849: The Counselor's Call - with Jill Cook, Executive Director, American School Counselor Association

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to ed up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business and your business education. So many things are happening in and around post-secondary education today. What's the pipeline into higher education look like these days? How prepared are students for higher education? Should they pursue higher education? These are all great questions.

I know because I'm asking them, but no, they are great questions that we all ponder on a daily basis as we think about what the future holds. One of the things the future holds for me and for the co-founder of this podcast, Elvin Freitas, is that we're going to be recording live in San Antonio, April 7th through 10th at Ellucian Live. We're going to have eight microphones set up. We're going to be podcasting live to people who are walking by.

Attendees, panelists and we're going to have live conversations. Usually what we do is we publish them within the hour. So after we record with someone, they get to walk around and other people are listening to what they said nearly in real time. We're very excited to do it again at Ellucian this year. This will be our third year headed to Ellucian and there's nothing better than recording in person with people and asking them what the future holds.

And so that's a good setup for our conversation today. When we talk about college business, it should bring to mind one individual. He's my guest co-host today. He's been a previous guest on this podcast. He was a fairly good guest, I would say. I'm not sure on a scale of one to 10. He would probably rate himself a nine or a 10. I would probably go five, only because I like to give him a hard time. Ladies and gentlemen, he is the one and only Dr. Gary Stocker, founder of the College Viability app. Gary, welcome back.

Gary Stocker: Thanks. So if we do the averaging 10 plus 5 is 15, that makes it a 9, I think, is the average for that.

Joe Sallustio: What some fuzzy math, my friend, and I have a button for you. Gary, how are things going? How's everybody finding the app these days with College Viability?

Gary Stocker: The app is making a lot of progress in part because we know it's a tough, tough environment for colleges. And I'm going to be fascinated to listen to our guest today talk about her role in getting students into colleges. It's going to be fascinating.

Joe Sallustio: I agree. And let's get our guest on the microphone right now because something tells me she has a lot to say about what's happening. Ladies and gentlemen, she is Jill Cook. She is the executive director at the American School Counselor Association. Jill, welcome to an EdUp Mic. How are you?

Jill Cook: I am great. How are you today?

Joe Sallustio: Thank you for your nodding of affirmation that I got the introduction right because now I can actually relax for the rest of episode. How are you? Where are you?

Jill Cook: I am in Alexandria, Virginia, which is the haven for associations, particularly education associations.

Joe Sallustio: Isn't it right? Kind of close to DC too, because that matters, right?

Jill Cook: It does. When you're an education association, being in close proximity over the bridge is good.

Joe Sallustio: You never know who you're going to run into around there, but you're executive director of the American School Counselor Association. Set the bar for us. Level set. What is the American School Counselor Association? What do you do and how do you do it?

Jill Cook: Love that. So we are a membership organization, an individual member organization, and we have approximately 43,000 members across the country. Our members are not just high school counselors. We have members kindergarten, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. And our job as an association is to support school counselors with information, knowledge, resources, training, so they can be successful in their work with all students.

Today's school counselor is a little different than the guidance counselor of old that many may have had experience with. So today it's not just about getting high school students into higher education or not just about working with students who might be in disciplinary troubles. It's about working with all students through the use of a comprehensive school counseling program that looks at school and student data to identify gaps, all the gaps, and then to construct a school counseling program to help address those gaps to prepare students for life after high school, whatever that is, including higher education.

Joe Sallustio: Amazing. That sounds hard. Everything that you just said sounds really hard and I'm being technical.

Jill Cook: It is hard. You're right. I mean, think about it. You know, we ASCA recommends a ratio of one school counselor for every 250 students. We know that the current average K-12 is one to 385. Good news, it's the lowest it's been since we've been tracking it, but the not so great news is that's still a very high caseload when we're tasking school counselors to work with all students in the school.

