Michele Siqueiros is an executive leader, nonprofit and policy strategist, who has made a historic impact improving higher education policy in California. She has effectively combined coalition-building, research, communications, and policy advocacy toward creating change. 

Over a 20-year tenure at the Campaign for College Opportunity (President from 2008-2024), she built a strong, independent, and influential organization that helped transform and strengthen higher education in California. She raised over $35 million dollars, assembled a team of experts and leaders in the field, championed major budget appropriations, secured historic higher education legislation, and establishing a broad and influential network of over 12,000 coalition supporters. Michele’s leadership resulted in victories benefitting thousands of students including: a new, clearer pathway for students who transfer from community colleges to the state’s four year universities; a public community college scorecard that provides students and their families with key performance metrics disaggregated by race/ethnicity and gender; a package of legislation that mandates student success courses and orientation at the state’s community colleges and eliminated the overreliance on placement exams granting students access to college level courses; greater investment in state financial aid programs including the expansion of state aid for undocumented students; and, millions more in state funding for the state’s colleges and universities to expand the number of available seats for students and to improve student graduation rates.

Michele is successful because of the innovative way she brings together unlikely allies –businesses, civil rights organizations, faith-based institutions, and students – to create a powerful unified voice. She understands how to inform policymakers, the media, and community partners utilizing research and oversaw the production of 92 groundbreaking reports, serving as an author or co-author on 32 reports. 

Michele is an effective spokesperson with an extensive network across the nonprofit, philanthropic and education sectors. In February 2024 she received the prestigious James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award. In 2023, she was recognized by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund with an Excellence in Community Service Award, and was named Woman of the Year by the LA County Board of Supervisors in 2019, and given the Distinguished Alumni Award by Pitzer College in 2018. 

Currently, she is a Senior Executive Advisor to the Campaign for College Opportunity and serves on the Boards of the California Endowment, Community Coalition, Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles, Planned Parenthood Action Project for LA County, and Pitzer College Board of Trustees. Michele is a member of the Trusteeship (the Southern California arm of the International Women’s Forum) and the LA Civic Alliance. In 2022, Michele was Co-Chair of the Latinos for Bass mayoral campaign. In 2020, Governor Newsom asked her to serve on the California Higher Education Recovery with Equity Taskforce. In 2019, she was appointed by Senate Pro Tem Leader Toni Atkins to the Student-Centered Funding Formula Oversight Committee. She previously served on the California Student Aid Commission as a gubernatorial appointee and on the Los Angeles Commission for Neighborhood Empowerment as a Mayor Villaraigosa appointee.  

Michele has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Studies with Honors in Chicano/a Studies from Pitzer College and a Master of Arts in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She was a part of the Aspen Institute Presidential Community College Fellowship class of 2018. 

Michele believes in working toward a more just and equitable nation where every person - regardless of their zip code, race/ethnicity, or income - can reach their full potential.