The Effects of College Counseling Services on Academic Performance and Retention

For this study, we examined the relationship between counseling experience and college students' academic performance and retention in a sample of 10,009 college freshmen and transfer students. The results indicated that counseling experience is significantly associated with student retention: students receiving counseling services were more likely to stay enrolled in school. However, counseling experience was not related to academic performance when controlling for precollege academic performance (i.e., high school GPA, and verbal and math SAT scores). In addition, students seeking both individual and group counseling showed better academic performance than the students who received other service types.