Study Sees Impact of Coach-Style College Counseling

Using a coaching-style of college counseling -- in which the advisors work intensely with high school students to help them navigate the application process -- can result in more students opting for four-year colleges rather than two-year colleges, a new study in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis has found. The study was based on students in the Chicago Public Schools. While these students generally enrolled at non-competitive four-year institutions, they were institutions where the students had greater odds than at community colleges of finishing a four-year degree. Further, the study found that the impact of this style of counseling was greatest on students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.