iv TPC Digest Dana L. Brookover Access to School Counseling and the Connection to Postsecondary STEM Outcomes C ollege and career readiness are key outcome targets of school systems across the United States. Another national priority is the focus on increasing the workforce in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. As part of their positions, school counselors play an integral role in their students’ college readiness through providing college-readiness counseling. Within college-readiness counseling, school counselors can educate their students on the possibilities in STEM at the college level. They also should seek to increase their students’ self-efficacy in STEM areas. The hope is to promote and support students’ attainment of their STEM-related college and career goals. Further, college-readiness counseling as it’s connected to STEM outcomes is an important area in which school counselors can expand their repertoire, because there are continuing inequities in who is persisting and attaining degrees in STEM majors at the college level. There has been great growth in the numbers of traditionally underrepresented students persisting in STEM majors in college. Still, there are disparities in STEM degree persistence and attainment by gender (with women less likely to attain), race/ethnicity (with minoritized students less likely to attain), first-generation college student (FGCS) status (with FGCSs less likely to attain), and socioeconomic status (SES; with those of lower SES less likely to attain). Hence, the opportunity gap in STEM education is a social justice issue, which school counselors should target in their college-readiness counseling efforts with students. The current study sought to understand the connection between school counseling access and postsecondary STEM outcomes in a nationally representative sample of students in the United States. School counseling access was determined through school counselor caseload and the percentage of time spent on college-readiness counseling as part of their roles.
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