School counseling college-going culture: Counselors’ influence on students’ college-going decisions

This study tested the conceptual framework of school counseling college-going culture (SCCGC) using a national sample of 15,857 high school students from the High School Longitudinal Study 2009. We examined the relationship of SCCGC (i.e., counselor expectations and priorities, student–counselor contact for college–career counseling prior to 12th grade, college and career readiness activities, and constraints) to high school seniors’ college decisions (i.e., student–counselor contact for college admissions counseling in 12th grade, student–counselor contact for financial aid counseling in 12th grade, number of college applications, and enrollment in college). Multinomial and ordinal logistic regression analyses revealed that counselors’ expectations and priorities, student–counselor contact for college–career counseling prior to 12th grade, college application and financial aid help, and college information and Free Application for Federal Student Aid meetings were positively related while caseload was negatively related to students’ college decisions (after controlling for parent involvement, academic performance and aspirations, and student demographics).