Menu Sidebar
Menu

Annual survey reveals that the volatile economy and rising inflation are putting even more strain on families trying to pay for college

A recent annual survey conducted by Discover Student Loans found:

  • Fifty percent of parents with college bound children have saved less than $15,000 for their child’s education
  • Fifty-five percent of parents believe their ability to pay for college has not improved over last year; fears of uncertainty and potential recession drive financial concern for parents.
  • 66% of parents with kids aged 16-18 planning to go to college are worried about paying for their child’s education.
  • Of parents worried about paying for college, 55% are concerned about rising tuition while nearly half say inflation is straining their savings (42%) and 28% noted that fears of an impending recession caused them concern about paying for college, up 14 percentage points from last year.
  • Nearly a third of parents (32%) feel they did not start saving early enough.
  • Of parents planning to help pay for their child’s college, 41% aim to take out student loans, and 43% will dip into their savings. The number of parents intending to fund their child’s education through scholarships increased 7 percentage points from 2021 to 2022, to 54%.

As college costs continue to rise it is a great time to have conversations with your students about how they plan to pay for college. Here is a link to the release with more information about the survey – https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220623005289/en/Fifty-Percent-of-Parents-With-College-Bound-Children-Have-Saved-Less-Than-15000-for-Their-Child%E2%80%99s-Education

Understanding Section 504

For many educators, understanding Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 remains difficult and raises several questions, such as:

  • What is the practical intent of this law?
  • Are Section 504 accommodation plans simply “light” IEPs? How can this law ― passed in the waning days of the Vietnam War ― apply to public school students and employees today, when the original meaning of the law was to protect disabled veterans returning from the conflict?
  • Is a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) related to Section 504?
  • Are the rights of special education and Section 504-eligible students different?
  • How is Section 504 different from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), when these laws use the same terms, but appear to impose different requirements on schools?
  • How is a Section 504 plan different from an IEP?
  • Do they have different goals, different criteria?
  • How do you decide which is appropriate in a given situation?
  • Are your 504 eligibility determinations and plans compliant? How can you be sure?

John Comegno, education attorney, provides answers to these questions and other concepts of Section 504 in a series of videos below. Watch now.

Important Skills to Learn Before Heading to College

University life can be a place of culture shock for many freshmen. They aren’t used to the intense workloads. They don’t know how to make a budget, or simply to take care of themselves. As a guidance counselor, the goal is always to help your students maximize their success.

In this article, we look at skills high school students will need before they get to college. We also look at ways that you as a guidance counselor can help develop them.

Financial Planning

Everyone knows that college is expensive. The majority of these costs come after graduation. However, at university, students still have living expenses. Perhaps they are paying rent on an apartment or opting for groceries instead of the dining hall. Perhaps they simply want to be able to have a rich social life.

These things all cost money. Most high school students (most college students for that matter) don’t learn the money management skills they need to live independently.

If your school has personal finance or even home economics classes, emphasize their importance to the students who will be going off to college.

It can also help to simply sit down and discuss how they plan to pay for their college lifestyle. They will probably already have an idea of how they will finance the tuition, but chances are good that they don’t have a clear idea of how they will handle the rest of their expenses.

Work/Life Balance

Freshmen college students may also be unaware of how to budget their time. High school schedules more or less set themselves—particularly in households where parents have an influence on the amount of time the student spends studying.

New college students may have little idea how to achieve a healthy work-life balance. Some may work too hard, running the risk of burnout. Others may spend too much time focused on the social aspect of school.

Speak with your students about time management, and emphasize how important it is to finding success in college.

Self Care

Many freshmen college students are responsible for making their own health and wellness decisions for the first time in their lives. The “freshmen fifteen” as they call it is just one symptom of the way this can sometimes have problematic consequences.

Provide your students with an overview of self-care responsibilities like diet and exercise that will be completely in their hands once they get to college. Simply having advanced notice may help them make better decisions when they get there.

Writing and Research

Few high schools emphasize writing and research to the same extent that the average university will. Regardless of what course of study your students take, chances are good they will deal regularly with big papers and dense texts.

