“It was just trial by fire”: How school counselors respond to ambiguous roles as advisors

• In Event: Navigating the College Transition: Evidence on Counseling, School Resources, and Student Outcomes

Abstract

In pursuit of the state’s “60-by-30” goal— aimed at increasing the share of the population with a postsecondary credential—Michigan has implemented several college-access and affordability initiatives. The effectiveness of these programs depends on getting information to students about these initiatives and how to access them. School counselors have an essential role in helping students navigate the bureaucratic hurdles associated with enrolling in and financing college (Billings et al., 2022; Mulhern, 2023; Sattin-Bajaj, et al. 2018). At the same time, counselors' capacity to navigate the various administrative burdens facing them and their students varies (Bell & Smith, 2022; Blake, 2020).
We use a mixed-methods approach to explore the following questions: (1) How do counselors conceptualize their role in college access and financial aid? (2) How much do high school counselors contribute to variation in college enrollment and financial aid take-up? We interviewed 42 Michigan high school counselors about their role, how they view their role in postsecondary planning, and their knowledge of—and experience advising students about—financial aid. We also leverage comprehensive administrative data on over one million Michigan public school students and the high schools they attend. 
Our initial findings suggest that counselors have three approaches to college and financial aid advising: future planning, brokering outside resources, and reacting to student needs. Some counselors tailor advice through specific knowledge of student aid eligibility. Counselors also broker outside resources by drawing on their professional networks and outside expertise (staff at local colleges, state financial aid representatives) to help students prepare for navigating the college transition. However, building these connections and learning about each of the relevant programs to advise students about is a big learning curve for counselors. As one counselor explained: “it was just trial by fire.” In many high schools, without a defined role or overburdened with other responsibilities, some counselors only react to student questions, assuming someone else is providing students with information about college and financial aid eligibility. Or, counselors are busy “putting out fires,” so they do not have the capacity to provide proactive advising. As one counselor shared, “The amount that we are expected to do now. I can’t even keep up with it.” 
Given our findings that counselors have inconsistent and unequally distributed capacity to connect students with aid opportunities, we use counselor fixed-effect models to estimate how variation in counselor composition over time contributes to school-level variation in college enrollment, college choice, and financial aid take-up. Our early results suggest that variation in counselor composition explains roughly one third of the variation in take-up of one state financial aid program, the Tuition Incentive Program (one of Michigan’s largest investments in tuition supports). Further, replacing a counselor 1 standard deviation below the mean with one 1 standard deviation above is associated with an 11ppt increase in school-level take up of this funding. Our next step is to analyze the full series of outcomes: college enrollment, college choice, and take-up, and examine heterogeneity in counselor contribution to each of these outcomes by school-level characteristics.

Authors

• Elizabeth Burland, Harvard University
  Presenting Author

• Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija, University of Michigan Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Xavier Fields, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Nathan Sotherland, University of Michigan Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Co-Author