New Grant Program Targets Schools with Lowest Graduation Rates to Hire More Counselors

The “Put School Counselors Where They’re Needed Act” sets up a new competitive grant program designed to inject more professional counseling support directly into high-need secondary schools. Essentially, Congress is acknowledging what experts have been saying for years: the current average student-to-counselor ratio of 376:1 is too high, especially when the recommended number is closer to 250:1. This bill tries to fix that, focusing on the schools where students are struggling the most.

The 60% Rule: Who Gets the Money?

This isn’t a blanket funding bill. The Department of Education will award four-year grants through a demonstration project, but only to secondary schools that have a four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate of 60% or lower. The goal is laser-focused: to boost graduation rates that are lagging, particularly among groups like students with limited English proficiency, where graduation rates hover around 71% compared to 89% for White students. The bill authorizes $5 million annually from Fiscal Year 2026 through 2029 to fund this effort, starting with at least 10 schools across at least five different states.

Hiring Extra Help Where It Counts

If a school secures one of these grants, the money must be used to hire extra school counselors—not just replace existing staff. This is a critical detail, known as the “supplement, not supplant” rule (Sec. 2). The new staff must focus primarily on identifying and supporting students at risk of not graduating within four years. They are specifically tasked with creating individual graduation plans, coordinating with parents and teachers, and providing comprehensive support. The hope is that participating schools will aim to hire one extra counselor for every 250 students considered “at risk.” For a student struggling to balance work and school, or dealing with family issues, this means having a dedicated professional whose sole focus is keeping them on track to get that standard diploma.

The Long-Term Catch: Proving Your Worth

Schools aren't just handed a blank check for four years; they have to show results if they want to keep the funding going. If a school achieves “adequate improvement”—defined as increasing its four-year graduation rate by 10% or more during the grant period—it can apply for a second, and then a third, grant period. This performance metric is a clear incentive for schools to make real changes. However, there’s a financial shift in the third grant period: the federal funding starts to decrease each year, and the school district is required to increase its own non-Federal funding to make up the difference (Sec. 2). This means that while the federal government is providing the initial boost and proof-of-concept funding, the long-term financial burden of keeping those successful counselors will fall back onto the local and state education budgets. Districts need to plan ahead, or those successful new counseling positions might disappear when the federal money phases out.