So they do that in a couple of different ways. One is school counselors do classroom instruction. They go in at all levels and provide really that tier one prevention level information. It could be, you know, at the elementary level, it could be around friendship skills or relationship skills. At the upper levels at high school level, it may be about post-secondary preparation. And so that classroom instruction is really key, but then they work with small groups around different areas where those gaps may have been identified via the data. And then they do individual counseling. They work with families. They work with teachers. They work with community agencies.

I think good school counselors are really the heart of a school because they are so involved with all the aspects of the school climate and the school setting.

Joe Sallustio: Gary, I'm going to pass it to you, but I want to just ask one more quick follow up. Jill, that ratio, 1 to 250 recommended 1 to 385. I know it's been coming down. Some states are way worse than that, by the way. Some states might be 1 to 750 or... I think California's got a really big ratio off the top of my head, doesn't it?

Jill Cook: So I have to tell you, California used to have a very big ratio. It used to be well over a thousand. At one point it may have been close to 1100.

Joe Sallustio: Are you kidding me?

Jill Cook: Exactly. But it's in the 600s now. That state has made a very concerted effort to have funding to hire school counselors at all levels because it had just been at the high school level and some at the middle and very little at elementary and now they have it across the board.

Joe Sallustio: The reason I ask that is because when you described the school counselor, what most people think of in the past is their guidance counselor. Right. And you would go in and they would say, here's the list of colleges you could pick from. You know, we got to get you ready because you're going to be graduating. Here you go.

But what you're talking about, working with all students, means that so many students have different needs. So many of those needs are way outside of the realm of higher education. They're not even thinking about higher ed. They're thinking about how do I get to class. They're thinking about, do I stay in class? Do I fit in at this school? Should I just drop out? I mean, there's so many other components, and you bring in the mental. I mean, just COVID was like an atomic bomb for school counselors.

Is the job itself now evolved because of the last five years?

Jill Cook: You know, what we have seen since the pandemic, even before the pandemic, was the increase in student mental health concerns. And so we know, and those statistics are pretty sobering. You know, it's two in five, maybe three in five students experiencing some kind of mental health concern, anxiety, particularly among girls and LGBTQ youth. So supporting students in this whole setting around those needs has, I think, certainly been exacerbated since the pandemic. Just while at the same time understanding that school counselors work with students on their academic development, career and post-secondary development and their social and emotional development. So it is, you know, really working with the whole child, the whole student.

And so I don't know that it's so besides the mental health, I don't know that it's gotten more compounded, but it's always been a lot for school counselors. They, again, I just, I, every student deserves a school counselor. Every school needs a school counselor.

Joe Sallustio: I know we're talking about mental health and Gary, I've always been concerned for you, about you, my friend, but I'm going to hand you the microphone anyway.

Gary Stocker: Well, you know, Joe, there's a risk with that, but we've done this enough that, you know, maybe I'll come through for you. And Joe, I'm going to ask you about financial health in a little bit, but I'm going to go more specific with my first question. And one of the other projects that I have is I'm a medical laboratory scientist by training. And I work with a big health care system here in St. Louis to identify future medical laboratory scientists. They work in hospital laboratories and those kinds of things. And for the most part, the focus that I have is on high school students.

I'm increasingly wondering if exposure to not just the laboratory career, but really any specific career or maybe just allied health in general should be a little bit earlier than 10th grade, maybe sixth, seventh, eighth grade. What do you recommend your counselors for that initial career exposure age to be or school grade to be?

Jill Cook: So I can tell you that school counselors start the career development work with students in kindergarten. In fact, there's some research that students have a pretty solid notion of what they want to do by fourth grade. I can also tell you as a former middle school counselor, middle school is a critical time. In elementary school, it is that exposure. It's your community helpers, the people you see. And as you get into middle school, especially if you start thinking about what kinds of high school courses are you going to take, you're looking at interests. You're looking at things they're good at and really trying to help them make those fits.

