Training school counselors to give college advice

A national survey found that most students are dissatisfied with the quality of the college advice they receive from school counselors.

The Michigan Legislature has set aside nine days to pass new laws before the end of the calendar year. Bridge has already outlined some issues likely to come up in this so-called lame-duck session or early in the next legislative session that begins in January. Today, we offer a deeper look at one measure that may be addressed before the New Year, a requirement that high school counselors receive training in giving college advice. Previous issues Bridge has more deeply explored are changes to electoral college voting, road funding and A-F school grades.

At issue

Michigan is below the national average in the percent of its adult residents with a college degree.

Increasing college attainment is a key to the state’s economic future. Yet public high school counselors, who often serve as the link between students and prospective colleges, are not required to have any training to help students select and apply to college.

Term-limited state Sen. John Pappageorge, R-Troy, has introduced Senate Bill 902 to require new middle school and high school counselors to receive 45 hours of training in “the college selection process.” Current counselors would not be subject to the requirement.

“I don’t think we’re doing a good enough job training the people who are leading our students through the college-selection process,” Pappageorge said.

State Sen. John Pappageorge is urging passage of bill that would require new school counselors to receive 45 hours of training in providing college advice.

A survey by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan public policy group, found that about six in ten high schools students rated their counselors as “fair” or “poor” in helping them select a college, explain financial aid and navigate the college application process.

Among Michigan’s 10 school counselor training programs offered at colleges around the state, only one offers a required course in postsecondary counseling, according to Patrick O’Connor, assistant dean of college counseling at the Cranbrook Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills. O’Connor is past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling and teaches college advising courses. (O’Connor wrote a guest column last year for Bridge on the need for additional college counseling requirements.)

The politics

Criticism of the effort revolves around two issues: One, the cost of the training which would be absorbed by districts or individual counselors if the coursework is post-degree (though there currently is a low- or no-cost training option supported by grants through the Michigan College Access Network, a nonprofit organization that works to increase college readiness and participation); and, two, resistance to dropping other counseling courses to make room for college-advising in the college programs that prospective counselors take to receive their degrees.

The biggest obstacle facing the bill, though, is time. The legislature is scheduled to meet for only nine more days before the end of the session, which will mark the end of Pappageorge’s tenure in the Senate.

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Likely outcome

Pappageorge continues to advocate for the bill, but he admits most of the energy in the lame duck session surrounds attempts to increase state road funding.

What’s at stake

If the bill passes and is signed into law by Gov. Snyder, middle and high school students would have counselors, at least in the future, who are more skilled at guiding them through the college selection, application and financial aid process. It is unclear what other aspects of counselor training might be cut to make way for this instruction.