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

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

At a time when many students are losing access to college advising programs due to Federal cuts to programs like TRIO and GEAR UP, school counselors are one of the last reliable supports helping young people plan for life after high school. School counselors play a critical role in helping students navigate increasingly complex college admissions and financial aid systems, yet their capacity, effectiveness, and responsibilities vary widely across schools. This panel brings together four papers that examine how counselors shape students’ access to college and financial aid using quantitative and qualitative methods. 

The first two papers leverage quantitative methods to examine the effects of state and local policies that impact school counselors’ capacity to serve students. In the first paper, Bell and Meyer provide the first multi-state causal evidence on counselor-to-student ratio policies, showing how reduced caseloads affect college application behaviors, enrollment, and persistence, as well as counselor effort. In the second paper, Vazquez examines a major funding increase to low-performing schools in Los Angeles, finding that additional resources—used in part to hire counselors and support staff—improve school climate and reduce suspensions.

The next set of papers uses qualitative methods to examine how counselors interpret and enact their roles in practice. Phillips, Mulhern, and Lee document how counselors translate state-level dual credit policy into practice in rural communities, providing insight into the tensions between financial efficiency and course rigor. Burland and colleagues show that counselors vary widely in how they approach college and financial aid advising, and that this variation significantly shapes financial aid take-up using interviews and administrative data from Michigan.Together, these papers demonstrate that expanding counselor capacity and school resources impacts student outcomes, but effects depend on how counselors are positioned, supported, and able to engage with students. The panel offers new evidence on how policy design and frontline capacity jointly shape equitable access to college and financial aid.

Policy Area

• Education

Chair

• Elizabeth Bell, The University of Texas at Austin

Discussants

• Daniel Sparks, University of Arkansas

• Rachel Barth Baker, University of Pennsylvania

Organizer

• Elizabeth Bell, The University of Texas at Austin

Individual Presentations

• Investing in Counselors, Expanding Opportunity: Evidence on Counselor-to-Student Ratios and College Outcomes - Presenting Author: Katharine Meyer, Brookings Institution

• Can We Save Failing Schools? Evidence From Los Angeles - Presenting Author: Antonia Vazquez, Brown University

• Policy in Practice: Rural Perspectives on Dual Credit Access and Outcomes in Kentucky - Presenting Author: Andrea Phillips, RAND Corporation

• “It was just trial by fire”: How school counselors respond to ambiguous roles as advisors - Presenting Author: Elizabeth Burland, Harvard University; Non-Presenting Co-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