There are lots of middle schools. We did it when I was a middle school counselor. I took students to, I lived in North Carolina at the time, Go Heels. We took students to colleges so they could set foot on a college campus because so many of them had never done that. We took them to our community college. We took them to local businesses and industries to see what that was like. Middle school is just a ripe opportunity to work with students, but it doesn't start there. It starts earlier. But absolutely, that's something you need to think about.

Gary Stocker: And then a follow-up to that, Joe, and I'll give it back to you, is when you think about the expertise across so many professions, so many careers, how does your organization provide support to those counselors who must have mind numbing numbers of careers to think about? Because, you know, I'll be funny and honest here for a second. I don't care about engineers. I don't care about architects. I care about medical laboratory scientists. And that's my focus. How do you balance that?

Jill Cook: It is a balance and it's a tricky balance. I can tell you just at the National Association, we get businesses and industries reaching out to us literally almost on a daily basis saying we want school counselors to know about our career, about our niche, because we want them to work with families and students to tell them about it. We are a great disseminator of information. We have lots of great groups we work with and we share information. We have an exhibit hall at our annual conference that's full of groups like this.

School counselors can't be an expert in all of that. There are some tools out there, some essentially repositories where there are videos, there are job descriptions, there's some great places that try and do virtual matchups with folks in those careers, talking with classes or with students. School counselors typically are the ones who run career fairs or career days. This, I mean, I think since the pandemic, we know there are so many job openings, good job openings that don't necessarily require higher education. Now, we certainly know that post high school that some training, some education is needed in most every field you're going to pursue. But if we could talk about it in a way that's, you know, so that non-higher ed options are not lesser than, how can we celebrate all the opportunities for students? But it is a trick for school counselors. And so they really rely on those resources that have been developed that really compile all this information to be able to share with students.

Just as important as that is the relationships that schools and school counselors and school districts can build with their community businesses and industries because they keep saying, we have openings, we have a need, and are you working with your schools, your school district? No, not really. So it can't be siloed work. It really has to be in collaboration.

Joe Sallustio: Tell them like it is. You know, Jill, one of the things that you just said really stuck out to me because we talk about skills, right? We talk about that there are just some careers that you don't need that four-year degree, but there's this, I don't know, cognitive dissonance, if you will, that exists, right? I would, as a school counselor, you have to be credentialed to some level. You've probably got bachelors or masters or...

Jill Cook: In all states, you have to have a master's degree.

Joe Sallustio: OK, so now I've got a kid in front of me who maybe probably could go to college and have no problem doing it. Might be interested in pipe fitting or, you know, some alternative career. Now, I'm a school counselor. I have gone to college, so I must believe innately in the value of a college education. And now I'm presented with a situation. Do I advise the kid who's in front of me to not go to college and pursue a trade? Do I advise this kid to go to college because I must believe in it to some level and maybe explore something later? That's it. When we talk in higher ed a lot about there's just kids that are just gonna not go to college. We do forget that they're interacting with people who have all gone to college in the education system. That's where the education system has been founded as through education obviously in college degrees.

Is that a hard conversation for counselors? Is that something you have to prep them for as a part of the training?

Jill Cook: I don't know necessarily as part of the training. I think some of that will come with experience. But the important thing to keep in mind is you have to look at the totality of the student in front of you. Again, you don't. Yes, you want to hear what the student has to say, but you want to look at what are your interests? What are your goals? Where do you want to live? You know, what are you... there might be circumstances that we're not aware of that could impact post high school choices. And so you provide all the options, but at the end of the day, that's for a decision for that student to make and that student and their family, hopefully in collaboration.

But I've never heard a school counselor say that advising a student not to go to college was difficult for them. But we do know, I mean, there's statistics out there. If you look at salaries over time, we know the more education, the higher the salary over time. And that's, I shared it with students back in the day, but I think some of that might be shifting. We know there are skilled jobs available that after a couple years, apprenticeships, trainings, you can make them into six figures.

