In Bend, Oregon, twelve more students have just joined a scholarship program that doesn't ask for their GPAs—it asks what they've survived. The Bend-La Pine Education Foundation has expanded its Axel F. Hoch Legacy Scholarship program, recognizing a simple truth that traditional scholarships often miss: the students who have fought hardest to stay in school may teach us the most about what perseverance actually looks like.
This expansion brings the total number of Hoch Legacy scholars to 32, each one selected not for test scores or class rank, but for their demonstrated ability to overcome adversity. These are students who have faced poverty, homelessness, family hardship, and health crises—the kind of obstacles that derail most people's educational ambitions entirely. Yet they keep going.
The program itself represents a deliberate reimagining of what a scholarship should recognize and reward. Built on the Foundation's Perseverance Awards, it honors the vision of Axel F. Hoch by centering grit and resilience over the academic metrics that dominate most scholarship competitions. The new cohort of 2026–27 recipients will pursue higher education, trade schools, and technical programs across various fields including healthcare, education, skilled trades, engineering, and business.
What makes this initiative distinctive isn't just the selection criteria—it's the commitment that follows. Beyond the financial assistance itself, each scholar receives mentorship designed to guide them through their college or career journey. These mentors serve as ongoing support systems, helping remove the invisible barriers that often trip up first-generation and low-income students even after they've been accepted.
Jamie Goldman, executive director of the Bend-La Pine Education Foundation, articulated the program's philosophy with clarity: "Success looks different for every student. The students in this program have already overcome challenges that many adults never face. They have shown remarkable resilience and determination and we are honored to stand beside them as they continue their educational journeys and redefine what success can look like." That reframing matters. It moves the conversation away from whether a student is "college material" by traditional measures and toward recognition of what they've already proven about themselves through lived experience.
Cheri Helt, a representative of the Foundation, emphasized that the initiative goes deeper than access alone. "This program is about more than helping students get to college or training programs," she said. "It is about helping students believe that their story, their hard work and their future matter." That validation—the explicit message that you belong here, that your struggle is worth recognizing, that your future is worth investing in—can be as transformative as the tuition check itself.
The 32 scholars now part of the Hoch Legacy program represent a growing movement in higher education toward recognizing that resilience is a credential. These students are not seeking sympathy; they're seeking the same opportunity their more privileged peers take for granted. By expanding this program, Bend-La Pine Education Foundation is making clear that it sees them—and it believes in them.