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Introduction

For educators, the challenge of ensuring a future workforce that is ready to compete in a global economy persists. Although
the graduation rate rose by nearly a percentage point from 2015 to 2016, from 83.2 percent to 84.1 percent, the United States
still suffers from a high school “drop out problem” and an overall achievement gap based on students’ ethnic and income
backgrounds (US Department of Education, 2018). Essentially, the achievement and/or opportunity gaps in the United States
have resulted in college enrollment gaps—low income students, and students of color (primarily African American, Native
American, and Latino/Hispanic students) attend and graduate from college disproportionately compared to their white, Asian,
and affluent peers (Baum & Payea, 2005; US Department of Education, 2018). This is a critical problem, given that many of the
fastest-growing jobs in the United States require some form of postsecondary education (US Department of Commerce,
2017). As such, a key factor in our nation’s ability to compete in an increasingly global economy is the rate in which we can
prepare students for entry into postsecondary institutions.

For educators, the challenge of ensuring a future workforce that is

ready to compete in a global economy persists.

In response to labor market needs, there has been an unparalleled development of college and career readiness initiatives
across the United States. A major component in these initiatives is the deployment of college counseling. The literature
contains a plethora of articles, books, and studies indicating the positive influence of counseling (if accessible) when
promoting college-going, college access, particularly for first-generation college students and students of color (Nikischer,
Weis, & Dominguez, 2016; Gandara & Bial, 2001; Woods & Domina, 2014). According to a study conducted by Velez (2016)
and published by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), 12th graders who talked to a school
counselor about their future plans were 6.8 times more likely to complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA);
3.2 times more likely to attend college and 2 times more likely to attend a bachelor’s degree program.
However, the empirical examination of college counseling in K–12 settings is relatively new. Major questions that arise when
discussing counseling to enhance K–12 students’ college and career readiness have to do with the accessibility of counseling,
who conducts the counseling, to whom counseling will be available, and the impact of counseling on actual student behavior
and progress (e.g., rate of college going, college retention). Additionally, with the increasingly diverse student population in
today’s K–12 schools, the notion what constitutes effective or good college counseling with diverse populations of students
and families is a critical question that must be answered in order to ensure equitable access to college for all (Holcomb-
McCoy, 2007; Savitz-Romer, 2012).
Given the urgency to address the aforementioned issues, a variety of contextual factors influence the efficacy of counseling,
particularly college counseling conducted in schools. The remainder of this chapter will provide a historical overview of
counseling, followed by a discussion of contextual factors that possibly impede effective college counseling. Trends and future
directions will also be discussed. As a note, most private schools and some public high schools have designated “college
counselors.” The “typical public high school” has a guidance department, consisting of school counselors who all perform
college counseling tasks in addition to other counseling-related duties (e.g., scheduling, crisis counseling, drop-out prevention
programming). There are also community-based “college counselors” and college preparation organizations that provide
college counseling and/or coaching. For the sake of clarity, in this chapter, college counseling refers to all of these scenarios.

Historical Overview of Counseling

Professional counseling continues to evolve in response to social, educational, political, and economic trends. In October
2010, the American Counseling Association (ACA) Governing Council approved the following definition of counseling:

Counseling is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental
health, wellness, education, and career goals (American Counseling Association, 2019).

Several researchers have cited the evolution of vocational guidance and psychology to transformative school counseling
(Cobia & Henderson, 2003; Coy, 1999; Education Trust, 1997; House, & Martin, 1998; Schmidt, 2003). However, college
counseling as it relates to school counseling has a less defined path. The most notable and frequently cited influence that
initially heightened postsecondary awareness was the passing of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in 1958. The
NDEA enacted by the federal government, provided funding to improve secondary school counseling, with emphases on high
school counselor preparation to subsidize training programs and professional institutes for guidance personnel. It was also in
the 1950s that the American Psychological Association and the American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA)
introduced distinct standards and requirements for pupil personnel workers (e.g., psychologists, guidance counselors, and
social workers).
In the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, focus turned to education initiatives, such as the High Schools That Work and The
School Development Program, which were student-centered and developed to increase academic achievement and
postsecondary student preparedness (Board, 1999a). The High Schools That Work (Board, 1999a, 1999b) research visibly
placed school counselor roles in the practice of vocational guidance. Evidence based research on The School Development
Program demonstrated consistent and continuous student improvement, especially in urban settings; however, direct linkage
to school counseling services is vague (Smylie, Wenzel, & Fendt, 2003). During the concurrent era, state Department of
Education personnel and counselor educators began to evaluate the impact or absence of school counseling interventions on
education reform models, instructional environments, and college counseling. Inharmonious discussions centered on the role
of the school counselor and postsecondary advisement. Also, during this time, graduate counselor education programs were

7
grounded in clinical and community mental health models that viewed college counseling and academic advisement as
conflicting role identities for school counselors (McDonough, 2004). As a result, school counselors were being trained to be
highly skilled mental health counselors without an educational framework or perspective of which to guide their practice
(Kaplan, 1995).
Also, during this time (i.e., 1990s), the presence of community agency partnerships and federally funded opportunity
programs were downsized and some educators began to question if college counseling services were necessary to inform
and empower students to the path of college. McDonough (2004) acknowledges that prior to the 1990s, a significant segment
of college counseling was absorbed through self-help modalities as a guiding principle. That same focus continued during the
early 1990s as widening achievement gaps, astounding dropout rates, and declining test scores gave rise to the rethinking
and evaluation of school counselor roles and responsibilities in educational settings. Social challenges such as violence, teen
pregnancy, peer pressure, poverty, hunger, and homelessness suggested a need for school counselors to use systemic
approaches as an integral part of their counseling services (Capuzzi & Gross, 2000; Hossler, Schmidt, & Vesper, 1999).
The literature suggests that the aforementioned history led to the DeWitt Wallace-Education Trust’s national initiative to
transform school counseling (Education Trust, 1997). Both organizations were convinced that school counselors were not
prepared to contribute to equitable learning and college access for all students. Yet, they postulated that professional school
counselors were in the best position to identify barriers that impede academic success for all students. ASCA supported the
Education Trust’s initiative and principles (e.g., leadership, advocacy, and collaboration) and consequently, introduced the
ASCA National Model: A Framework for School Counseling Programs (ASCA, 2003), as a guide for school counselors’
development of data-driven comprehensive school counseling programs. Currently, the Education Trust’s New Vision for
School Counseling promotes school counseling in which “school counselors advocate for educational equity, access to a
rigorous college and career-readiness curriculum, and academic success for all students” (Education Trust, 2009). The
Education Trust’s website lists 23 Transforming School Counselor Preparation programs. These programs are committed to
training school counselors in skills that are needed to remove barriers that impede student achievement (e.g., collaboration,
use of data). The number of practicing school counselors who ascribe to the principles of the Education Trust’s New Vision is
unknown.
More recently, the Reach Higher Initiative, launched by former First Lady Michelle Obama during her time at the White
House, worked to inspire every student in the United States to take charge of their future by completing their education past
high school. The former First Lady said that if we are to reach the former President Obama’s Northstar goal (to have the
highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020), schools and states must empower school counselors. That’s
why school counselors are a part of her Reach Higher Initiative, she told attendees at the American School Counselor
Association (ASCA) conference in June 2014.

Factors Influencing College Counseling in Schools

There are multiple indicators that suggest a need for a shift in the foundational principles and practices of school counseling.
First and foremost, there are stark disparities in college enrollments across groups of students. Low-income students, students
whose parents have never attended college, and students of color (i.e., African American, Latino/Hispanic) are less likely to
attend college when compared to their more affluent, white, and Asian peers (Baum & Payea, 2005; Perna et al., 2008).
Although college enrollments have increased across all groups, there is still a persistent enrollment gap (US Department of
Commerce, 2017). Also, when students from underrepresented groups do enroll in college, they tend to enroll in public two-
year colleges and less selective and less-resourced four-year colleges and universities (National Center for Education
Statistics, NCES, 2010).
The lack of college counseling in high schools has been noted as an explanation for these disparities in college access and
choice; and consequently, school counselors have been blamed for their lack of engagement and gate-keeping practices
related to college advising (Murphy, 2016; Rosenbaum, Miller, & Krei, 1996). Obviously, school counselors are a logical source
of assistance for students who are likely to be dependent on school-based resources for college planning (Perna, 2004; Horn,
Chen, & Chapman, 2003; Radford, Ifill, & Lew, 2016).
Recent studies on the efficacy and long-term effects of school counseling services, have highlighted contextual factors that
can ultimately shape the extent of college counseling offered in schools. Not only do these factors affect the nature of college
counseling services offered to students and parents, they also affect college choice, preparation for college, transition to
college, and adjustment to the college environment.

Professional Commitment to College Counseling

Counseling organizations have always embraced career and academic development as dimensions of the counselor’s role
and in recent years, professional organizations have increasingly become more overt in their recognition of college counseling
as a significant role for counselors. However, prior to 2014, professional associations very rarely collaborated on efforts to
improve college counseling and advising strategies (McDonough, 2004). Instead, each organization has traditionally produced
their own professional and ethical standards, developed policies and practices for their role groups, provided resources,
sponsored annual conferences, and designed professional development programs for their members. The national focus to
increase equitable postsecondary opportunities for all students has renewed attention to align the professional organizations
and educational systems engaged in college access and completion work. Below are short descriptions of some of the
college counseling initiatives and associations that focus on college/career readiness.
During her tenure in the White House, former First Lady Michelle Obama launched the Reach Higher Initiative to increase
the number of American citizens who earn a postsecondary credential. The Reach Higher Initiative aimed to encourage all
students to graduate from high school and plan for their future by preparing to complete their education beyond high school,
whether at a four-year or two-year university or through a professional training program. Obama recognized that school
counselors and college advisers were instrumental partners in providing postsecondary support to students, especially those
who were first in their family to go to college (Reach Higher, n.d.). In conjunction with this initiative, Obama spoke at the 2014
ASCA Annual Conference in Orlando.