Joe Sallustio: 100%. Yep. And I have to say as a parent, I have four kids, they're all grown now. My parents both were college professors. My brother and I both have advanced degrees. Of my four children, two of them didn't go to college. It was not the right choice for them, either of them for very different reasons. And I never thought before I had children that that would be something I was okay with because exactly what you said, it just was. Higher education was just ingrained in me, but when it has to be the best decision for that individual student and child. Gary, back over to you in a sec, but I gotta ask since you brought up money and salaries, this profession and it being the heart, as you're saying, so many ins and outs, one of the knocks on the teaching profession. And I say this a lot, my daughter, you know, my daughter, I have a nine year old and she comes home and she says, I wanna be a teacher.

And I hate to say it and I hate to admit it but my first reaction was no no, no, you're never gonna make any money. I mean and I I've interviewed a lot of people advocating for teachers and let's be honest. It's a vastly underpaid industry. I mean, these are people that have the keys to our kids. The most highly paid people in the world talk about school counselors that scale is... Is it good? Is the industry in a good place? Is it still under? Is it underpaid like teaching? Is it something that's discussed?

Jill Cook: So yes, you're right on all those fronts. So school counselors, it varies what their pay scale is based on district to district, state to state, because you have to have a master's degree to be certified in a state. More often than not, school counselors are on a higher step level, but we know that's not a significant difference. And most of the funding for public schools comes from state, state and local, what, five, six, 7% at the federal level. So it has to be a real investment at the state level to ensure that salaries are such that whether you're a teacher or school counselor or school nurse, you make the money you deserve for the work that you do.

One of the things we're experiencing is an educator shortage for a variety of reasons. Some due to the pandemic, some due to people going into education because for all the reasons. And so one of the challenges today is, so school districts are hiring teachers or school counselors in some cases without the certification or the credential or the training. So how can we ensure that all those individuals get the skills and education they need to be able to do that work while they have that provisional or emergency certification.

Gary Stocker: Jill, I want to gently introduce this topic in the context of how high school counselors would address it. And we're headed toward that time of year when in April and probably into May of this year, families across the country will sit around that kitchen table and they'll be making their decision about which college or if to go to college or not. And you mentioned best decision. And it's not necessarily just the best decision of the college, but there's a best decision part, not on the finances of the family, but on the finances of the college. Now I do research on this all the time. I developed the app that Joe talked about that compares the financial health of private and public colleges across the country. Is that a topic that concerns you yet or is that something that's not quite on the radar at your level first and then the radar of high school counselors secondarily?

Jill Cook: At our level, really not as much. And anecdotally, just from our high school counselors across the country, it's not something we really hear about. Where our folks are, and especially this year, and I'm sure you've had conversations around the new FAFSA, is really where we are right now is really working with the Department of Education to make sure our high school counselors have resources to help students and families fill out the FAFSA and complete the FAFSA. And there's some districts, there may be some states too, that require FAFSA completion as a graduation requirement.

And that's simply to give students an option if that's what they choose to do. But in terms of that sitting down at the kitchen table, that really isn't something, honestly, I hear a lot about.

Gary Stocker: Are you kidding me?

Joe Sallustio: We talk about the FAFSA, just a quick follow up. The FAFSA of course is where colleges look at the finances of the family. And the app that Gary developed is kind of a reverse FAFSA. Is it reasonable that families should kind of have access to the financial health of a college, just like the college has access to the financial health of a family?

Jill Cook: That's such an interesting question. And I can tell you it's one I've never thought about. I don't know, even with the two kids who went to college, I don't know that that would even enter my mind and what I would have done with that information or if it would have influenced a decision in any direction. But it's interesting.

Gary Stocker: Yeah. It hasn't hit the market yet, but it might, Joe.

