Matt Ybarra | Program director

Matt is from the no-stoplight town of Altamont, Kansas (pop. 1000). He earned his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. During college, he studied abroad in Switzerland, Russia, and Germany, interned at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, coordinated a scholarship competition for Latinx high school students and helped run the Stanford Powwow. Matt worked for seven years as an admission counselor at Stanford and Caltech before moving to New Mexico in 2016 to work in the College Counseling Department at Santa Fe Prep. Matt was named to CTCL’s Counselors That Change Lives in 2021, the same year that he became ROCA’s founding program director.

He often collaborates with College Horizons, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, QuestBridge, The Gates Scholarship, the STARS College Network, and other programs supporting college access and retention for students from low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented backgrounds. Matt has served on the Rural and Small Town leadership board for the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Committee for the Rocky Mountain Association for College Admission Counseling (RMACAC), and counselor advisory boards for numerous colleges, including Berea, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Smith, and Willamette.

Questions? Email Matt at mybarra@rocanm.org