8
 Today, the Reach Higher Initiative is a part of the Better Make Room/Civic Nation Foundation. Reach Higher seeks to help
every student navigate the college going progress by (1) reaching students where they are at and celebrating their success on
social media and through flagship events like College Signing Day; (2) raising awareness about helpful college access tools
like FAFSA and Up Next and resources; and (3) enhancing student support systems by supporting school counselors and
college advisers. In 2015–2017, the School Counselor of the Year ceremony took place at the White House and was hosted by
former First Lady Michelle Obama. Her support continues as a co-host for the School Counselor of the Year Award ceremony
with the American School Counselor Association.
The Council of National School Counseling and College Access Organizations formed to create one unified body of college
access organizations. The Council members include representation from the American Counseling Association (ACA); ACT;
Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE); American School Counselor Association (ASCA); College Advising
Corps (CAC); The College Board; Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP);
National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC); National College Access Network (NCAN); and The
Southern Regional Education Board’s Go Alliance (SREB). The council members are committed to providing a comprehensive
multi-organizational, multi-institutional asset map of competencies, knowledge/skillset requirements, and resources for
advising students for postsecondary access and success.
The National Consortium for School Counseling and Post-Secondary Success (NCSCPS) was formed in response to
Obama’s call for improvements to school counseling and school-based college and career counseling systems and included
members with varied expertise in school counseling and college counseling. Dedicated to the goals of the Reach Higher
initiative, NCSCPS organized and implemented large-scale convenings focused on college and career counseling and
advising. In addition, the Consortium supported state teams in the creation of action plans, policies and legislation. In 2015,
the members of the NCSCPS conducted a study to examine the landscape of school counseling research and development.
Funded by the Kresge Foundation, the study included reviews of literature, school counselor and counselor educator surveys,
and practitioner and researcher focus groups. The study’s findings entitled, The State of School Counseling: Revisiting the
Path Forward, indicated that research on school counseling and college readiness counseling was emerging, but still lacked
the robust scholarship necessary to guide effective practice (Brown, Hatch, Holcomb-McCoy, Martin, Mcleod, Owen, & Savitz-
Romer, 2016). Based on their research, members of NCSCPS offered recommendations for the field of college counseling,
particularly school-based counseling [see Table 1].

In response to the Path Forward recommendations (Brown et al., 2016), the National Center for Postsecondary Readiness
and Success (CPRS) was launched at the American University in January 2018. The Center is specifically devoted to the study
of systems and processes (e.g., counseling, advising, financial aid practices) that influence college and career readiness in K–
12 settings as well as college persistence and completion. The center aims to document multi-disciplinary practices that
improve equitable student postsecondary opportunity—with implications for policy development (Center for Postsecondary
Readiness and Success, n.d.).

While ASCA’s focus is on the counselor as educator, the Association for Counselor Education and
Supervision (ACES), along with other counseling organizations, call for a unified professional
counselor identity.

The center will focus on research that addresses current gaps and identifies root causes of educational inequities, as well as
why some students succeed, and others do not. Research will not only represent a national perspective, but also clarify what

9
works from one region and district, and from one student to the next.
The American School Counselor Association (ASCA), the only school counseling professional organization, provides
national standards and a framework for the practice of school counseling. Inclusive of comprehensive counseling programs,
the ASCA standards address accountability in counseling, particularly in relation to achievement and attainment gaps among
students (ASCA, 2017). Additionally, ASCA created a position statement on equity that states the following: “school counselors
are mindful of school and community perceptions of the treatment of underrepresented groups and understand the
importance of collaborating with school and community groups to help all students succeed” (2018b, p. 32).
In 2014, ASCA instituted ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success: K–12 College- and Career-Readiness for Every
Student, which describe the knowledge, skills and attitudes students need to achieve academic success, college and career
readiness, and social/emotional development. The mindsets are based on a survey of research and best practices in student
achievement from a wide array of educational standards and efforts. Organized in three broad domains: academic, career and
social/emotional development, the mindsets and behaviors enhance the learning process and create a culture of college, and
career readiness for all students. The six ASCA (2014) Mindset Standards include the following:
• Belief in development of whole self, including a healthy balance of mental, social/emotional and physical well-being
• Self-confidence in ability to succeed
• Sense of belonging in the school environment
• Understanding that postsecondary education and life-long learning are necessary for long-term career success
• Belief in using abilities to their fullest to achieve high-quality results and outcomes
• Positive attitude toward work and learning
The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), a professional association including members from
schools, communities, and organizations, compiles a by-state report highlighting student-to-counselor ratios and conducts
yearly surveys of issues relevant to school counselors. NACAC supports reducing student-to-counselor ratios to 250:1 and
increasing ESEA funding allocations for programs such as the Student Support and Academic Enrichment (SSAE) grant
program (also known as Title IV, Part A), which is designed to ensure that high needs districts have access to programs that
foster safe and healthy students, provide students with a well-rounded education, and increase the effective use of technology
in our nation’s schools. The program provides block grants to states, which in turn can use the funding to hire more
counselors and/or provide professional development for counselors. NACAC recently developed a series of professional
development activities for school-based counselors and other college counselors.
In 1992, the College Board published the book, From Gatekeeper to Advocate, which challenged the role of school
counselors within the context of school reform and restructuring. More recently, the College Board’s National Office of School
Counselor Advocacy (NOSCA) provided leadership, as well as college counseling training, for school-based counselors.
NOSCA’s overall mission was to advance equitable educational access and rigorous academic preparation necessary for
college readiness for all students. In 2011, NOSCA published findings from its National Survey of School Counselors. The
findings highlighted counselors’ concerns within the profession and in the context of preparing students for college and other
postsecondary opportunities (Balfanz, Bridgeland, Bruce, & Fox, 2012). Based on the findings, the following actions were
suggested for schools and communities:
1. Align the mission of counselors with the needs of students
2. Focus counselors’ work on activities that accelerate student success
3. Target professional development dollars
4. Schools should pilot test measures of accountability
5. Coordinate initiatives with community-based organizations
Although College Board disbanded the National Office of School Counselor Advocacy (NOSCA) in 2015, they continue to
provide electronic copies of many of the publications that were developed by NOSCA. The College Board also provides fall
workshops, a Summer Online Institute for school counselors, and downloadable resources to help prepare students for
college. The College Board shares some of their resources on the National Council website.
In 2009, the New Vision for School Counseling (2009), the National Center for Transforming School Counseling (NCTSC)
advocated for educational equity, access to a rigorous college and career-readiness curriculum, and academic success for all
students. The NCTSC, established by the Education Trust and MetLife, provided professional development, program reviews,
and state department collaborative activities that promoted school counselor involvement in school reform initiatives. Although
the NCTSC is no longer an entity or division of Education Trust, Education Trust supports the profession of school counseling
and advocates for high quality school counselors for every student (Education Trust, 2018).
Another supportive organization, ACT, launched a new center in 2016, the ACT Center for Equity in Learning. The new
Center has recently convened a working group of national organizations to support four national campaigns designed to
support high school students as they navigate their college path. The campaigns include: (1) American College Application
Campaign, (2) High School to College Transition, (3) Form Your Future and (4) College Signing Day. Steps2College is
designed to be a one-stop website for everything high school counselors, students, and family members need to support
students through the college-going process. The partnership is composed of ACT Center for Equity in Learning, American
College Application Campaign from the American Council on Education (ACE), American University School of Education’s
CPRS, Better Make Room, and the National College Access Network (NCAN). Steps2College tools allow counselors, students
and their families to learn about key milestones students will face during their final year of high school as they transition to
postsecondary institutions (ACT Center for Equity and Learning, 2017).
The aforementioned initiatives and professional associations have demonstrated a commitment to college counseling and
collaboration. Future efforts to increase counselors’ knowledge and skills in college counseling will be dependent upon how
well these organizations move forward and agree to work together to provide professional development and training for pre-
service and existing college counselors.

Current Education Reform Initiatives

10
Prior to the College Opportunity Agenda and the Reach Higher Campaign, very few education reform initiatives mentioned or
recognized school counseling or college counseling as critical components in reform initiatives designed to provide
postsecondary support to first generation and low-income students. Although former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
voiced commitment to school counselors and college counseling in high schools, school counseling was not included in
President Obama’s Blueprint for Reform or the Race to the Top proposal guidelines. The Race to the Top and Blueprint for
Reform both focused on four core areas that guided the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act:
1. Enhance and reward principal and teacher effectiveness
2. Build data systems that inform parents and educators about student achievement and guide instruction
3. Develop college- and career-ready standards and assessments aligned to those standards
4. Implement effective interventions and support that will improve academic achievement in the lowest-performing schools
In particular, the Blueprint for Reform emphasized the importance of meeting the needs of students with the highest learning
needs, (i.e., culturally diverse learners, diverse English learners, children with disabilities, students of migrant families and
workers, homeless students, underprivileged children in rural and highest-need districts). The omission of counselors from
this reform initiative was concerning, and counseling associations responded. For instance, the ACA developed a School
Counseling Task Force to specifically address the unique needs of school counselors and to develop ways in which ACA
could partner and collaborate with school-reform organizations.
Some argue that school counselors are not primed for college access work, while others advocate for school counseling as
a means to close postsecondary opportunity gaps. Although schools have been advocating for lower ratios for decades, most
school counselors are burdened with huge caseloads and extra duties (Balfanz et al., 2012). The American School Counselor
Association recommends a school counselor to student ratio of 1 to 250, yet the average ratio is 1 to 482. To address this
concern, a number of state and philanthropic initiatives have arisen. In 2014, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Heckscher
Foundation partnered with the College Advising Corps, College Possible, Strive for College and The Jack Kent Cooke
Foundation to increase the number of high-achieving, low- and moderate-income students who apply to and graduate from
top colleges and universities. They used video chat, email, telephone, and text to create a virtual student support network for
students. In June 2018, Bloomberg committed $375 million to improve education by investing in cities and states, supporting
advocacy work and electoral campaigns and focusing on preparing students for high wage careers that do not require a four-
year degree.
The Lily Foundation awarded more than $49 million in grants to support a Comprehensive School Counseling Initiative for
Indiana K–12 Students. This multi-year program launched in 2016 and “seeks to significantly increase the number of Indiana
students who are emotionally healthy, realize academic success, graduate from high school, obtain valuable postsecondary
credentials necessary for meaningful employment, and are prepared to compete and prosper in the global society in which
they will live and work” (Comprehensive Counseling Initiative, n.d.). The grants have been awarded to Indiana public schools,
charter schools, and universities to strengthen school counseling programs and to better prepare the next generation of
school counselors and principals.
Since 2010, the Colorado School Counseling Corps Grant Program has provided $16 million to improve outcomes in low-
income high schools. The funding has supported the placement of an additional 220 school counselors in Colorado schools,
reducing the student to counselor ratio from 363:1 to 216:1. They saw a 3.5 percentage point reduction in the dropout rate
and a boost in Advanced Placement participation by 75 percent. They also found that for every $1 they invested in counseling,
the state saved $20 in costs related to students who may have otherwise dropped out of school (Colorado Department of
Education, 2016).
Analyzing data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, Belasco (2013) found that school-based counseling made
distinct and substantial contributions to the college enrollment and destinations of low socioeconomic students (SES).
Engberg and Gilbert (2013), examining the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, found that both school counselor norms
(average caseload and hours spent on college counseling) and resources (college fairs, college course offerings, and
financial aid) were important predictors of a school’s four-year college going rates. They also found that the number of hours
school counselors spend on college counseling is a strong predictor of four-year college going rates for that school. Hurwitz
and Howell (2014) found the addition of one extra high school counselor increased four-year college enrollment rates by 10
percentage points.
Again, although the aforementioned initiatives and professional associations have a commitment to college counseling,
they have historically worked separately with little collaboration. Future efforts to increase counselors’ knowledge and skills in
college counseling will be dependent on how well these organizations work together to provide professional development and
training for pre-service and existing college counselors.

