“Not enough of our families’ education dreams come true. I’m in the business of dream making.”
Through February 2024, Audrey Dow served as Senior Vice President of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a California-based policy and research organization that ensures more students go to college and succeed. As a member of the Executive Team, she had broad responsibilities for co-leading the organizations’ strategic direction, robust research agenda, and for leading strategic media, communications and coalition building efforts. At the Campaign, she led successful campaigns to end the use of the SAT/ACT in admissions at the University of California and California State University, ushering in remedial education and transfer reform at California’s community colleges, urgently prioritizing the hiring of racially/ethnic and gender diverse faculty, college and university leaders across California’s public institutions of higher education, and reforming financial aid to serve more low-income students regardless of when or where they go to college. She has been a principal author and contributed to numerous watershed reports on higher education and racial/ethnic inequity. She continues to contribute to the Campaign’s work as a Senior Advisor, where she continues to provide strategic thought partnership and guidance on the organization’s communications work as she launches her own consultancy.
Audrey has over twenty years of experience in the public and nonprofit sectors where she has trained Latinas to take on elected and appointed leadership roles in the public sector at Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE) and served as a gubernatorial appointee to the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.
Dow’s career has been focused on finding solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing the state of California including access and success in higher education, an aging infrastructure system, racial inclusion in hiring, contracting and university admissions, and ensuring underrepresented groups in the state have a seat at policy-making tables.
She was appointed in 2022 by Governor Gavin Newsom to the California Student Aid Commission and in 2021 to the Health Workforce and Education Training Council. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Excelencia in Education, and is the Board Chair for the Alliance for a Better Community.
Audrey resides in Hacienda Heights, California with her husband Stephen and has four children; Isabella, Alexandra, Rocco and Brody.
Audrey has a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Policy and Management from the University of Southern California and a Masters in Public Affairs with an emphasis in Domestic Policy, and a certificate in Urban Policy, from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
Alma Mater(s): University of Southern California and Princeton University
Your role in one sentence: I build broad-based coalitions that ensure our public colleges and universities better serve our students and the state and I keep Californians informed of the state of higher education and what they can do to help.
When I am not at work helping students get to and succeed in college I am…raising four little Californians and trying hard not to pull out all of my hair!
If not higher education then what cause? I’m confused, is there another cause?
Commissioner
California Student Aid Commission
Council Member
Chair, Board of Directors
Alliance for a Better Community
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