Utilizing the Website

Click on a county and a pop-up will appear with information on the county’s demographics, college savings assets and participation rates, and the total number of public elementary schools in the county.

The green dots on the map show participating school districts throughout the state. To see a map of which elementary schools are participating in each school district, please visit https://drive.google.com/open?id=17FuBeSvIAZSKgnDHk-XYGILIjquAaVxz&usp=sharing

Welcome to the Oregon Savings Network’s county information website. This website contains information about the college savings activity in every Oregon county. The Network was created to increase the ability of Oregonians to save for future higher education expenses through the Oregon College Savings Plan (OCSP). It is a unique investment tool that provides state and federal tax advantages and more flexibility than many other college savings vehicles. For more information, visit www.oregoncollegesavings.com.

Children with as little as $500 saved for college are three times more likely to enroll in college and four times more likely to graduate, research shows. It is encouraging statistics like this that motivated us to create our school-based outreach program Be College Ready.

Be College Ready

Launched as a pilot program in five school districts during the 2015-16 school year, Be College Ready had the simple goal of helping young families learn the value of saving for higher education early in a child’s life using the OCSP. With results showing an increase in OCSP accounts among participating school districts and communities, we expanded Be College Ready to be a statewide program.

Be College Ready Today

For the 2017-2018 school year Be College Ready was open to all public elementary schools, private elementary schools and homeschooled children of elementary school age across Oregon. The results were tremendous:

  • We partnered with 72 different school districts across the state, serving 168 schools (10 private schools), including 28 school presentations/events with OCSP staff, resulting in an increased presence and awareness of the OCSP among Oregon families
  • We provided 25,836 OCSP English informational brochures and 4,905 OCSP Spanish informational brochures to participating schools that can be shared with parents
  • We provided 46,474 English Be College Ready kits and 8,213 Spanish Be College Ready kits to participating schools
    • Each kit contains free homework folders, pencils and bookmarks for every student; also included is information for parents to win $100 for an OCSP account
  • The sharing of information about the benefits of the OCSP has translated in a dramatic increase in OCSP account activity in participating school districts when comparing OCSP account activity from September –December in 2016 to September –December 2017
    • The overall total number of new OCSP new accounts being opened in Be College Ready communities for the 2017 period being up 4.6% and the dollar amounts from these new contributing accounts is up 49.6% compared to the year before when looking at new OCSP accounts being opened
    • The overall total number of OCSP contributing accounts in Be College Ready communities for the 2017 period was up 12.3% and that the dollar amounts from these contributing accounts are up 12.7% when compared to the same timeframe from the year before

What this demonstrates is when Oregon families are directly exposed to the benefits of the OCSP though information shared by their schools in partnership with the Be College Ready program that more accounts are being opened and families are contributing more money to them in order to support the post-secondary aspirations of a loved one.

Please visit www.becollegeready.net starting August 13, 2018 to order free supplies for your elementary school(s) for the 2018-2019 school year and learn more about the program.