In 2012, former Oregon governor John Kitzhaber declared an ambitious goal in his State of the State Address. 

“Next year’s class of kindergarten students is a benchmark,” he said. “They are the class of 2025. And 2025 is the year we’ve set to have 100 percent high school graduation in the state of Oregon.”

OPB decided to document the stories of a kindergarten class on their journey all the way through high school; to capture what it’s like to grow up in the Oregon education system, and all the other life experiences that make us who we are along the way. 

Thirteen years after Kitzhaber’s State of the State address, that once tall order of a one-hundred percent high school graduation rate is no longer the goal. 

“We’re not gonna meet it,” Kitzhaber said. 

Now, it’s both the Class of 2025’s last year of high school and OPB’s last year of this long-term project. 

In the next few weeks, we’ll hear three unique stories from the class of 2025 students we’ve been following. 

In this episode, we present the story of two cousins: Anna and Austin. As little kids, they lived in the same neighborhood and went to the same elementary school. But now they go to different high schools, in two different zip codes.

How did Austin and Anna’s high schools affect their decisions about college? Education reporter Elizabeth Miller finds out. 

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