Student Access to Guidance Counseling in High School

Abstract

The advice students receive on selecting a high school curriculum track or planning an appropriate course of study is likely to come from both home and school. The primary mechanism in America’s public high schools to assist students in making informed decisions about these important choices is guidance counseling. Using data from the first and second follow-ups of High School and Beyond, including student self-reports, test scores, and high school transcripts, we found that guidance counseling services appear to be unequally available to all public high school students. Students from families of lower socioeconomic status (SES), of minority status, and from small schools in rural areas are less likely to have access to guidance counseling for making these important decisions at the beginning of their high school careers. Moreover, students who lack access to guidance counseling are more likely to be placed in nonacademic curricular tracks and to take fewer academic math courses. It appears that students who may need such guidance the most, since they come from home environments where knowledge of the consequences of curricular choices is limited, are least likely to receive it in their schools.