Pre-Service Training of School Counselors

School counselor educators and practicum/internship supervisors play a critical role in the preparation of school counselors
and college advisers/counselors in secondary schools. In fact, finding a consistent description of school counselor
responsibilities differs by school and by district, making it even more difficult to determine the best preparation content and
practices for training or preparation programs. Having fully equipped and prepared school counselors has been seen as
essential for all involved. Trolley (2011) found that “very little research exists that pertains to the adequacy of school counselor
preparation, given the current demands of the job” (p. 21).
According to ASCA, there are hundreds of school counselor preparation programs (graduate-level) across the United States
(2019b). For many years, the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) was
the only accrediting body of pre-service graduate counselor training programs. However, in 2018, ASCA announced that their
School Counselor Preparation Program Standards, a unified set of principles guiding school counselor preparation programs,
would be in effect for programs seeking accreditation. The ASCA School Counselor Preparation Program Standards will
establish ASCA as a Specialized Professional Association (SPA) under the Council for the Accreditation of Educator
Preparation (CAEP) (2019a). School counseling graduate programs are also designed to comply with state and/or national
counselor certification and licensure requirements. Below are short descriptions of CACREP and ASCA preparation standards.

11
 The 2016 CACREP Standards are organized into six sections. Section 1, The Learning Environment, includes standards
pertaining to the institution, the academic unit, and program faculty and staff. Section 2, Professional Counseling Identity,
includes foundational standards and the counseling curriculum, comprising the eight required core content areas. Section 3,
Professional Practice, refers to standards required for entry-level practice, practicum, internship, supervisor qualifications, and
practicum and internship course loads. Section 4, Evaluation in the Program, provides standards relevant to evaluation of the
program, assessment of students, and evaluation of faculty and site supervisors. Section 5, Entry-Level Specialty Areas,
provides standards relevant to specialty areas offered by the program. These include addictions; career; clinical mental health;
clinical rehabilitation; college counseling and student affairs; marriage, couple, and family; school counseling; and
rehabilitation counseling. For each specialty area, standards pertaining to foundations, contextual dimensions and practice are
provided. Section 6 contains the Doctoral Standards for Counselor Education and Supervision, including learning
environment, professional identity, and doctoral-level practicum and internship requirements.
Programs accredited by CACREP include course work in the following eight areas: professional orientation and ethical
practice, social and cultural diversity, human growth and development, career development, helping relationships, group work,
assessment, and research and program evaluation. School counseling programs accredited by CACREP also must align their
program to meet standards that specifically address school-based issues and client populations. The 2016 CACREP School
Counseling standards require programs to equip graduates with postsecondary preparation knowledge and skills. For
example, graduates are expected to be able to implement “strategies to promote equity in student achievement and college
access” (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, 2015, p. 34).
Revised in 2018, the ASCA School Counselor Preparation Standards consist of seven standards: Foundational Knowledge;
Core Theories and Concepts; Instructional and School Counseling Interventions; Student Learning Outcomes; Designing,
Implementing and Evaluating Comprehensive School Counseling Programs; Professional Practice; and Ethical Practice.
College and career readiness, as a topic, is included under Standard 3—Instructional and School Counseling Interventions
(ASCA, 2018a). Standard 3.2 states, “Identify individual counseling, group counseling, and classroom instruction techniques to
ensure equitable access to resources promoting academic achievement, college/career readiness, and social/emotional
development for every student” (ASCA, 2018a, p. 1).

School Counselor Identity

There continues to be role ambiguity in professional school counseling, which ultimately influences the extent to which college
counseling occurs in secondary schools. According to Lambie and Williamson (2004), there is incongruence between what is
learned in pre-service training and the actual duties most professional school counselors perform. In addition, the literature is
replete with illustrations of how school counselors are perceived as ancillary professionals in school districts and remain on
the “outside” of important decision-making and policy development.
For many years, counselors have advocated for a stronger identity and a desire for others to understand their role and
capabilities (Johnson, 2000). Administrators, parents, community members, teachers, and other stakeholders consistently
view the role of school counselors differently. While ASCA’s focus is on the counselor as educator, the Association for
Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) along with other counseling organizations, call for a unified professional
counselor identity.
Astramovich, Hoskins, Gutierrez, and Bartlett (2013) suggest that the school counseling profession suffers from role
diffusion in addition to role ambiguity. Role diffusion is defined by the authors as the process of assuming or being appointed
to roles and duties that individuals from other fields or specialties are equally qualified to perform. For instance, role diffusion
occurs when a school counselor is assigned by an administrator to be responsible for school-wide achievement testing—
something that teachers, teacher specialists, or even school registrars may be equally competent to organize.

Counselor to Student Ratios

According to recent data, school counselors across the country managed caseloads of about 455 students each during the
2016-2017 school year (ASCA, 2019c). The report highlights a disparity that exists across America. Arizona had the highest
ratio with 905 students for every one school counselor, and Vermont had the lowest ratio, 202 students to each school
counselor (ASCA, 2019c).
Although there is no simple solution to increasing college and career readiness, numerous case studies indicate that school
counselors can play an instrumental role in increasing college enrollment rates, if given the time to work with students. Sink
and Stroh (2003) have even found a linkage between comprehensive school counseling programs and academic
performance. And, Lapan, Gysbers, and Sun (1997) found that schools with more fully implemented guidance programs had
positive effects on high school students’ self-reporting of grades, preparation for the future, career and college resources, and
perceptions of school climate. And, Carrell and Carrell (2006), using data provided by Florida’s Alachua County School
District, found that lower school counselor to student ratios decrease both the recurrence of student disciplinary problems and
the share of students involved in a disciplinary incident. Given these studies, albeit limited, the American School Counselor
Association recommends that there be no more than 250 students to each school counselor (ASCA, 2017). However, as
evidenced above, a majority of school districts do not adhere to this recommendation.

Further Considerations

The recent surge of attention and focus on the importance of college and school counseling has resulted in an abundance of
initiatives and new organizations, centers, and councils. Although there’s evidence illustrating that school counselors, when
accessible and able to provide direct college counseling to students and their families can be highly influential in the college
admission process, there’s still less clarity regarding best practices and the structural constraints in schools (e.g., counselor-
student ratios) still impede the availability of high school counselors (Holland, 2015; McDonough, 2004). Counselors are few in
number, often have large student caseloads and are limited in the amount of time they have to implement college counseling.
According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, in 2008, public school counselors spent 23 percent

12
of their time on postsecondary counseling, while their private school counterparts spent 54 percent of their time on college
counseling. This inequitable focus on college counseling in schools is directly linked to inequitable achievement gains and
overall economic and wealth attainment.
Over the past decade, higher education researchers and professionals have recognized the influence of a strong college-
going culture in schools on students’ college-going rates (Govan, 2011; MacDonald & Dorr, 2006; McDonough, 2012).
College-going culture theory is a developing theory introduced by McClafferty, McDonough, and Nunez (2002). The idea of a
school with a “college-going culture” evolved from partnerships between UCLA and a group of urban schools that wanted to
create a college-culture in their schools. Since 2002, the principles, conditions and assessment of college-going culture has
grown, and the College Board has endorsed it, giving it credibility in the field. McClafferty et al. (2002) suggest that there are
nine principles of a college-going culture: college talk, clear expectations, information and resources, comprehensive
counseling model, testing and curriculum, faculty involvement, family involvement, college partnerships, and articulation.
Despite the inclusion of a “comprehensive counseling model” as one of the principles, counselors, for the most part, have not
fully embraced a role in developing college-going cultures in schools. This is evident by the lack of counseling literature on
college-going culture theory, practice and/or assessment.
Another future consideration in college counseling is undermatching. Undermatching refers to the phenomenon in which
well-qualified students, often from less affluent households, are not matched with competitive colleges. Undermatched
students attend less-demanding colleges such as two-year colleges or don’t attend college at all. Hoxby and Avery (2012)
found that more than half of the most talented potential applicants from low-income families never apply to a competitive
college. In a more recent study, Kang and Garcia Torres (2018) found that undermatching is still prevalent and students who
are under-matched—many of them minority students—are less likely to graduate on time than are those who attend colleges
that match their abilities.
There’s no doubt that undermatching occurs, but solutions to the problem are far less clear. College leaders and
foundations have vowed to fight undermatching and to take steps to make sure that more of these talented students found
their way to elite institutions. Nevertheless, their efforts have not made a significant impact on college going trends. Future
research on college counseling and undermatching is clearly warranted to decrease college opportunity gaps.