Joe Sallustio: No, I was just going to say, I was really hoping you'd ask at least one good question, Gary. And it looks like we could just now end the episode. It's interesting and we can talk more about it, but I want to experiment with something right now. I tried it once before, Jill, you don't know this, but I'm going to interrupt my own episode for a special segment that I've been, I messed around with this before. Once it kind of was rough. I'm going to do it again. Now, Jill, it's really easy. It's called the EdUp Either Or Experience. Here we go. All right. Do you hear anything? You hear, you hear the music, thinking music. This is the thinking music. Jill, this is where I ask you an either or a question or both. If you select both because you can't make a decision, you owe me $5 per answer and I'll be collecting, I'll be sending you a bill. And these are going to be questions you know the answer to, but we get a little bit into the mind of Jill and school counseling. You ready?

Jill Cook: Okay.

Joe Sallustio: Jill, individual counseling or group counseling?

Jill Cook: Group counseling.

Joe Sallustio: Proactive prevention or responsive intervention?

Jill Cook: Proactive.

Joe Sallustio: Pedagogy or andragogy?

Jill Cook: Let's go pedagogy.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah, there's no right answer to that one. Okay. Power skills or durable skills?

Jill Cook: Phone a friend, can I ask for definition of what you mean by this?

Joe Sallustio: These are better known as soft skills back in the day. Do we now relabel them power skills or durable skills?

Jill Cook: We have, ASCA has our own student standards. We don't call them soft skills. We call them the skills students need to be successful. And I say they're durable skills.

Joe Sallustio: Durable. Culture or strategy?

Jill Cook: Culture.

Joe Sallustio: Culture eats strategy for breakfast, doesn't it? All right. Let's see. I'll get another. Here's a good one. From a school counseling perspective, data-driven decision-making or intuition-based approach?

Jill Cook: That is a no-brainer. Our whole last 20 years of my work at the association and the association's work has been around data-driven decision making.

Joe Sallustio: All right, let's go. I'll get one more. Teams or Zoom?

Jill Cook: Oh, Zoom.

Joe Sallustio: All right. And the last one, Gary, we're going to go to you for this one. Co-founder Elvin Freitas or co-founder Joe Sallustio?

Gary Stocker: It's got to be Sallustio. Got to be Sallustio. Take that, Freitas.

Joe Sallustio: There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. In episode interruption, Jill answered every question so you don't owe me any money. Thank goodness. The last time somebody said both a couple of times, so I was like, now we're going to be clean enough. A little bit of fun, huh?

Jill Cook: A little bit of fun.

Joe Sallustio: This is a good transition, and the reason I do it is because we have to have fun in education. School counselors are taking on a lot of work. There's a certain passion that has to be there. And that passion has to supersede the trending issues that counselors are dealing with. So I don't think that there's a question about passion or else you wouldn't do it. But what are the, I think your meeting is in July, if I'm not mistaken. Plug that for us real quick, the annual conference.

Jill Cook: Our annual conference will be in Kansas City, Missouri, not Kansas as some people think, Kansas City, Missouri, July 15th through 17th. And we are expecting between 5 and 6,000 school counselors from across the country to join us for professional development, keynote sessions, and some fun.

Joe Sallustio: Excellent. What are the things that are top of mind as you enter this conference for school counselors, like those top one, two or three things that we've got to discuss this at the conference.

Jill Cook: Yeah, it's a couple of things. I will have to say the notion of career development is top of mind for all the reasons we've discussed already. And so we will definitely have breakout sessions that address that and look at some really best practices and exemplars about how schools and school districts are doing this and doing this work with their community college or with their institution of higher ed in their area or with businesses and industry. So that's one. 

Student mental health, as we also mentioned, continues to be top of mind as well. It's just because school counselors are often on the front line, you know, the skills and the information they need to have, it's just, it's a lot. And as we think about ensuring schools have protocols in place that teachers know how to refer kids if they have concerns, that bus drivers, coaches, cafeteria staff, front office staff. Again, this is really not siloed work. 

But then also, of top of mind is really the issue of equity and how can we ensure so if we're using data to look to guide our school counseling program and guide our school and we're identifying gaps, whether they're resource or opportunity information, whatever those gaps are. So how can school counselors use data to do that? And then what are the things school counselors can put in place to help rectify that? You know, is it a policy? Is there something preventing students from accessing a particular class? Is it the way between classes is structured? But ensuring that all students have equitable opportunities is always top of mind.

