Why Students Need CollegeScholarshipPlan.com

The need for specialized guidance and coaching is more urgent than ever. Guidance counselors are assigned too many students and job responsibilities to fully equip students for college, scholarships and grants. We at CollegeScholarshipPlan.com see the need and want to make a difference.

• Students who graduate from college earn almost $1 million more in their lifetimes than people who only graduated high school. However, navigating the college admission, scholarship and financial aid aspects of attending college are more complicated than ever before.
• College tuition has increased 439% over the last 20 years, far outpacing inflation and decreasing students’ access to college. Scholarships and grants are the primary tools that make college a viable option for the majority of students.
• Due to excessive demands on guidance counselors, students receive only 38 minutes of counseling time per year , based on a 10 year study. Therefore, most students typically fend for themselves when deciding where, if, and how to go to college. Parents often take a lead role in this effort, which leaves students at a clear disadvantage if their own parents never attended college.
• American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends one counselor for every 100 students, or a 100:1 ratio. The actual counselor-to-student ratio across the nation's high schools is estimated to be 1:315. That is three times the recommended level according to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). In some states, such as California, Minnesota, Arizona and Utah, the average guidance counselor to student ratio is well over 500:1.
• The Boston Indicators Project reports that the counselor to student ratio is 1:664 in the Boston school system. Counselors are also expected to attend to the needs of students with special needs, arrange for standardized testing, handle scheduling issues and deal with problem students.
• College graduates have dramatically higher employment rates than non-grads. According to 1994 data from the U.S. Department of Education, 77 percent of people with at least a bachelor’s degree participated in the labor force, versus 52 percent of people who earned only a high school diploma.
• In 1975 women with college degrees earned 37% more than non-grads but in 2005, college educated women earned more than 70% than women without degrees. Therefore, one of the primary tools for keeping women out of poverty is education.

So-  Even though a college education has undeniable benefits, college can be cost prohibitive.  Getting admission and minimizing costs is a science unto itself. The great amount of time necessary to discuss  all your options can be too much to expect your guidance counselor to cover in detail with each individual student and his or her parents (in the limited time available for each student).

CollegeScholarshipPlan.com is the perfect tool to give the students, parents and counselors the resources they need to successfully help students get the opportunities they have worked so hard to achieve. We want to help you attain your college goals.

www.collegescholarshipplan.com