Giving Compass' Take:

• Janice Bloom and Lori Chajet argue that peer to peer counseling can help to close the counseling gap in the United States. 

• How can funders work to effectively and sustainably close the counseling gap? Which schools are most in need of outside support? 

• Learn about the need for more support for school counselors. 

There’s room for more than one counseling solution.

First, some numbers:

1-to-464 — the average school counselor-to-student ratio in the United States.

20 percent — the percentage of their time at work that more than half of high-school counseling departments report spending on college-related counseling.

1-to-1,000 — the typical adviser-to-student ratio at community colleges in the United States.

What if instead of seeing the huge number of first-generation college students at the nation’s high-poverty schools as a problem at the heart of the guidance gap, we recognize that these young people are a critical part of a potential solution?

As the numbers make clear, one thing that all high schools and colleges have in abundance is teenagers and young adults. In over 12 years of developing and running peer-to-peer access and success programming, we have come to see this abundance as a resource.

Anyone who works closely with teenagers and young adults knows that they are hungry for meaningful roles. Able to quickly absorb information that is of interest, they long to put this knowledge to practical use in work and career exploration. Importantly, they hold considerable influence over others in their age group and those just behind them.

That’s why working as peer access and success counselors offers a great opportunity to young people. As the numbers demonstrate, the need for a counseling solution is overwhelming. Training the young people who are themselves the first in their families to attend college to work in their own communities in this arena is a policy strategy whose time has come.

Read the full article about making kids part of the counseling gap solution by Janice Bloom and Lori Chajet at The Hechinger Report.