Joe Sallustio: Nailed it. Gary.

Gary Stocker: You know, Jill, since we've established that I ask better questions than Joe does, I have one final question and I'm going to rank it up there by myself. Parents as counselors, that's got to be a challenge for those high school counselors because mom and dad are bringing their own experiences, their own prejudices, their own biases. What kind of guidance do you provide your counselors on having the skills to manage what parents are providing, the guidance parents are providing with the guidance the counselors might provide?

Jill Cook: Well, you know, it's not, Gary, it's not an either or. And so the goal for any student is that they have a trusting adult, whether it's a parent, a school counselor, a teacher, a coach to whom they can turn. But you're right. Sometimes parents have, you know, that student may come to you and say, I don't want to go to college. I want to go, I want to be a welder. I want to go to community college. I want to go to this technical school.

For many parents and families, the notion of, what do you mean my child's not going to college? Again, it's that destigmatization of other options for students. And sometimes parents are the biggest barrier. So, you know, the hope would be, again, this is school counselors work with parents and families and parents are involved often in course selection and in these four year planning and looking at the planning after high school.

But my hope is that school counselors have the skills to be able, exactly what I said, look at all the information you have about a student and the student could really make a case with the families and the parents if it's not in alignment with what parents think. But there are some cases that's not always gonna be the case.

Joe Sallustio: That's a fact, that's a fact. You think about the backyard barbecue, right? And you know what, Gary, my kid is going to so-and-so college. And you go, okay, so now I've got to say my kid is going to forego college and become an electrician. And I'm going to judge this moment that I'm about to open my mouth and I'm either come in going, yeah, you know what, my kid is going to not go to college. And I'm limping into that discussion, furthering that conversation, that whole smoke and mirror conversation where I'm going to come in and go, my kid's going to be an electrician and he's going to outperform. He's going make a ton of money because you cannot find an electrician.

Jill Cook: That's right.

Joe Sallustio: And you know, so there's this, that stigma exists within us who, you know, my same thing, my family, my mother and father said, you will go to college. You will get a four year degree. If you don't get it in exactly four years, you will lose our help to pay for it. So if you go for a fifth year, forget it. You're on your own. But if you get it in that four years, our job is done. We've gotten you as far as we could push you and that's it. Now the rest is on you. And that was part of generational wealth building and so on. But that isn't the case for how careers work anymore. Sorry, I'm soapboxing for a minute,

Jill Cook: You're right. You're absolutely right. I think it happens. Some studies come out that this might be the generation that doesn't exceed their parents in terms of whether it's education or wealth or salaries, I think.

Joe Sallustio: No, that's exactly right. It's the student's journey. And sometimes that's just hard to understand or swallow sometimes. But it's their journey, not yours as the parent. As much as you'd like to live vicariously through your child, that's not the way it works. I was going to say that about the podcast too, because Gary got a little ahead of himself. This is not your journey, Gary. This is my journey and you're coming on the ride for it here.

Gary Stocker: We can still live vicariously through their athletic endeavors, right, Jill?

Jill Cook: Absolutely. Always.

Joe Sallustio: Jill, artificial intelligence. I should have asked you this on the this or that. Yes to artificial intelligence for school counselors. No. I mean, where are we on the whole AI piece for counselors?

Jill Cook: Well, it's here. We know, we know in education, there are some great ways it's being utilized to create lesson plans, to work with students. There's some interesting programs. I think Khan Academy has some interesting programs looking at how it can support teachers essentially as a tutor. I know some school counselors have concerns, AI is going to write the essay for the college application. I'm sure maybe. But I think the matter is it's here and we need to find a way how to utilize it and harness it so it can support students and can support the work educators do.

Joe Sallustio: By the way, AI might, maybe AI did that, but before a parent helped you write it, a parent wrote it.

Jill Cook: Absolutely it's happened.