Summary

Despite the many contributions of counselors, there may be dire consequences for counselors if they do not show their
contributions to helping students with postsecondary planning and college counseling. With the increased need for a new,
more educated workforce, initiatives such as Reach Higher and organizations such as ASCA and NACAC become even more
important for the building of a strong pipeline of effective and well-trained school and college counselors for today’s most
vulnerable youth. Yet, school counselors and college counselors are tasked with illustrating their attention to college and
career readiness for all students especially those with the highest learning needs. If not, school counselors and school
counseling programs risk being obsolete and forgotten in the world of education reform. For instance, in many districts,
counselors have been replaced with other models of student support (e.g., a deans model). Clearly the need for counselors to
be advocates for their profession is needed and the College Board has coined the term “Own the Turf” to illustrate a national
campaign to mobilize counselors to own the knowledge and skills related to college and career counseling and to take the
lead in establishing a college-going culture in their schools, districts, and communities.
The arena of college counseling represents one of the most dynamic areas of contemporary education reform and policy. In
this chapter, a series of topical, conceptual, and analytical issues pertaining to counseling have been raised in order to
introduce counseling to the reader but also to spark dialogue and discourse about the future of counseling in light of the
needs of the US economy, and current trends in education reform. All in all, there is no better time than now for counselors to
engage and become major players in our country’s future economic and education planning.

About the Authors

Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, PhD, joined American University in 2016 as the Dean of the School of Education. In concert with
her colleagues in the College of Arts and Sciences, she concentrates her efforts on recruiting and supporting a more research-
active and diverse faculty, developing outstanding new curricula in education, and building bridges to school districts and
education industries around the globe.
Previous to this role, Dr. Holcomb-McCoy served as the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Vice Dean of Academic Affairs
and Chair in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University. She has held appointments as Associate Professor of
Counselor Education at the University of Maryland, College Park and Assistant Professor and Director of the School
Counseling Program at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Laura Owen, PhD, is the Director, Center for Postsecondary Readiness and Success and Research Associate Professor at
American University. She focuses on evaluating the impact of interventions and programs designed to address the persistent
equity and access issues that so many students across the country face.

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Chapter 2: The Dynamic Ecosystem of Higher Education: Implications for College
Admission Counseling
James Dean Ward and William G. Tierney, PhD

16
A quarter of a century ago, no one predicted the challenges that higher education would face today. Throughout much of the
last generation, there have been periods of optimism and periods of decline. State legislatures have, on occasion, provided
less public monies than an institution’s leaders and faculty may have liked, for example, but until recently, tomorrow was not
that different from yesterday. Although the last quarter of a century has not seen the emergence of numerous new brick and
mortar institutions, which occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, very few traditional colleges or universities that existed in 1990
have died. In many respects, the majority of postsecondary institutions function much like they did a quarter of a century ago.
In this light, the ecosystem of higher education, the various types of postsecondary institutions and how they interact with
one another and the larger environment, has not changed very much. There also was not much anticipation that the
ecosystem would undergo significant changes. Consider, for example, that 40 years ago the vast majority of students in the
United States attended public institutions. A small, but significant number of liberal arts colleges catered to a specific clientele
that had been developed over time. Elite private and public universities were the best in the world; they received fiscal support
not only from tuition, state public subsidies for the publics, and largesse from donors for the privates, but also from significant
federal funding of research. The for-profit sector was a tiny organism in the postsecondary ecosystem, a minor irritant for
some, but ignored by most. The clientele for postsecondary education were still thought to be traditionally aged, full-time
students, although by 1990, the demographic was beginning to become what it has become today—increasingly older and
largely part-time. The lion’s share of energy, effort and research, however, focused on the 18–21-year-old clientele. Additional
efforts were focused on increasing the participation and completion rates of underrepresented students in all sectors of higher
education.
Thus, in 1990, there was little assumption that the postsecondary sector would shift from full-time teenagers to part-time
adults or that the representation of students of color would still remain at alarming levels both in attendance and completion.
Few predicted that some, if not many, liberal arts colleges might become an endangered species or that for-profit institutions
would grow so rapidly and engender so much antipathy.

State legislatures have, on occasion, provided less public monies than an institution’s leaders and
faculty may have liked, for example, but until recently, tomorrow was not that different from
yesterday.

What also had not been anticipated is the disruption to how one thought about a college education. Students came to a
campus. They took classes defined by “seat-time.” When students had accumulated a certain number of credits, then they
were ready to graduate. Full-time, tenure-track faculty were the arbiter of student quality, defined by the grade provided to the
student. When students graduated from college, it was incumbent upon them to find employment; the link between curricula
and jobs was indirect, at best. College completion was not a topic of conversation. Remediation was a concern, but not a
crisis. Transfer between two- and four-year institutions was a nuisance, but not worthy of much effort on the state level or in
policy sectors. The relationship between the secondary and postsecondary sectors was largely nonexistent.
In the larger environment, there was a general agreed-upon lament about the weaknesses of public education in the United
States. The largest amount of hand-wringing and reform, however, was aimed at improving K–12 education by creating
options—vouchers, charter schools, and the like. Higher education received occasional commentary, but by and large, the
public viewed a college education as valuable and postsecondary institutions as providing a quality product. Whereas
governors, legislatures, newspapers, and think tanks had a great deal to say about schools, when it came to higher education,
the same groups largely exhibited a hands-off attitude, deferring to college and university presidents and the faculty.
If one had gone to sleep in 1990 and awakened today, there would certainly be a great deal of surprise about the changes
that have occurred and the tenor of discussions about the academic environment. The media offers a daily drumbeat about
the weakness of the postsecondary sector and the costs of college for students and families. The cumulative amount of
student loans is now roughly $1.5 trillion—something that could not have been imagined a quarter of a century ago. Liberal
arts colleges as a specific species within the general ecosystem now seem at risk for survival. The federal government is
considering reducing support for basic research. After significant growth during the early years of the 21st century, for-profit
institutions now enroll nearly 10 percent of students (Ginder, Kelly-Reid, & Mann, 2017), and have garnered a great deal of
criticism for their often-questionable recruiting practices and frequently dismal placement rates. Of consequence, all of higher
education is now being assessed for the utility and quality of learning.
Public community colleges continue to fail to graduate or transfer sizeable numbers of students (Shapiro et al., 2016); for
example, fewer than 40 percent of the students beginning community college in 2010 earned a degree or certificate at their
initial or a transfer institution. Rather than a nuisance, such issues are now of central concern. Policies aimed at increasing
college completion and reducing remediation across all sectors are now discussed in most states and in multiple think tanks
and foundations. This may be most exemplified by the resurgence and strengthening of performance-based funding. More
than half the states are now funding postsecondary institutions based on outcomes metrics, such as degree production and
credits earned, rather than the number of students enrolled. The underlying theory of action for the policies is that basing
funding on outcomes will incentivize institutions to improve their educational services and better serve students. Although
seemingly logical, performance-based funding has been largely ineffective at meeting its intended goals (Dougherty et al.,
2016).
The majority, 70 percent of American adults (Jones, 2016), think a postsecondary education is very important, but many
Americans are questioning the value of a degree. Given increasing tuition prices and the perceived disconnect between
college curricula and workplace skills, 47 percent of Americans do not think college is worth the investment (Hart Research
Associates, 2017). It is not unsurprising the hands-off attitude that society had shown has been replaced by a demand for
significant changes—although what those changes are, or should be, is entirely unclear. Large changes in regulation,
accountability, and financial aid are being proposed across the political spectrum to address the growing insecurity in
American higher education.

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 Perhaps trying to chart the future is a fool’s errand. And yet, systems, like organisms in an ecosystem, always evolve. At
times such as these, change occurs more dramatically than during times of stability. One ought not to look to the future as if
every step is certain, but based on the history of higher education and the recent trajectory of the system, there are reasonable
conjectures one might make about how to think about higher education in general and college admission in particular.
Accordingly, our purpose here is neither to suggest that the challenges higher education faces are amenable to quick fixes
nor to lament that they are unsolvable. However, there are four key issues that need to be dealt with over the next decade that
will not only inform how to think about college admission specifically, but also higher education in general. We point out that
these issues will force and enable us to think of new ways of delivering and evaluating teaching and learning and how to
define postsecondary organizations in the 21st century. We conclude with what these issues might portend for college
admission.

Understanding the Value of a College Education

Historically, the value of education has rarely been disputed in the United States. Since the time of Horace Mann in the early
19th century, the citizens of the United States have assumed that education enhances the economic and social prospects of
the individual and improves the larger democratic public sphere. The importance of education has been so critical to the
country’s well-being that elementary and secondary education has been a free public good, and postsecondary education has
been heavily subsidized through grants to public institutions and to students.
The overwhelming evidence remains that the more education one has, the greater prospects there are for better-paying
jobs. Earnings over a lifetime of a college graduate are nearly double that of a high school graduate, and the gap is increasing
over time. Predictions are that close to 60 percent of the workforce will have to have some form of postsecondary degree—a
certificate, AA or BA degree (Lumina Foundation, 2012). Numerous studies conclude that more access to higher education is
imperative for the well-being of the nation. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, the Public Policy Institute
of California, the Lumina Foundation, and the Gates Foundation all have suggested that college-going and graduation rates
need to be increased (Carnevale, Jayasundera, & Gulish, 2016). The United States once ranked at the top of OECD (The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) rankings for college attainment, but today, the country has been
ousted from the top 10 countries.
Some, but not many, have argued that the status quo is sufficient (Schalin, 2010; Vedder, Denhart, Denhart, Matgouranis, &
Robe, 2010). The underpinning of the argument is that employers hire individuals with college degrees, but the job only
requires a high school degree. In effect, college graduates deliver pizza because there are not enough college-degree-related
jobs (Vedder et al., 2010). The assumption is that credentialing helps the higher education industry but not the economy. The
problem of such an analysis is that, for example, by 2030 nearly 70 percent of the jobs in California are expected to require
what one learns in college (Johnson, Mejia, & Bohn, 2015). California will fall short by more than one million students based
on current estimates. Such a shortfall has dire consequences for the well-being of the state. The problem is that students are
not learning the right sorts of skills in college in order to be ready for the job market upon graduation. In fact, less than half of
employers think students are prepared in key workforce skills including working in groups and written and oral
communication.
A related critique is that too many students graduate from high school and are not college-ready, and then they graduate
from college and are not career-ready. The evidence seems to bear out the claims. An estimated 80 percent of community
college students enter the system underprepared for college-level coursework (Rodriguez, Mejia, & Johnson, 2016). For years,
just under half of California State University’s entering students need to take at least one remedial class. However, in 2017
Chancellor Timothy White dropped remediation requirements in order to help students move through degree programs faster.
It remains to be seen whether this policy will be effective in graduating more students, and if these students will develop key
workforce skills employers seek.
The challenges that the higher education sector faces are multiple. If more students need to participate in higher education,
where will they go? What will they study? What sorts of relationships need to be forged between secondary and
postsecondary institutions so that high school graduates are better prepared for going to, and graduating from, college? If the
country accepts the status quo, then the United States will have become an island of mediocrity encumbered with an
uneducated workforce.

