High school administrators, teachers, coaches, and guidance counselors, collectively termed as educators, are responsible for educating teenage students while preparing them for adult life. High school students culminate their education not just with a diploma, but also a decision about what to pursue as an adult. Although there is a common desire…

When debating how best to support the college aspirations of students of color, education reformers tend to zero in on efforts to improve teacher quality. However, recent research on the factors that promote college-going among Black and Latinx students point to the key roles played by many of the adults in their lives, including not only teachers…

Careers advisers in schools are of great importance. In order for the counselling to be effective, a social capital-intensive relationship must be built up between adviser and student, characterised by trust and shared understanding of roles and expectations. The aim of this quantitative study is to investigate the influence of a student's…

This study extends prior work on the college-going efforts of Latino boys and adolescents (Latinos) by examining the extent to which meeting with a school counselor is related to their college-going aspirations and whether they apply to and ultimately matriculate to college. The study utilizes social capital and social reproduction theories to…

This study used a strengths-based approach to examine the distribution of perceived parent involvement factors during high school from the perspective of academically successful Black male college students. Black males enrolled in an undergraduate degree program at a university in the southern region of the United States completed Yan and Lin's…

In this article, the authors discuss how to prepare African American males for college through group counseling. The authors created, Achieving Excellence: A College Readiness Curriculum for African Males, a five-session, 50 minute group curriculum for sophomores to facilitate the process of college planning. The Eight Components of College and…

Background: Women and under-represented minority (URM) students continue to be under-represented in STEM and earn the lowest proportion of undergraduate engineering degrees. We employed a mixed methods research approach grounded in social capital theory to investigate "when" they first consider pursuing engineering as a college degree…

Based on qualitative interviews with 20 college-aged Black males who graduated from one single-sex public charter school, this study investigated how students made meaning from their secondary school experiences and college preparation. Using relational trust as the theoretical framework, I looked specifically at the students' perceptions and…

Guided by the frameworks of college-conocimiento and the cooling out function, this study examined the college choice process of Latina/o/x students who attended an under-resourced urban high school. Data for this study consisted of interviews with ten institutional agents, two oral history interviews with 34 Latina/o/x students, and observation…

Family, school, and community contexts each link to secondary school enrollment, yet these factors have been comparatively examined only in limited ways. A holistic examination of contextual factors will be particularly important for engineering where college enrollment patterns vary by demographics. To begin explaining patterns of engineering…

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to examine the high school counselors' perception of their ability to influence low socioeconomic students' postsecondary enrollment decisions in seven Title I high schools in southern California. Perna and Thomas' Student Success model and the Delivery System of the American School…

This article documents narrative experiences from alumni who participated in the GEAR UP program. The San Jose State University GEAR UP program, based on an intensive counseling model, is grounded in social capital and resilience theories, and is designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in…

High schools today have a unique challenge: to equip students with the knowledge and tools they need to prepare for, apply to and enroll in college--all while proving them with digital resources and skills essential for the 21st century. This guide by the Pullias Center's Digital Equity in Education team provides a general overview of what a…

Many minority, first-generation, and low-income students aspire to college; however, the college application process can present a significant obstacle. These students cannot always rely on their parents for college information and must instead turn to their high schools, where counselors are in a key position. Drawing on a two-year field study at…

Aspen and the Community College Research Center studied nine dual enrollment programs across three states--Florida, Ohio, and Washington--that have narrowed or closed equity gaps in dual enrollment for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander students. Based on this research, "The Dual Enrollment Playbook" describes the five…