Joe Sallustio: It's absolutely happened. Didn't you know it? Gary wrote his essays for his kids and you know it, Gary. But it's just an interesting world we live in. There's a technology adoption cycle, Gary, and you know this. It's like, how do we use it? How do we not use it? And if you look at the job of kids come in now, I walk by them here at Lindenwood. They're like, yeah, I've got like my own tool set of AI programs. It's an ecosystem around me. It used to be cable TV, but now I've got Netflix and I've got Disney and I've got you know, Apple, and I've got this ecosystem of shows that I watch. It's not just cable TV anymore. It's that same concept, right? Now it's artificial intelligence and an ecosystem around me. Anything to add to that, Gary or Jill?

Gary Stocker: Well, yeah, just quickly, Jill, and I'll give it back to you is I use AI in the graduate health care management courses I teach. I tell my students use it, use it a lot, just cite it.

Jill Cook: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Just be upfront about what you're doing. And no hesitation at all on my part. None at all.

Joe Sallustio: Right. And you know what? That kind of brings us to the end of the episode. Gary, do you have any other questions for Jill before I just toss you to the side now?

Gary Stocker: I think we should do this every day because this has been a fascinating discussion on all sorts of topics. So let's do this every day for an hour for the next year or two and then I'll be good.

Joe Sallustio: Just for the record, I do do this every single day. 12 Central every day. Elvin Freitas has me booked out till the halfway through June now on a daily basis. So that's how often we podcast here at the EdUp Experience. Jill, final two questions for you. First is more of an open mic moment for you. What else do you want to say about your work, about the American School Counselor Association? Anything at all? Open mic.

Jill Cook: Well, I appreciate that. I've already said it, but plain and simple, every student deserves a school counselor. Every school must have a school counselor. We have a growing body of research that shows the impact having a school counselor can have on student outcomes, whether it's academics, attendance, discipline, FAFSA completion, applying to college, all those positive outcomes we want for students.

My soapbox is we need to ensure that there's always funding to have school counselors because in most states they're not even if they are mandated in a state, they're non-funded mandates so that there's funding at the state and district level to ensure that every student has access to a school counselor.

Joe Sallustio: What do you see for the future of post-secondary education?

Jill Cook: You know, that's a good question. You know, I think just based on what I'm hearing now and we've alluded to about all the opportunities available to students after high school. I think, you know, I don't know if it's going to mean a decline in the college going rates and an increase in apprenticeships and internships and technical colleges and community colleges, but we know education, ongoing education throughout the lifetime will happen. It may not be, it may be called different things. So, you know, my hope is students leave our high schools not being scared that that's the case, that they have a heart and appreciation for whatever it is they choose to do, whether it's going to college or not. There's going to be learning involved and they'll have the ability and the passion to do that. But I know colleges and the whole, we didn't even talk about some of the issues impacting higher ed,

I think we'll just have to see, but the goal is we want all students to have a job, a career, a way to earn a living that brings them meaning, hopefully brings them joy and that they can have the life they choose. That's my hope.

Joe Sallustio: Love it. I love it. I love it. Well, before I let you go, Jill, I have to out you my amazing guest co-host. First time guest, now, wait a minute, guest, now guest co-host to get the EdUp trifecta, you have to then host your own episode when I can't do it. So you have to fill in for me. 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Gary Stocker, founder of the College Viability app where you can compare the college finances by institution in any way you could possibly think of. I know because I use it. And Gary, anything else you want to add? And did you have fun today?

Gary Stocker: No, Joe, always a pleasure. Always fun. Always fun.

Joe Sallustio: Ladies and gentlemen, my amazing guest. No, she's your amazing guest. Her name is Jill Cook. She's the executive director at the American School Counselor Association. She was a good sport today trying out my new in-episode segment. Jill, did you have fun on the podcast today?

Jill Cook: I had a lot of fun, Joe. Thank you so much.

Joe Sallustio: Ladies and gentlemen, you've just ed-upped.