Examining the State’s Role in Higher Education

Based on the commitment to education by the citizenry, a state’s role in higher education has been relatively straightforward
until recently; the states had different kinds of public institutions for different kinds of students. The primary job of these
institutions has been to educate individuals, and that has been defined by the attainment of a degree. The idea of education as
a socializing agent, or as a way to instill civic values in individuals, has largely been downplayed for a generation.
Community colleges have always offered certificates for working-class jobs (e.g., plumbing), but they also have been
frequently criticized because of their high drop-out and non-completion rates, as well as their low transfer rates to four-year
institutions. Second-tier state universities also have offered master’s degrees and research universities have focused on
graduate education. Most states also have had a medical complex devoted to the training of physicians; a teaching hospital
and medical complex also have contributed to the health and economic welfare of a state. Research, as an economic engine
for a state, has played a significant role in some states, such as California, and much less in other states, such as Mississippi.
Although variations have occurred across states, the general principle throughout most of the 20th century was that the
state-funded public institutions, and a relatively small portion of a postsecondary institution’s budget was dependent upon
tuition or other revenue. Trends also existed by sector; virtually all of a community college’s and state university’s budget
derived from state support, whereas the elite public research universities have a history of attracting federal research dollars,
primarily for science, and foundation support for a variety of research areas.
Over the last generation, public institutions also have become involved in capital campaigns, similar to those at private
universities, in order to generate revenue from alumni and wealthy philanthropists. The assumption has been, however, that if
public research universities are to maintain their status as world-class institutions, then they must raise revenue from private

18
sources insofar as the state will no longer provide enough support. Such an assumption is widespread today, whereas a
generation ago, most states funded most public institutions.
Although state funding has decreased as an absolute percentage of overall revenue, state regulatory control has increased.
Until recently, the state had been relatively uninvolved in the regulation of postsecondary institutions. Regulation had been
ceded to accrediting bodies—both institutional and professional. What a college or university offered and how quality was
defined had been granted to the institution, in general, and the faculty, in particular. Regional accreditation, although critically
important, simply demonstrated minimal levels of institutional competence. Without accreditation, an institution’s degree was
relatively worthless, although many institutions, especially for-profit institutions, have existed without it. The lack of
accreditation, however, meant that the students could not receive federal or state loans and grants, and that if they wished to
transfer to another institution, their degree and institutional credits would not be accepted.
Although state legislatures always have taken on hot-button curricular issues from time to time, in general, the state has
stayed away from regulatory control. Presidents created budget requests, and the legislature approved all or some portion of
it. Line-item vetoes or oversight on a particular course offering was generally not done. To be sure, at times, special requests
occurred. The state may have decided that a particular focus was important, or a legislator simply wanted some particular
center or institute at the postsecondary institution in his or her political district, but the overarching assumption was that the
postsecondary institutions knew best how to lead their institutions.
Over the last generation, that assumption has gradually changed. Accreditation has come under attack as being too weak
and too slow, and technological changes have challenged geographically based accrediting agencies. If a public, private or
for-profit institution is based in Nebraska, but has an online master’s degree that students in New York are taking, from which
region of the country should the degree be given accreditation? If someone wants to be a veterinarian, is it more important for
the institution to have accreditation from a state agency or one with broader reach, possibly beyond national borders? As
Duderstadt and Womack (2003) have pointed out, “Higher education is breaking loose from the moorings of physical
campuses, even as its credentialing monopoly begins to erode” (p. 76). The result is that, on the one hand, we are seeing the
market replace regulatory control, while, on the other, the state is asking for greater oversight of those diminishing public
dollars that they provide.
Higher education, then, is evolving like other deregulated industries, such as healthcare, where we see public and profit-
making hospitals; we also experience all the strengths and weaknesses of the market and deregulation, such as we have
recently experienced in the banking and housing industries. The general winner of deregulation is for-profit companies who
have viewed accrediting bodies as exclusionary gatekeepers. While the for-profit sector contracted under the Obama
Administration’s crackdown on gainful employment and student loan defaults, President Trump and Secretary DeVos have
begun rolling back these regulations and vowed to limit federal government oversight. Critics charge, however, that the state is
adding regulatory burdens to public institutions precisely at the time they are weakening their oversight capacity of other
institutions. As a result, the consumer is put at risk.
The shift away from the creation, sustenance and support of a public good reflects shifts with other goods and services for
the state such that the state no longer sees itself as a purveyor of public goods. A consistent and radical line of thinking is that
the state and federal government’s regulatory role should also be negligible. The subprime mortgage loans that contributed to
the housing crisis in the United States reflect a philosophy that says markets need to be unregulated for capitalism to flourish.
For-profit colleges and universities (FPCUs) have made the same sort of argument and have largely succeeded. They have
persistently argued, as most proponents of such arguments reason, that there is still too much regulation. They charge that if
problems exist, market demands will fix the problems, and they do not need regulation to hamper their efforts. The consumer
(the student) only buys “good” products, so it is in the organization’s interest to police the quality of the product. Although
there is some admitted truth to such an assertion, it also does not take into account a history of malfeasance by companies
that have shown little regard or concern for the customer. Under the Obama Administration, the federal government worked to
curb these abuses. Similarly, state attorneys general have played a large role in regulatory enforcement but have primarily only
taken action against the most egregious violators (Ward & Tierney, 2017). With Trump’s commitment to deregulation, the onus
to protect consumers will fall increasingly on state governments. Despite the uptick in state-level enforcement, FPCUs have
still largely flown under the radar because they are not beholden to the state for funding.
Ironically, public institutions have faced a twofold problem. They have been criticized as the opposite of consumer-friendly.
Because they presumably receive a steady stream of revenue that is impervious to consumer demands, the argument has
been made that they are out of touch and exist to support the faculty, rather than the students. Because of this perception,
steps have been made to regulate them and to make demands with regard to admission, retention, graduation, time-to-
degree, and a host of other issues.

Assessing Privatization in the Ecosystem

The shift from the idea that an organization should be the provider of a public good has opened the door to a significant
increase in private providers and the privatization of public institutions.
For-profit colleges grew immensely in the early 21st century but have experienced decreasing enrollment over the last few
years. Although FPCUs have existed for more than a century in the United States, until recently they were relatively small
companies that offered one specific skill or trade, such as cosmetology or welding. However, for-profit institutions, such as the
University of Phoenix, now rank among the largest in the United States. This new iteration of FPCUs all have a similar funding
model. They outsource the vast majority of their services and standardize their curricula, teaching and learning across
campuses. Courses are offered in areas that are convenient to students, such as shopping malls, and at convenient times for
the working adult—evenings and weekends. Faculty are part-time; in general, they do not receive health or retirement benefits,
and they will be dismissed if there is a drop in enrollment in the classes that they teach or if their teaching evaluations are not
excellent. While many of these behemoth institutions have survived the contraction of the market, although they have still
experienced dips in enrollment, others, such as ITT Tech and Corinthian Colleges, have shuttered due to charges of fraud and
abuse.
One key aspect of FPCUs is that they rely on their ability to fill out paperwork for a student to apply for grants and loans from
the federal and state governments. Their admission staff can be quite large, and rather than have students wait several months

19
from the time they apply until they are admitted and start their program, a for-profit institution may admit and enroll a student in
a matter of days. The result is that more than 90 percent of the institution’s income is generated from fee-paying students, and
the students’ fees derive from the government (Klor de Alva & Rosen, 2012). Ironically, then, the most private of our institutions
thrive, and most likely could not survive, without public funding. One significant difference between FPCUs and traditional
providers is that these private, for-profit companies pay taxes to the government and generate revenue for the owners or
corporate boards. Students graduate with greater debt loads than at comparable public and private nonprofit institutions, the
retention and graduation rates tend to be lower than at comparable institutions, and default rates on loans have been a
significant issue.
The argument for for-profits has been made succinctly by Weisbrod, Ballou and Asch (2008): “Services that can be sold
profitably do not need public subsidies” (p. 4). From this perspective, education, as defined as preparation for the job market,
is a good that can be sold, and a for-profit college can do it as well as, or better than, a publicly subsidized institution. The
alternative argument, of course, is that education is more than vocational training and that the purpose of a public university is
more than simply the selling of a service. Moreover, as an experience good, the quality and value of an educational program
are difficult to assess prior to purchasing it. Consumers are particularly vulnerable to fraud and misinformation when obtaining
such a product, the effects of which are compounded by the high price and singular purchase of postsecondary education. If
we believe providing a quality education requires monetary resources, the profit motive of proprietary institutions may be in
direct contrast to the expensive enterprise of providing postsecondary training.
The result is that the public landscape is significantly different in the second decade of the 21st century than it was a quarter
of a century ago. Privatization also has had an impact on the working conditions of the institutions. The United States now
hires more non-tenure-track faculty than tenure-track; part-time faculty are more common in many institutions than full-time
(tenure-track or non-tenure-track) faculty. Because public institutions still relied on a part of their revenue from the state when
the economic crisis of 2008–2009 erupted, public institutions had more significant problems than private, nonprofit institutions
and especially for-profit colleges and universities. Many faculty at public institutions were furloughed, as were public
employees, which resulted in a loss in many states of about 10 percent of a professor’s salary (Turner, 2014). The result is that
private nonprofit research institutions seem to be eclipsing public research universities.
Public institutions, becoming decreasingly reliant upon public funds, are becoming more private in their operations. The
need to reduce costs to account for losses in state revenue has resulted in increased outsourcing of tasks previously done
internally. Basic aspects of operations, such as janitorial or food service operations, are now completed by contracting with
external companies. Some institutions are going as far as outsourcing academic advising to private companies in order to
reduce administrative costs. The increased privatization of operations puts the mission and purpose of an institution at risk. In
extreme cases, whole colleges have forgone public funding and completely privatized, including the Anderson School of
Management at UCLA. By cutting financial ties with the state, individual colleges are seeking to usurp power from legislatures,
but run the risk of undermining the public mission under which these schools were chartered.
Certainly, private institutions faced economic problems during the Great Recession; however, because their losses were
largely restricted to endowment income, they did not face a crisis with regard to their operating revenue. In the years since the
downturn, college costs continued rising, but Americans’ salaries have not kept pace with rising tuition. The high tuition prices
at many private nonprofit colleges have kept students from enrolling. Institutions have responded by severely discounting their
prices through institutional aid (National Association of College and University Business Officers, 2017). Moreover, institutional
debt has risen as a result of increased expansion and decreased revenues. Small colleges unable to meet these debt
obligations have continued to dig a deeper financial hole, causing some to close and leaving many more on the precipice of
closure (Ward, 2016). Small private colleges are under financial strain similar to public institutions, although the causes are
quite different.
Because for-profit institutions have a low set cost for personnel, they were not greatly impacted during the recession. Very
few of the institutions faced a decrease in applicants; the result was that those institutions that relied on tuition revenue—for-
profit and private nonprofits—did better than those institutions that still existed in part through public funding. More recently, as
we shall discuss, small liberal arts colleges, as well as some public institutions, have faced enrollment declines, but that has
less to do with a downturn in the economy and more to do with the changing needs and preferences of the consumer.
A consequence of privatization is greater managerial power and decision-making authority. Although private universities also
function under the academic model of shared governance, it is fair to say that the diminution of the “public” nature of an
institution increases the voice of administrators and decreases that of the faculty. As Douglass (2009) has observed, the
consequences of globalization are “broader authority for university presidents, including greater authority in budget
management and administrative authority” (p. 9). Democratic principles of decision-making are not so much eschewed or
repudiated, but simply overlooked in the rush to make decisions so that the organization is more efficient.

