Building confidence, not just credentials

As May marks Mental Health Awareness Month, it feels like the right time to step back and recognize something meaningful happening inside schools across the country: educators are changing how they approach the conversation about life after high school. For many students, the question of what comes next is not just an academic one. It is an emotionally loaded one. The pressure to choose a college, declare a major, map out a career, or decide whether higher education is even the right path can trigger real anxiety and stress at an age when students are already navigating some of the most complex years of their lives. But the good news is that schools are responding, and they are doing it through the people students trust most.

The weight of what comes next

The data behind student mental health tells a serious story. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, four in ten high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2023, with nearly all indicators of poor mental health worsening over the previous decade. The pressure of post-secondary planning is a significant, and often underappreciated, contributor to that distress. Research from Counseling Today found that nearly half of surveyed students reported stress specifically around deciding on a major or career path. When students feel unclear about their future, that uncertainty does not stay neatly contained to college application season. It seeps into their daily experience at school, affecting their engagement, their confidence, and their sense of self-worth.

What makes this moment different from years past is that schools are now more intentionally integrating mental health support into the academic and career planning process itself, rather than treating it as a separate concern to be addressed elsewhere. The result is a more holistic approach to student development, one that honors the emotional reality of growing up while still preparing students for the road ahead.

Guidance counselors: first responders in the planning process

Guidance counselors have always occupied a unique position in the school ecosystem, serving as both academic advisors and emotional support for students navigating some of the hardest seasons of adolescence. EdSource has described school counselors as “first responders,” and that framing rings especially true when it comes to post-secondary anxiety. A counselor sitting across from a junior who is paralyzed by the college application process is doing far more than reviewing transcripts. They are helping a young person organize their fears, reframe expectations, and find a foothold in what can feel like an overwhelming unknown.

Increasingly, counselors are approaching post-secondary planning conversations through a mental health lens, weaving in stress management, self-assessment, and identity exploration alongside the more practical tasks of course selection and application planning. These are not soft extras. They are the very skills that allow a student to face uncertainty with resilience rather than panic.

The challenges counselors face should not go unacknowledged. Student-to-counselor ratios remain far above the recommended 250:1 in many schools, and the scope of needs counselors are asked to address continues to expand. Even so, the work they do to hold space for students navigating life transitions is profound, and many schools are working to build stronger support structures around them.

CTE and work-based learning instructors: giving the future a shape

Career and Technical Education has emerged as one of the most meaningful protective factors in student mental health, and the research is beginning to catch up to what CTE instructors have long observed in their classrooms. Advance CTE has highlighted that career exploration allows students to see what is possible for their future and how work can connect to their passions and interests, contributing directly to a student's sense of belonging and purpose. That sense of purpose is not just motivating. It is protective. When a student can point to a pathway they are genuinely excited about, the future stops feeling like a cliff edge and starts feeling like a direction.

Work-based learning takes that a step further. When students have the opportunity to job shadow a professional, complete an internship, or engage in a community-based project tied to a career cluster they care about, they gain something that no classroom lecture can fully deliver: real-world evidence that they can do this. That kind of experiential confidence is enormously powerful for students whose anxiety about the future is rooted in a fear of not being capable or prepared enough.

Every educator in the building has a role

Supporting student mental health around post-secondary planning is not the exclusive responsibility of counselors or CTE teachers. Research reviewed by the National Institutes of Health emphasizes that frontline gatekeepers such as teachers and other school personnel are perfectly positioned to identify students who may be struggling and connect them to appropriate support. A classroom teacher who notices that a student has become disengaged or anxious in the second semester of junior year may be the first person to ask how they are really doing.

Schools that are making real progress in this area tend to share a common characteristic: they have invested in whole-school approaches to social-emotional learning that normalize conversations about mental health for everyone, not just students in crisis. According to the Learning Policy Institute, good mental health is central to student success in school and in life, and schools that embed social-emotional development into their daily culture see meaningful reductions in student anxiety, depression, and disengagement.

A more human way forward

This Mental Health Awareness Month, the most important thing we can recognize is that helping students thrive after high school is not just about giving them the right information. It is about giving them the confidence, clarity, and support to believe that a fulfilling future is possible for them. Guidance counselors, CTE instructors, teachers, administrators, and every school employee who asks a student how they are really doing is part of that work. And when those human relationships are paired with tools that make the planning process feel manageable and meaningful, students are far better equipped to move forward, not with anxiety, but with purpose.