondary Career Pathways; 316 in BOLI Registered Apprenticeships; 1,141 in YDO Youth Programs; and 868 in Workforce Ready Grants.
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92% of participants who reported information identified as a member of a Priority Population.*
- Similar rates exist across all Future Ready Oregon programs that served participants.
- Engagement with Priority Populations informed Future Ready Oregon grantmaking and program strategies.
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Participants completed 97% of services in which they enrolled.
- The most common services used by participants were intentional supports from Postsecondary Career Pathways, career coaching, and workforce development training.
- Completion rates are high across Priority Populations and programs.
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31% of participants used wraparound supports.
- These supports include transportation, tools, supplies, uniforms, technology, residential assistance, stipends, food assistance, and childcare.
- Many grantees pointed to these supports as key reasons for the high completion rates.
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Participants were more diverse than Oregon’s labor force.
- People of color, people in rural and frontier locations, and youth are more represented among participants than in Oregon’s labor force.
- This finding represents an essential first step toward creating a more diverse labor force.
Overall Findings and Recommendations
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Prioritizing Engagement: Engaging those served was consistently associated with improved outcomes. This includes engagement with participant communities and Priority Populations, applicants and grantees, and other providers, agencies, and partners.
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Recommendation: Future workforce development investments, especially those that aim to advance equity, should prioritize engagement with the communities intended to benefit from the investment. Current investments should continue to do so.
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Flexible Funding: One of the most commonly reported benefits of Future Ready Oregon for grantees was the flexibility of funding. Grantees repeatedly described the ability to provide wraparound supports as a significant reason they were able to serve as many participants as they did, especially participants from Priority Populations.
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Recommendation: Future workforce development investments should include flexibility for allowable uses of funds to encourage innovation, maximize reach, and improve program success. Current investments should continue to do so.
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Sector-specific Job Training: Topic-focused job training, especially in healthcare, manufacturing, and technology, is not (yet) common among participants. Only 29% of participants outside of Postsecondary Career Pathways enrolled in topic-focused training. Less than half of these are in the key industry sectors of healthcare, manufacturing, and technology.
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Recommendation: Future Ready Oregon programs should expand workforce development trainings for the healthcare, manufacturing, and technology sectors.
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Administration: Administrative burden can be high, especially in rapid, multi-faceted programs like Future Ready Oregon. Support from agencies in application, awarding, and reporting processes eased this burden and improved efficiency and accuracy.
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Recommendation: Future workforce development investments should provide the time and staffing resources to plan how to build processes and tools that ease the administrative burden on grantees for different funding sources. Current investments should continue to do so.
*Priority Populations include communities of color, women, low-income communities, rural and frontier communities, veterans, persons with disabilities, incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals, members of Oregon’s tribes, older adults, and individuals who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community.
 New HECC Agency Website Has Launched
Includes Expanded Future Ready Oregon and Industry Consortia Content
The Higher Education Coordinating Commission is pleased to announce the launch of our redesigned agency website at www.oregon.gov/highered. The new website is designed to be more accessible, mobile responsive, and user-friendly as we aim to engage the public on the work we do to support higher education and training statewide. Some of the features of the design include the following.
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A simplified home page with multiple ways to find content
- A more modern, mobile-responsive design using visual components
- A focus on audience needs, including: student and learner opportunities, public engagement opportunities, equity and student success resources, and commonly needed resources for institution and workforce partners
- A website system that is more accessible for all, including people with disabilities who may use assistive technology to access content and people who speak/read languages other than English
- New content in multiple areas, including sections focused on:
The expanded Future Ready Oregon pages on the new HECC site include the following content:
If you currently link to pages or documents on our site, we recommend you update your links to the new page addresses at your convenience.
Technology Industry Consortium Will Meet February 29th
Join Us in Wilsonville From 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
The Technology Industry Consortium will convene in Wilsonville at the Oregon Institute of Technology on Thursday, February 29th, for its first quarterly public meeting of the new year. More information, including the meeting agenda, is available on our new Industry Consortia page. To receive the latest Industry Consortia updates, subscribe to our public meeting notices.
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