Interpreting the Rise in Disruptive Conditions Within the Ecosystem

Traditional organizations, whether they are profit-making companies or nonprofit institutions, such as colleges and universities,
generally try to adapt to the times and meet the needs of their customers. They do so by calling upon what Clayton
Christensen has defined as “sustainable technology” (Christensen et al., 2011). A sustainable technology improves upon the
current technology that exists in a traditional organization. The clearest example of a sustainable technology is when
typewriter companies moved from manual to electric typewriters. Anyone who can remember the days of manual typewriters
will remember the excitement of the adoption of the electric typewriter. What we were doing suddenly got easier and faster.
The movement from a push lawnmower to an electric lawnmower and going from black and white television to color are
additional examples of sustainable technologies that improve upon a product.
A sustainable technology improves performance for the existing market and conceivably brings in additional customers who
may desire the current product. The customer has a variety of companies to choose from, and if the product does not stay up-
to-date, then the company will find itself in trouble or out of business. Obviously, companies that only sold manual typewriters,
black and white television sets, and push lawnmowers a decade after its competitors had introduced electric typewriters, color
televisions, and electric lawnmowers would find themselves in trouble.

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 Although public and private universities are lampooned for an inability to change, institutions have adapted within the
postsecondary ecosystem by incorporating sustainable technologies throughout the 20th century. Chalkboards gave way to
dry erase boards. Ancient gymnasiums morphed into student centers with multiple activities and state-of-the-art fitness
centers. Slide projectors became more advanced audiovisual projectors and then PowerPoint. The faculty and administration
and boards adapted to the times and their competitors by utilizing sustainable technologies.
However, the pattern is clear. The technology improves over time, the customer base expands, the cost of the invention
drops, and, at some point, the disruptive technology overwhelms companies focused on sustainable technologies.
Companies are focused on improving their product, not inventing a new one. Frequently, traditional companies do not see the
start-ups as competitors, not only because they are miniscule, but also because they are after different markets. The result,
however, is that, in a matter of years, computers make typewriters obsolete, and the telephone does the same for the
telegraph. The traditional companies belatedly try to adapt, but they cannot compete. Apple and Microsoft drive Olivetti and
Smith Corona out of business.
The most obvious and most recent example of a beneficiary and a casualty of disruptive technology are online social media
and the newspaper industry. When outlets such as The Huffington Post began, no one really saw them as a competitor to the
Washington Post. A decade later, the newspaper industry is in decline, and online media such as magazines, apps, blogs, and
even Twitter and Instagram, have overwhelmed the traditional competition. Newspapers were late to utilize social media, and,
although one or two, such as The New York Times, may survive, their survival will likely be as part of a social media outlet. In
related fashion, print copies of books and articles have foundered to such an extent that publishing houses and bookstores
are rapidly becoming artifacts of the past.
Why would anyone think that the same sorts of changes are not likely to happen in higher education? As Christensen and
his colleagues (2011) point out, “the theory of disruptive innovation has significant explanatory power in thinking through the
challenges and changes confronting higher education” (p. 2). The technology enabler is online learning. Again, consider how
previous disruptive technologies were initially complicated, costly, and of interest to a limited few. And then at one point, that
technology becomes more convenient, less costly, and easy to use and customizable (Christensen, Horn, & Johnson, 2008).
How those in higher education have spoken about and used online learning up to this point is in line with initial declarations
about disruptive technology. Even those people who might be thought of as proponents initially thought of online technology
as a poor imitation of the “real thing,” which was the model of the “sage on the stage.” The users of the nascent technology
were people who traditional institutions did not try to reach—perhaps the individual who was too far from a campus to take
classes or the individual who worked during times that most college classes were offered. The providers were not mainstream
institutions, but those on the periphery—largely for-profit providers. Initially, those higher up on the educational food chain, so
to speak, suggested that the implications for distance learning were irrelevant. Just as with examples from the steel and car
industry, successful organizations—in this case, the Harvards and Stanfords of the postsecondary world—could not see how a
peripheral provider had anything in common with the campus-based classroom experiences that students received.
By the second decade of the 21st century, however, online learning has followed the trajectory of other disruptive
technologies. Just as computers became ubiquitous, the exponential growth in online learning underscores how the
technology has improved in quality and performance, making it desirable not simply to working adults, but also to the broad
panoply of postsecondary students. In 2003, about 10 percent of students took at least one online course; a decade later, the
proportion is about 50 percent (Christensen et al., 2011). In 2015, 3 out of 10 students were currently enrolled in an online
course, with half of those enrolled exclusively online (Allen & Seaman, 2017). This is a trend which has been increasing over
recent years. Colleges, both public and private, are using online education to reduce costs thus displacing cuts in state aid
and increases in tuition discounting (Escueta et al., 2017).
If we are correct about online learning being a disruptive technology, and, like other disruptive technologies, it forces
changes with other products and services, then what other changes might come about that will impact all postsecondary
institutions? Online learning is a model that changes the notion of “seat-time,” for example, so one might expect a greater
emphasis on learning outcomes, rather than credits earned, simply because a student spent a specific amount of time
attending a class once or twice a week over a set number of weeks (Tierney, 2012). Thus, inputs, such as credit hours, are
likely to give way to outputs, such as what has been learned. Even degrees may become less important than what is learned.
A collection of faculty assessments over a four- or five-year time horizon that attests to a student having a particular GPA has
been, until now, a proxy for whether the student learned anything while attending college. Ultimately, however, the mastery of
the tasks graduates undertake tells employers and others whether the student learned anything. The other possibility with
online learning is that costs could come down significantly as massive numbers of students use the disruptive technology.

Implications for College Admission Counseling and Academic Staff

What might be the implications of the changing ecosystem of higher education for admission and academic staff? Although
instrumental actions surely do not exist with regard to how specific grounds should act, there are issues that warrant attention
if what we are suggesting is true. We suggest four key areas on which admission officers should focus in order to align their
practices with the changing ecosystem of higher education.

Clarify the Needs and Preferences of the Consumer

Admission offices always have been in the business of understanding how to market their institution to prospective students.
What has changed is that students want different sorts of activities and timeframes in the 21st century than in the 20th. Time
matters to individuals raised on social media. A four- to five-year timeframe to graduate from college may simply be too long
when students want to get on with their lives. One reason that for-profit institutions have been successful is that they offer
classes at convenient times and locations.
In some respects, admission officers are the front line in terms of understanding the changing nature of consumer
preferences and their roles and tasks are crucial. The need for greater understanding of how to attract potential consumers to
the institution is likely to engender new ways of marketing higher education. The increasing reliance of public and private
institutions on online education is a financial strategy but may also be a boon for some students who seek the flexibility of

21
online classes. Of students currently taking online courses, half are exclusively in these classes while the others are taking a
mixture of in-person and online. Marketing the hybrid program as a flexible option that allows students to take major,
important, or difficult classes in person where they can more easily receive extra assistance, and general education courses
online, may be an attractive offer to some students.
It is important for admission officers to recognize that some students may shy away from online courses. There is increasing
evidence that students enrolled online are not as successful as those receiving in-person instruction (Escueta, Quan, Nickow,
& Oreopoulos, 2017). Moreover, some adult learners may be less comfortable with the requisite technology for online
programs. Admission officers should be cognizant of the needs and preferences of these students and explain and market
programs accordingly.
For-profit colleges had so much success over the past 15 years because they offer flexible learning options that students
prefer (Iloh & Tierney, 2014). And although the practices of the for-profit industry have come into criticism, it is also true that
their methods raise the question about what an organization needs to know about a consumer in order to continue to attract
current customers and develop new ones. Just as a “moneyball” approach to baseball introduced new ways of assessing
major league talent and the tools of cyber-metrics, we are suggesting that new ways of approaching potential customers is
likely to occur as the conditions change in the ecosystem.

