Only a third of the country’s public high schools have a counselor devoted to helping students get prepared for college—less than half the private schools’ rate—finds a survey of 2,251 high school counselors.
The report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling found 53 percent of schools with 25 percent student poverty or less had at least one full- or part-time college counselor. That’s 8 percentage points to 23 percentage points higher than schools where half or more students live in poverty.
The new NACAC survey shows K-12 counselors in public schools have an average caseload of 470 students, and high school counselors are able to devote less than 30 percent of their time to college advising.
