TPC Journal-Vol 9- Issue 4-FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 9, Issue 4 355 Furthermore, because of the limitations of the data collected, it was difficult to ascertain the quality of the contact that students had with their school counselor; for example, who initiated the meeting, how frequently and for how long did they meet, and what was the quality of their encounter? Related to data limitations, closer examination of small n -size student ethnicity groups should be conducted as well, as there may be factors unique to them. Lastly, as this was a correlational study, findings do not show causality. Future investigations should further explore the student–counselor dynamic and what characteristics may lead to more successful student outcomes related to postsecondary enrollment. Also, future studies should examine students’ experiences with counseling during high school as it relates to their persistence in college enrollment, which our study did not address. Implications for School Counseling This study has some important implications regarding high school counselors and college counseling. For many students, school counselors serve as bridges to social capital in the college attainment process. Although there are a variety of factors that influence student postsecondary enrollment, two specific contacts with school counselors in this district were significantly related to the likelihood of attending a postsecondary institution. Specifically, contact with school counselors regarding attendance was associated with a decreased likelihood of postsecondary enrollment, while contact with school counselors about college planning was associated with a higher likelihood of postsecondary enrollment. Though the study was exclusive to one particular school district, the demographic makeup is not unique. The findings of this study point to the need for school counselors to meet with their students regarding college-related topics, and a need to pay attention to students who have attendance issues because of the likelihood of them being at risk for not succeeding academically. Also, our findings indicate that attention needs to be given to Latinx students and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in order to help improve their access to higher education. The obstacles school counselors face with regard to caseload size and non-counseling administrative duties severely hinder their ability to meet the needs of their students. The fact that these students who had met with their school counselors for college planning showed a higher likelihood of attending a postsecondary institution clearly supports the fact that school counselors can play a significant role as sources of social capital for students in postsecondary enrollment. Because this study only examined a limited number of college-related school counselor contacts, future studies should investigate the quality, type, and frequency of school counselor contact that positively influences students’ postsecondary success. Future studies should clearly operationalize each type of contact that goes beyond a binary data type. Researchers also should consider investigating associations among high school counselor–student contacts and college graduation rates and success, as the present study only examined college enrollment and was not explicitly related to college success. Quantitative research on tiered interventions, focused on the students with college-qualifying GPAs who chose not to attend, and qualitative research to examine reasons why, would be practical next steps. Findings in this study bear implications for school counselor training. We believe that it is important to prepare school counselors-in-training to identify and become skillful in providing the types of school counseling services that contribute to students’ college and career readiness. For example, counselors- in-training should be trained to identify and intervene with students who have attendance issues and are at risk for not succeeding academically, and understand that the likelihood of attending college is significantly lower for those students than their peers. In preparing school counselors to collect data and create comprehensive programs that reach all students, counselor educators are training change