Understand the Changing Environment

Not only have the preferences and needs of potential students changed, but the environment is in transition as well. Students
arrive on campus more focused but perhaps less prepared. Employers look to postsecondary institutions as training grounds
in a manner that was largely unheard of a generation ago. The result is that what sorts of college knowledge students need
when they enter college will change, not only because the students are different, but because the ecosystem is shifting as
well. Issues such as financial literacy are now essential topics for learning, whereas only a generation ago, such topics were
inconsequential. A dynamic environment suggests that what students need to be successful will be in constant flux, but it will
also be of central, rather than peripheral, concern when it comes to what students learn and how to structure the curriculum.
The importance of having students better prepared when they arrive on campus will engender closer working relationships
between secondary and postsecondary education. A more streamlined and integrated curricula will work in consort with a
tracking and monitoring system to ensure that more students graduate on time and with specific skill sets. The desire for
employable job skills and gainful employment will require colleges and universities to have more well-defined relationships
with employers. Given that employers are more inclined to hire college graduates who had an internship and completed a
capstone project, admission officers should consider attributes that lend themselves toward success in these activities. Of
course, high school students’ lot in life will impact their opportunities prior to college, but evidence of a part-time job in high
school may reflect a student’s ability to obtain and succeed in an internship during college. Application essays and materials
may even evolve to reflect students’ abilities to complete large-scale projects.
Obviously, many suggestions underscore how organisms evolve. Career centers, for example, are an artifact of the second
half of the 20th century. However, simply having a career center will no longer be sufficient. In a dynamic environment, discrete
actions will no longer suffice, and a more concentrated, formalized approach to areas such as admission, career counseling,
and the like will be necessary.

Consider How to Streamline Processes

As disruptive technology takes hold, the entire system will be under pressure to compress time in a way that has not been
considered in mainstream institutions. Rather than students taking classes during semesters that occur in a set time period,
the learning experience will be compressed. Summers will no longer be an interlude between academic terms and instead
become intense learning experiences. The assumption that students need to apply to college in November, where the start
date is nine months away, will change. Those institutions that are going to be successful will find ways to start students soon
after they apply, which, in turn, will change the way admission offices function. It is important to remember that high school
seniors are no longer the primary group of prospective students. Adult learners are more flexible with enrollment timelines and
have a vested interest in not delaying the start of classes. Social media has changed people’s expectations of what they want
and when they want it, and postsecondary institutions either will adapt or fail.

Recognize that Change is the New Normal

We have suggested that one byproduct of globalization and the advent of new technologies is the speed with which change
occurs. Successful administrators once were thought to be able to master a job and then improve upon it with the mastery of a
specific skill set. In the 21st century, however, change occurs so rapidly that successful individuals will need to continually
develop different skill sets as their jobs evolve in the new ecosystem.
Recall how important email was a decade ago and how Facebook was central for many teenagers only half a dozen years
ago. But the organization that developed a Facebook page and assumed that simply updating the page was sufficient will
have failed as student preferences morph away from Facebook and toward Snapchat, Instagram, or the next social media tool.
The question is no longer simply how to improve upon current practices. Instead, those of us in higher education need to be
adept at adaptation in order for the organization to thrive in the new ecosystem.

In a dynamic environment, discrete actions will no longer suffice, and a more concentrated,
formalized approach to areas such as admission, career counseling, and the like will be
necessary.

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 The challenge for those of us entering academic life, in some respects, is always as it has been—to question norms, to help
create the potential for students to participate in civic life and to enable them to acquire useful skills. But the 21st century also
requires us to act differently to achieve those goals. The impact of globalization, the advances in social media, the
transformation of the economy, the compression of time, and the privatization of what were once public goods suggest that
those of us in academe have different, and potentially greater, responsibilities. The challenge is no longer to ensure that we
equip individuals with this or that skill for jobs that already exist. Instead, we need to focus on enabling students and our
colleagues to function in a culture that requires innovation and creativity. Rather than a commitment to improving what exists,
we need to create the conditions that enable one another to build what has not yet been created.

Discussion Questions

• What are the implications of a greater need for specific skills in attracting students to your institution and ensuring they
acquire them to find gainful employment?
• What changes has your institution made with its relationship with employers to respond to evolving needs, and how do
these changes impact your recruitment strategies?
• What kinds of relationships exist across institutions in the state to develop a synthetic, coordinated sector across all
different sorts of postsecondary organizations?
• How have changes in other sectors of higher education (e.g., the contraction of the for-profit market, or the skyrocketing
tuition prices at private nonprofit institutions) influenced your institution’s recruitment practices?
• What specific regulations exist that are useful and necessary, and which are unnecessary and cumbersome?
• How are regulations and higher education policies impacting the way you recruit and market to students?
• What steps is your institution taking (or should take) to measure the success of new and varying marketing techniques and
platforms on which you communicate with students?
• What are examples of sustainable technologies in your state?
• Define disruptive technology and discuss if your institution is at risk.
• If you were to forecast what the higher education ecosystem were to look like in one decade, what would you say?
• Is it possible to, in part, determine an institution’s future, or is it merely buffeted about because of how the larger society
changes?

About the Authors

William G. Tierney is a university professor, Wilbur-Kieffer professor of higher education, and co-director of the Pullias Center
for Higher Education at the University of Southern California (USC). He is a past president of the American Educational
Research Association (AERA). His research focuses on increasing access to higher education, improving the performance of
postsecondary institutions, and understanding privatization in higher education. Tierney has had Fulbright Scholarships to
Latin America and Australia and was scholar-in-residence at Universiti Sains Malaysia. He has helped develop a suite of
interactive web-enhanced games for teenagers on strategies for applying to college with grant support from the Gates
Foundation and the US Department of Education. His most recent books are Urban High School Students and the Challenge of
Access and For-profit Colleges and Universities: Their Markets, Regulation, Performance and Place in Higher Education. He has
chaired a panel for the US Department of Education and the What Works Clearinghouse that resulted in the monograph,
Helping Students Navigate the Path to College: What Schools Can Do. He is currently involved in a life history project of low-
income, first-generation high school students. He is a fellow of AERA and a member of the National Academy of Education.

James Dean Ward earned a PhD in higher education policy at the University of Southern California and a bachelor’s degree
in economics and history from Cornell University (NY). He is currently a researcher at Ithaka S+R. His research uses an equity
lens to examine higher education policies and specifically focuses on postsecondary finance, funding, accountability, and
performance. He has written extensively about the for-profit college market and privatization in higher education. Ward has
been published in Educational Researcher, American Behavioral Scientist, Review of Higher Education, and the Journal of
Student Financial Aid. Additionally, he has written for Huffington Post, Forbes, The EvoLLLution, and the Brookings Institution.
He has presented his research at numerous academic and practitioner conferences.

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universities. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Turner, S. E. (2014). The impact of the financial crisis on faculty labor markets. In J. R. Brown & C. M. Hoxby (Eds.), How the
financial crisis and great recession affected higher education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Vedder, R., Denhart, C., Denhart, M., Matgouranis, C., & Robe, J. (2010). From Wall Street to Wal-Mart: Why college graduates
are not getting good jobs. Washington, DC: Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
Ward, J. D. (2016). Troubling changes in capital structures at small private colleges. Journal of Higher Education Management,
31(1), 57–74.
Ward, J. D., & Tierney, W. G. (2017). Regulatory enforcement as policy: Exploring factors related to state lawsuits against for-
profit colleges. American Behavioral Scientist, 61(14), 1799–1823.
Weisbrod, B. A., Ballou, J. P., & Asch, E. D. (2008). Mission and money: Understanding the university. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.

Further Reading

Brewer, D. C., & Tierney, W. G. (2011). Barriers to innovation in U.S. higher education. In B. Wildavsky, A. P. Kelly, & K. Carey
(Eds.), Reinventing higher education: The promise of innovation (pp.11–40). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
Conley, D. T. (2008). Rethinking college readiness. New Directions for Higher Education, 144, 3–13.
Corwin, Z. B., & Tierney, W. G. (2007). Getting there—and beyond: Building a culture of college-going in high schools. Los
Angeles, CA: University of Southern California Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis.
Duncheon, J. C., & Tierney, W. G. (2014). Examining college writing readiness. The Educational Forum, 78(3), 210–230.
doi:10.1080/00131725.2014.912712.
Hart Research Associates. (2015). Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success. Retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/
sites/default/files/files/LEAP/2015employerstudentsurvey.pdf
Iloh, C., & Tierney, W. G. (2013). A comparison of for-profit and community colleges’ admissions practices. College and
University, 88(4), 2–12.
Johnson, H., & Sengupta, R. (2009). Closing the gap: Meeting California’s need for college graduates. San Francisco, CA:
Public Policy Institute of California.