As a guidance counselor, you may not be able to gear your school’s curriculum toward research readiness, but it may be possible to identify students who are most likely to struggle with this aspect of university life and help them prepare for it.

Even the occasional tutoring session may be enough to help them begin to prepare for the work they will encounter at university.

Stress Management

For many students, college is their first exposure to significant stress. Kids who were bright in high school may find that their coursework isn’t the breeze it used to be. Kids who struggled are only likely to struggle more.

Stress in college is close to universal. That doesn’t mean it needs to be overwhelming.

Talk to your students about what triggers their stress now, and how they manage it. You may find it worthwhile to run through likely college scenarios (late-night study sessions, juggling large assignments, dealing with difficult concepts, etc.). Ask your students what they would do to manage their stress during these difficult times.

They may benefit simply from knowing what to expect. Early notice will also give them the opportunity to prepare a stress management plan.

Career Readiness

Freshmen college students often look at university life as an extension of high school. In some ways, it can be similar—particularly as they work through their requisite classes. However, around sophomore year, the situation shifts significantly towards career readiness.

Students who go into college with an idea of what they would like to do professionally are more likely to pick a major that they like and stick with it. Not only does this increase their chances of graduating on time, but it also boosts the odds of them emerging at the other end of their education with the skills they need to get a good job.

Asking for Help

Finally, make sure the students you send off to college will be ready to ask for help when they need it. Most universities have significant infrastructure in place, both for meeting students’ academic and emotional needs. By making your students aware of these resources, and encouraging them to take advantage of them, you can help reduce their odds of burnout and increase their odds of finding success at college.

School counselors Have a Tough Job, But Their Impact Shines Through

As a school counselor, there’s no doubt that you’ve dealt with stressful situations that test your patience. Being a school counselor can be tough, and it’s not for everyone. But those who have chosen the school counselor career path typically stick to it for one profound reason: school counselors can have a lasting positive impact on the lives of others.

Students have always had a variety of needs, and school counselors help them overcome challenges and correct behaviors in meaningful and lasting ways. Unfortunately, in recent decades, these needs have proliferated at a worrying rate, with higher rates of students experiencing a slew of negative mental health experiences. This being the case, the need for school counselors has never been greater.

Though the job can be trying at times, having clarity about the extensive impact you can have on students’ lives can make being a school counselor easier and more fulfilling.

How School Counselors Impact Students

School counselors can help students in innumerable impactful ways. Understanding just how profound your impact can be on a student’s life can help you reach your true potential as a school counselor and bring a standard of excellence to work with you each and every day.

Helping Students Overcome Personal Challenges

Though schools often do their best to meet the needs of every student, there are times when some students slip through the cracks. Whether it’s a tumultuous home life or negative feelings, some students are unable to process certain experiences healthily, and as a result, end up acting out in school.

Though punishment is the typical reaction of a school to this sort of disorderly behavior, counselors can aid students in overcoming root challenges and becoming better students and human beings.

Oftentimes, feeling like someone understands your struggles and is rooting for you can make a world of difference. By talking through personal challenges with students, school counselors can help these individuals both understand the cause behind their disorderly behavior and help them correct it.

In addition, as a school counselor, you can connect certain students with other resources that they need, such as therapy to work through trauma or extracurricular activities to provide them with more structure.

Though it may only be a couple of minutes a week of your time, your attention as a school counselor could potentially change a student’s life. By helping students overcome personal challenges, you may in fact change the course of their lives and help them find success and happiness in a way they wouldn’t be equipped to without your help.

Helping Students Reach Their True Potential

In some cases, students aren’t reaching their full potential in terms of behavior or academics. As a school counselor, you have the power to change this. By taking time to help students work harder — or smarter — in certain areas, you can help them get closer to exploring their full potential and finding the systems and habits that will help them reach success.

Some students clearly display intelligence, though don’t apply themselves consistently. As a result, they don’t receive good grades. This can have a slew of negative consequences that affect their future. One way this happens is through self-identification.

