Financial and Career Counseling: The New Form of College Counseling

The Learning Consultants started as an academic tutoring and test prep Connecticut service provider in the early 2000s. Our work naturally led to educational counseling, particularly college counseling.

For that reason, we built College Counseling Connecticut to serve our clientele. We noticed, even with our typically affluent Fairfield County clientele, that many of our college counseling discussions quickly turned to predicting the future related to financial and career decisions.  In addition to the common questions related to financial aid, merit aid, and overall college expenses, the questions started to focus on “would X college be worth it?”

Since career counseling has always been a part of my educational counseling practice, I was happy that my knowledge about career paths could be helpful to our college counseling clients.  I was surprised that my financial background (in part from my attorney days with the Securities and Exchange Commission) would be an asset.

Families making financial decisions about college cost are usually so anxious that rationality becomes constrained. Our initial framework centers upon differentiating the college experience versus career outcomes.

In the not so old days, most parents were focused on “fit” based on socialization, class size, campus, clubs and other factors primarily related to the 4 year experience at the college, as if the post-college career outcome was not particularly important.

In our recent work, some parents are focused almost exclusively on the post-college career outcomes, as if the 4 years at the college were not particularly important.

Both matter. Both are worth the investment.  The nuances and subtleties of each relate to our clients’ idiosyncratic preferences.