‘I Need Somebody. (Help) Not Just Anybody': Unpacking the Counselor-Student Relationship in College-Transition Supports for Low-Income Young Adults

Background and Purpose: Visits to college counselors, regardless of content or quality, have proven to be a significant positive correlate of college access and persistence among low-income youth. However, the user-provider relationship has been largely unattended to in research on college counseling within economically disadvantaged public high schools. This is likely due the fiscal and policy constraints that so often lead to incredibly high student-to-counselor ratios within these contexts. However, the study of counselor-student relationships is ripe.  New models are emerging that utilize non-profit partnerships or outside fundraising to reduce student-to-counselor ratios and expand college-transition services beyond typical one-on-one counseling sessions. In some cases, these models also extend supports for students beyond high school graduation. These extended supports offer unique opportunities to expand our analysis beyond the correlation between counselor visits and college access in order to attend to the relationship between service users (graduating high school students) and their service providers (college counselors). This paper addresses this gap by comparing the perspectives of counselors and graduating students to identify (1) The most commonly provided/used services or supports; (2) characteristics in successful relationships between counselors and students; (3) differences in perceptions of counselor versus student-driven engagements; and (4) counselor/student conceptions of the relevance of timing and proximity in the provision/use of services aimed at supporting young people as they navigate college-life.

Methods: The preliminary results presented in this paper are from a multi-level, mixed methods study of a robust college and alumni support program housed within a large network of open-enrollment public charter high schools in Chicago. I will present data from the first two of four waves of interviews with 30 graduating students from three different high schools, participant observation of college transition supports in the three schools, interviews with college transition counselors, and administrative data. Interviews and field notes will be transcribed, then coded and analyzed using Dedoose software. Twenty-first century flexible coding will be utilized to interrogate hypotheses related to the explanatory value of past counseling experiences, initiative, time, and proximity in the relationship between counselors and students who have graduated and embarked upon unique college pathways.

Hypotheses: I hypothesize that (1) the most commonly-utilized supports will be concrete or technical information and problem-solving regarding financial aid, housing, and/or course registration; (2) students’ perspectives from earlier college-counseling experiences during high school will influence relationships with counselors after high school; (3) student-initiated engagement will positively influence counselor engagement, while students will have multiple interpretations of counselor-initiated engagement; (4) counselor and student conceptions of the role of timing and proximity in service-provision will be dissimilar.

Implications: Given a broad consensus that college-degree attainment is requisite to both employment and economic stability, college counseling interventions and college transition supports for disadvantaged populations are likely to diffuse. As they do, an evidence base of both outcomes and counselor/student experiences should inform models that are selected, implemented, or adapted. Funders, schools, non-profits, and higher education can all benefit from this to inform both the policy and practice of college transition supports.