By consistently receiving bad grades, a student may begin to believe that they lack intelligence and aren’t capable of academic excellence. In addition to this, though grades may not be of the utmost importance in elementary school, they will become important in high school. As such, a foundation of not applying oneself could cost one admittance to a dream college.

As a counselor, you have the power to help students that display behaviors like this correct them before the consequences affect their lives in a profoundly negative manner. By helping students develop helpful habits, and understand that they are capable of excellence, you could potentially change the trajectory of their lives and help them in pursuing successful careers.

Helping Students Find the Support They Need

Unfortunately, not all students experience support outside of school. Whether it’s due to parents working too much, having addiction problems, or being absent, some students have no one in their corner to help them or make them feel secure. As a school counselor, you can help these students find support and feel less alone.

Students who feel unsupported may begin to feel less motivated to pursue excellence in any field, whether that be in academics, sports, or pursuing a passion. As such, it becomes obvious just how impactful some form of support can be on these individuals’ lives.

As a school counselor, you can take some extra time to work with these students to ensure that they feel supported. By working more closely with students in need, You have the power to change a student’s life and help provide them with the motivation to chase success and feel supported while doing so.

Make a Lasting Impact

Whether you’re currently working as a school counselor or thinking about pursuing it as a career, it’s important to be aware of the overwhelmingly positive impact that you can have on the lives of others as a school counselor. From providing support to helping students reach their full potential, you have the power to help individuals make better choices and potentially live a much happier and fulfilling life because of it. Helping others is an admirable act in every form, but as a school counselor, you can help individuals in lasting and impactful ways that keep on affecting them in a positive manner for the rest of their lives.

College Essay Tips – “Put Your Best Voice Forward”

When I’m working with student clients on developing and evolving their
college essays I focus on guiding them to “finding their voice”.

So often high school students are writing about their accomplishments,
but not about who they are, their DNA.

One of the methods I use to capture the “voice” of my high school
client is to interview them and have them record the interview after
they have written their first college essay draft. After they listen
to our interview, invariably the student hears some new nuggets that
they can now weave into the essay.

I ask them to find the following in their essay:

  • Attention – Did you grab the attention of the reader
  • Need – Did you create a need for the reader to get to know you and your topic
  • Satisfaction – How did you satisfy the need (what do you offer)
  • Visualization – What is the big picture of your writing and results,
    if applicable
  • Action – What do you want the reader to take away from your essay/your message

Finally, many times the initial draft has a great ending that could be
the actual beginning, and the beginning paragraph can then be
incorporated into the body of the essay.

Top 8 Companies Hiring Employees with Associate’s Degrees

All your students can’t go to Harvard or Yale. Each student will create their own path and a large number will go the path of getting an Associate’s Degree. In a tight labor market, companies are favoring less stringent education requirements in an effort to access a greater pool of qualified candidates. Many, in fact, are ditching the four-year degree requirement. 

The companies below were identified as 8 top companies that are hiring remote workers with an Associate’s Degree education.

  • Recruited for the highest number of remote jobs with associate degree requirements in the last six months (Nov 1, 2021 – April 31, 2022)
  • Are currently hiring for associate degree-level, remote positions 
  • Cover a range of industries, such as healthcare, finance, administrative, computer & IT, sales, customer service, and marketing
  • Include examples of active job listings* with hourly or annual pay ranges included from the job posting or Payscale data

Beacon Hill Staffing Group

Ciox Health

CVS Health

Kelly

LHH

Randstad

Robert Half International

UnitedHealth Group

*Job postings active as of May 24, 2022. “US” means the worker can be located anywhere in the US, otherwise the worker needs to be in the state(s) listed.

Jobs identified by FlexJobs

How Counselors Can Help Students Complete Their FAFSA

It’s difficult for any counselor to see a smart, driven student who is unable to pay for college. With costs rising not only for tuition but also for room and board, a degree can easily slip out of reach for deserving students. Fortunately, there are lots of student aid options out there that can provide help, including the U.S. government.

Students who need help paying for college should start with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. This form is essential for letting students see all their options for federal aid. As a counselor, you can help students complete their FAFSA so they can work toward their dream of going to college.

