High School Counselors as a Policy Lever to Increase College Access: Findings From Washington State

• In Event: The Influence of Policy on College Choice

Abstract

Exploring how high school counseling resources, and a legislatively-authorized program to enhance school counseling resources, are associated with student-level college application and enrollment outcomes, this study make three contributions to the literature on public policy and college choice. First, the study explores relevant and timely questions about considering high school counselors as a policy lever to increase access to postsecondary education. Second, the study demonstrates the potential value of using a large, multisource statewide longitudinal data set to evaluate college access policy. Third, the study’s analysis of college application, admission, and enrollment outcomes illustrates how modeling these dependent variables provides a more nuanced measurement of programmatic effects compared to a conventional evaluation approach where only postsecondary enrollment is observable.

Author

• Grant Blume, University of Washington