Every Direction We Turn, It’s a Wall”: North Carolina School Counselors and Their Advocacy and Support for Undocumented Students’ Access to Higher Education

High school counselors in North Carolina assist with post-secondary planning for all their students, including the approximately 3,000 undocumented students who graduate from North Carolina schools each year (Zong & Batalova, 2019). Access to post-secondary education is difficult to attain for undocumented students (Groce & Johnson, 2021), especially true for undocumented students in North Carolina, a state considered hostile to this student population due to tuition and financial aid policy (Mansfield & Hernandez, 2024). Undocumented students also face a fear of deportation, food insecurity, lower socioeconomic conditions, and language barriers (Abrego, 2006). Despite the many barriers undocumented students face, school counselors are in a position to help these students access higher education in North Carolina. The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of high school counselors in eastern North Carolina in assisting undocumented students’ access to higher education and the challenges the counselors faced while doing so. This study adds to the limited research on school counselors assisting undocumented students to access higher education. This embedded case study focused on how school counselors in rural eastern North Carolina talked about their role in working with undocumented students to access higher education and what challenges the high school counselors found in supporting undocumented students. Using the nested context of reception framework, I discovered four themes: (a) counselors feel it is important to help undocumented students access higher education, (b) access to higher education is almost impossible for undocumented students in North Carolina due to finances, (c) counselors work with essential colleagues to help undocumented students access higher education, and (d) local community colleges are a key partner for providing access to higher education. The results of this study can help counselors and community college professionals work with undocumented students to access higher education.