What is the FAFSA?

The FAFSA has been available since 1992 and it allows students to easily apply for aid from the government. Unlike private scholarships, which each have their own academic and personal requirements, plus a unique application process, the FAFSA is a universal form designed to evaluate every student’s need for financial aid.

Since 1997, the form has been available online. It is an interactive process, so students will be guided through different questions based on their answers. Students may need to answer up to 180 questions to complete the application.

Types of Government Funding

Private scholarships are typically awarded based on merit, while government funding is need-based. Students who need more money to pay for college will get higher awards. There are different types of funding available, depending on the student’s situation.

Grants are provided with no expectation of repayment unless the student drops out of school before a certain point in the semester when aid was given. They are essentially need-based scholarships provided by the government.

Loans, which will need to be repaid, are another type of aid. Some loans are subsidized and the government will pay the interest on those loans until six months after graduation. These are usually given to students needing more assistance. Any student can get an unsubsidized loan but they will be responsible for paying the interest right away.

Work-study programs are a form of government financial aid that offer students paying jobs on campus. These can provide work experience in addition to funding the student’s education. Many students successfully juggle school and work, even with off-campus jobs, so work-study can be a great choice if it’s offered.

Eligible Students

Any student in the United States can fill out a FAFSA and counselors should encourage them to do so. Even if the funding options don’t end up being the right choice, it’s still good for students to understand all their options.

Most students will have to fill in their family’s financial information so that the government can calculate their Expected Family Contribution (EFC) based on income and assets. However, independent students will not need this as they are not expected to get financial help from their families.

Students over the age of 24, those who are married or separated, students with children, graduate students, current and former members of the military or national guard, and students who are orphaned, were in the foster care system, were emancipated, homeless, or under a legal guardianship are considered independent for the FAFSA. The form for these students is shorter and easier to complete.

What Students Need to Complete the FAFSA

Students should collect their FAFSA information in advance. When advising your students about the process, make sure they get information such as their parents’ financial records and social security numbers together before beginning the application process. There is a list of the FAFSA questions available to help students compile the information they will need.

Paying for school is stressful. As a counselor, you can make a big difference by directing your students toward aid resources, such as the FAFSA. Getting familiar with the form will help you provide support and assistance as needed so students can attend school and fulfill their dreams.

Free Webinar – Standardized Testing for Neurodivergent Students, their Parents and Counselors

A free webinar is being offered to Counselors (and students) that will be jointly presented by Michelle McAnaney, of the College Spy and Jenn Cohen of Launchpad Education. Jenn Cohen specializes in test prep for students with learning differences. She is an engaging speaker who knows her subject well.

The webinar will cover:

  1. Available accommodations for the SAT and ACT.
  2. Getting accommodations for the SAT and ACT
  3. The best test for students with LDs to take.
  4. Whether test optional is right for your child.

It is scheduled to take place on June 2nd at 8:00 Eastern. Use this link for more information and to Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_q53EeChmRgixZx2rpSRaYg

The Newest Myth: Colleges Want These 5 Things in Your Students’ College Essay

I’ve been hosting free college essay classes for students for about 5 years, and generally, the questions are predictable:

What’s the best/worst topic? What do colleges want to read? What can I do to stand out?

This year, I’ve noticed a new type of question, and it’s troubling to me.

It’s a variation on this, what are the 5 characteristics colleges look for in application essays?

The answer: None.

Colleges are looking for the traits and characteristics that are important to your student, the traits your student wants them to know.

What does your student want to share with colleges that they don’t already know?

What makes them tick?

Who are they beyond the rest of the college application?

Are they funny? Shy? Resourceful? Creative? Industrious?

In a personal statement, any trait will do, as long as it’s genuine.

I understand how this question about 5 characteristics made its way to my free class. I am sure you do, too.

Still, it’s backward, out of context, and keeps showing up in blogs, podcasts, and professional websites. In this test-optional landscape, there’s a growing concern that character should be elevated in holistic admissions practices.

Is that a good idea? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t really know.

