The Impact of School Counselors on Student Outcomes

Students in K-12 schools are increasingly struggling with academics, behavior, and mental health. I investigate whether counselors could be effective educational supports for students by estimating the impact of counselors on student outcomes in middle and high schools, taking advantage of exogenous variation resulting from state policy governing counselor allocation in a subset of states. I use five years of data (beginning in 2013-2014 and ending in 2021-2022) from the Civil Rights Data Collection which surveys all schools in the United States. I find that state policy on counselor allocation is predictive of realized counselor staffing in middle schools and high schools, but not in elementary schools. In middle schools, I find that the addition of a counselor results in reduced out-of-school suspension rates. In high schools, I find that the addition of a counselor results in lower in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, and retention, and may modestly increase AP enrollment rates. I discuss heterogeneity in impacts and policy implications.