“Getting Into the World”: Guidance and Counseling in Community Colleges

Guidance and counseling services are designed to help students make occupational choices, understand the relation between school and subsequent employment, and address a variety of academic and personal issues. Community colleges face particular challenges with regard to guidance and counseling because of the variety of students, their differing goals, the presence of many “experimenters,” and students with unrealistic perceptions of occupations and their educational requirements. While many of the basic issues in guidance and counseling are difficult to investigate, one preliminary question to answer is what services colleges now provide (although the effectiveness of different services and approaches in helping students achieve their goals will remain elusive). A straightforward research approach is an examination of the services provided, the information available, and the perspectives of counselors and others in a sample of community colleges. A brief based on the report, Guidance and Counseling in Community Colleges, is available for download.