But I do know that telling students to pick a trait from someone else’s list is wrong.

Admissions teams read essays to add context to the application package. They want to know what traits and characteristics students have. THAT cannot be manufactured.

A student who does not think of herself as a leader is going to have trouble writing about being a leader if she picks it from a list of “ideal” traits. 

A student who wants to show colleges their creative side will likely have a hard time writing about resilience if they are told to pick it from a list of traits colleges want to read about in an essay.

Many things are changing in the admissions world, but college admissions officers are still looking for the same thing they’ve always looked for in any personal statement: reflection and insight.

They want to know who the applicant is; not who someone else tells them they ought to be.

Our job, and yours, is to help students write application essays that colleges will want to read to help them make a positive impression inside the admissions office. They can’t do that if they manufacture traits.

We share tips for helping our students pick their best traits and characteristics in our book for counselors. Download a free copy of our book and find other free resources here.

 Kim Lifton, of Farmington Hills, MI, is President and Co-founder of Wow Writing Workshop, which teaches students and educational professionals a simple, step-by-step process for writing effective college essays, so students can stand out and tell their stories. Kim leads a team of writers and teachers who understand the writing process inside and out. Since 2009, Wow has been leading the college admissions industry with our unique approach to communicating messages effectively through application essays, including personal statements, activity and short answer essays and supplements. Kim is also an executive board member of Michigan ACAC.

Juniors – Now is the time to ask for letters of recommendation

Letters of recommendation carry varying weight, depending on the perspective of the college or university and who writes them. The more selective colleges may ask for two or three recommendation letters. Questions abound: Who should you ask? What are they used for? Where do they go? When should you ask them? Why are they important? And, how do you prepare them to write the best letter possible?

Who?

Letters of recommendation are the most powerful when they are written by teachers, coaches, club or internship advisor, youth group advisors or employers who know you well. The people you ask should be able to describe your skills and your accomplishments as well as your personality. Colleges prefer letters from junior year teachers since they are the most familiar with your most recent work. Read instructions carefully since some colleges may specifically request a science or math teacher, especially if you’re applying to an engineering program.

What?

Since most letters of recommendation are glowing and full of praise for the applicant, colleges who take them seriously are trying to get beneath the surface of who you are. The letters that share personal anecdotes about you reveal the less tangible qualities that a college can’t deduce from grades and test scores. A well-written letter of recommendation will showcase your abilities and make you a compelling candidate.

Where?

Many colleges will now accept letters of recommendation electronically either on their own applications or through the Common Application. Follow directions carefully and don’t send more than a college requests. Colleges who participate in the Common Application detail how many letters of recommendation they require and how many they allow.

When?

It is best to ask teachers in the spring of junior year if they are willing and able to write a letter on your behalf. If they say “yes”, then ask them about their preferred timelines. Some teachers like to take care of the letters over the summer and others want a true summer vacation. If you have colleges with early deadlines (October 15 and November 1), make sure you provide your recommenders with at least a month’s time to write the letters.

Why?

Letters of recommendation can often be the critical tipping factor when two candidates present similarly and colleges can pick just one.

How?

There’s a good chance that the more information you provide your recommender, the better the letter will be. I suggest that all students prepare an Activity Resume or a Brag Sheet that details the following items: extracurricular activities; community service involvement; leadership positions; honors, scholarship/awards; employment; internships and job shadowing experiences, and what you’ve done during your last three summers.

Must do’s:

  • Be certain to waive your right to view recommendation letters on your application forms. Admission officers will trust them more if you haven’t seen them.
  • Send a confirmation email to your recommenders thanking them and being specific about next steps.
  • Send thank you notes once you know the colleges have received the letters of recommendation.

Lee Bierer is an independent college adviser based in Charlotte. Send questions to: leesbierer@gmail.com; www.leebierer.com

Newer Posts
Older Posts

Link for Counselors

Current Publication

View Current Publication

Advertisements

LINK Newsletter for Counselors

Sign up to receive our bi-weekly e-newsletter.
Subscribe
© 2025 Link for Counselors |