24
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 But why do not the poets see and express the hyperphysical
charm of the spring evenings? When the light of the vernal day has
faded the stars come forth, and in the quality of their shining
reduplicate and heighten the impressions left by the quickening
landscapes. More than half is lost if this be missed. But perhaps this
side of nature is too transcendent even for poetry. One can behold
but not tell it. Emerson has come nearest to its expression, and he
puts it in prose:
“The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted
with fire and gold in the tint of the flowers. The air is full of
birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-
Gilead, and the new hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart
with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness
the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man under them
seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool night
bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again
for the crimson dawn.”
 CHART I—THE VERNAL EVENING SKY
There was not only poetic but logical fitness in the old English
custom, abandoned since 1751, of dating the opening of the year
from the last week of March. How can the real birth of the year be
imagined to occur when all nature is still deep in slumber under the
January snows? The seasons are manifestly the children of the sun,
waxing and waning with his strength, and surely that one should be
reckoned the eldest which is the first birth of his vivific springtime
rays. It seems remarkable that the beginning of the year in ancient
times, when men felt more keenly than we do now the symbolism of
natural phenomena, was not more frequently fixed at, or near, the
Vernal Equinox, and I suspect some defect in our information on this
subject. In Attica, George Cornewell Lewis tells us, the year began at
the Summer Solstice. But this was to make the second of the sun’s
seasonal offspring the senior, thus ignoring the just claim of the true
heir, the season of buds. In Sparta and Macedonia, according to the
same authority, the year began with the Autumnal Equinox, which
was still worse, for in summer the year is at the zenith of its life, while
in autumn it is already stumbling toward the tomb. In Bœotia, at
Delphi, and in Bithynia they contradicted nature more decidedly, as
we do to-day, by making the year begin at the Winter Solstice, when
the chilled world is yet asleep. The Romans adopted this plan
eventually, but it is interesting to observe that they had an older
custom of beginning the year in March, which many cherished in
their domestic life as well as for some legal purposes, after the lawful
opening of the year had been fixed on the 1st of January. And finally
we have perpetuated the illogical system of absolutely reversing
nature’s rule in the succession of the seasons by making the year
begin about nine days after the Winter Solstice. But in spite of
calendars and laws nature prevails, and everybody instinctively feels
that the true beginning of the year is in the season when the currents
of life resume their youthful flow. At any rate, however it may be with
strictly terrestrial affairs, that is the time when the call of the stars
becomes the most insistent and irresistible. Accordingly the epoch of
the Vernal Equinox is chosen for our opening chapter. But the reader
at the commencement of his star-gazing is not confined to this
season; he can begin at any time convenient to him.
To avoid misapprehension it is important to point out that our
concern is not with that half of the heavens which the sun illumines
when he crosses the equator, coming north, at the Vernal Equinox,
but with the diametrically opposite half, where in countless
multitudes shine his fellow suns—his peers, his inferiors, and his
superiors—turning physical night into intellectual day. Accordingly, in
Chart I we see not that part of the sky which contains the point called
the Vernal Equinox, but the opposite part, where the sun pursues his
course when he is declining from the Summer Solstice toward the
Autumnal Equinox. The chart represents the appearance of the sky
at 10 p.m. on the 20th of March (see Introduction). It also represents
the sky as it appears about 11.30 p.m. at the beginning of March,
about 9 p.m. the first week of April, and 8 p.m. about April 20th.
Let us, then, near one of these dates and hours, go out-of-doors
and transport ourselves to the universe. Why does not everybody
feel the thrill that comes to the astronomer when, with eager
expectation, he watches the fading sunset light, the slow withdrawal
of the vast curtain of illuminated air which for twelve hours has
hidden the prodigious marvel of the spangled heavens, and the first
peering forth of the great stars? I believe that everybody does feel it
when he gives himself the opportunity and abandons his mind to its
own reflections—but so few embrace the opportunity or encourage
the reflections!
Select, if possible, a high place, where the eyes can range round
the whole horizon unobstructed. Then try to seize the entire view at
once, as one glances for the first time at the map of a new country.
Get the ensemble by sweeping all around the sky, not pausing to
note details, but catching at a glance the location of the brighter stars
and those that form striking groups. Note where the Milky Way runs,
a faint, silvery zone at this season, arched across the western half of
the firmament, hanging like starry gossamers in places, brilliant in
the northwest, but becoming fainter as it dips toward the
southwestern horizon—a mere anticipation of its summer splendor,
hiding its light and fading away as it approaches the imperial
presence of Sirius. Notice the great hexagon of first magnitude stars
that surrounds Orion in the west—Sirius, Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella,
Castor and Pollux, and Procyon marking the angles, and Betelgeuse
glittering not far from the centre of the figure. Observe Regulus with
the “Sickle” of Leo on the meridian. Look for the glimmer of the
“Beehive” in Cancer, between Gemini and Leo, and for the
pentangular head of Hydra beneath it. Still lower you will see the
reddish gleam of the starry serpent’s heart, Cor Hydræ, or Alphard,
and then, running eastward, and dipping ever nearer the horizon, the
long, winding line of his stars passing under the overset cup of
Crater and the quadrilateral of Corvus, the “Crow,” until they
disappear, unended, in the southeast, for from mid-heaven to the
horizon there is not space enough to display all of these beautiful
coils, which take a kind of life as you watch them.
Away over in the east, close to the ecliptic, you will see Virgo with
her diamond, Spica, flashing in her hand. You are now facing east; to
your left, then, north of Spica, glows great Arcturus, with his
attendants shaping the figure of Boötes. Of Arcturus, a star that
among a million finds no rival, we shall speak more particularly
elsewhere. Farther to the left, beyond Boötes, shines the exquisite
“Northern Crown,” Corona Borealis. That too will claim attention in a
later chapter. The square of Hercules is just above the horizon below
the Crown in the northeast, and to its left, as you face north, is seen
the diamond-shaped head of Draco, the “Great Dragon” that Athena
was fabled to have entangled with the axis of the world. His stars
wind upward between the “Dippers”—the “Little Dipper,” which has
the Polestar at the end of its handle, and the “Great Dipper,” which,
brim downward, shines east of the meridian, almost as high as the
zenith, if you are as far north as 40° or more. The handle of the
“Great Dipper” is the tail of Ursa Major, who treads lumberingly about
the pole, with his back downward, his head out-thrust west of the
meridian, and his feet, marked by three striking pairs of stars, up in
the middle of the sky. On the meridian south of Ursa Major stands
the “Sickle” of Leo already mentioned. Away round in the northwest,
beyond Capella, are Perseus and Cassiopeia, immersed in the Milky
Way.
Having fixed the location and general appearance of all these
constellations in the mind, you are prepared to study them, and their
stars, in more detail. Let us begin in the east. For some occult
reason the rising stars always seem more attractive than those that
are near setting. In the east, then, the eye is at once drawn to the
beautiful Spica, which the impassive, immemorial Virgo wears as her
only ornament. It is a fascinating star with its pure white rays, dashed
with swift gleams of exquisite color as the atmospheric waves roll
over it. There is not another equal to it in the impression of purity
which it gives. We may imagine that some dim sense of this
immaculate quality in the light of Spica led to the naming of the
constellation the “Virgin,” thus called by nearly all peoples, each in its
own language: Παρθέυος, Kóρη, Puella, Kauni, She-Sang-Neu,
Pucella, Vièrge, Mæden, Jungfrau, Virgine—all, ancient and modern,
Greek, Roman, Indian, Chinese, Norman, French, Anglo-Saxon,
German, Italian, and English worshipping together at this shrine of
ideal purity. If the Assyrians made her the wife of Bel that was hardly
a disparagement, for Bel was the sun. So, too, the identification of
Virgo with the Greek Persephone, the Roman Ceres, and the Jewish
Bethula, all goddesses concerned with the harvest and the fertility of
the land, in no way detracted from her virginal character, nor did her
association with Astræa, the goddess of justice.
Beside Spica, Virgo has no very bright stars, and it is hardly
doubtful that the imaginary purity ascribed to the constellation was
derived entirely from the unsullied whiteness of Spica. While gazing
at that beautiful star all of these associations, coming from times so
remote and peoples so distant, crowd into the mind, increasing the
interest with which one regards it. The nations who named it the
vernal star, before all others, have gone the way of terrestrial things,
but the star remains, as pearly fair as when Aratus sang to it:
“Lo, the Virgin!...
Her favor be upon us!”
Then science comes to carry the thoughts to grander, if less
romantic, heights. Spica, it tells us, is a sun which might well claim to
be included in Newcomb’s wonderful “XM” class—i. e., stars
excelling our sun at least ten thousand times in splendor, for,
notwithstanding the brilliance with which it delights us, it is so remote
that no certain estimate of its distance can be made, its parallax
escaping measurement—what, then, must be the intolerable blaze
with which it illumines its immediate neighborhood! But when
Science begins her revelations no man can foretell the wonders that
she will discover. The spectroscope avers that Spica is speeding
hitherward at a pace of more than 32,000 miles per hour! Each night
that star is almost 700,000 miles nearer than it was the night before,
and yet it is not perceptibly brighter than it was in the days of Homer.
Such are the star depths! Such is the measureless playground of the
spinning suns! Then Science, inspired by its spectroscopic sibyl,
whispers another startling word in our ears: That core of white fire
glowing so softly in the vernal midnight has an invisible companion
star, with which it circles in an orbit 6,000,000 miles in diameter, and
every four days they complete a swing in their mighty waltz!
The star Epsilon (ε) in Virgo (see Chart VII, at the end of the book)
is Vindemiatrix, the “Grape-gatherer,” thus named from some
imagined association with the vintage. Mukdim-al-Kitaf, “The
Forerunner of the Vintage,” the Arabs called it, taking their hint from
the Greeks before them. Admiral Smyth, in his Cycle of Celestial
Objects, has these curious lines on this star:
“Would you the Star of Bacchus find on noble Virgo’s wing,
A lengthy ray from Hydra’s heart unto Arcturus bring;
Two-thirds along that fancied line direct th’ inquiring eye,
And there the jewel will be seen, south of Cor Caroli.”
The reader may be interested in trying the star-loving admiral’s
plan for finding Vindemiatrix.
Gamma (γ) is Porrima, a prophetic goddess of ancient Latium,
consulted especially by the women. But for us this star is most
interesting as being one of the first binaries discovered in the
heavens. It is a charming object for a small telescope. The two
components revolve round their common centre of gravity in a period
of about one hundred and eighty years.
As the reader progresses in his studies he will find Virgo full of
interesting objects, including the celebrated “Field of the Nebulæ,”
marked out by the stars Beta (β), Gamma (γ), Delta (δ), Epsilon (ε),
and Eta (η); but to see the nebulæ, which are thickly scattered there,
he must have a powerful telescope.
Southwest of Virgo, but near the southeastern horizon, the
quadrilateral figure of the constellation Corvus, the “Crow,” catches
the eye. Its brightest star is of less than the second magnitude, yet
by their apparent association the four stars immediately attract
attention. One sees no special reason why the figures marked out by
these stars should be likened to the form of a bird; but it was a raven
to both the Greeks and the Romans, and similarly symbolical to
other early peoples. The Arabs, however, at first called it the “Tent,” a
designation which at least had a real resemblance for its basis. But
these stars possess a charm independent of any fancied likeness to
terrestrial things. In looking at them we do not think of the billions of
miles which actually separate them from each other, but only of their
seeming companionship. If, on the other hand, we force ourselves to
consider the immense distances between them the mind is
overwhelmed with the reflection that here, plainly staked out before
us, is a field of space of absolutely unthinkable magnitude with its
angles as clearly marked as if a celestial surveyor had placed
corner-stones there. Note that the star Alpha (α), once the leader of
the constellation in brightness as well as in alphabetical rank, is now
so faint that you have to look for it where it shrinks, in half
concealment, below one of its now brighter neighbors. These
abasements are not very uncommon among the stars. Their glory,
too, is mutable; they also have their ups and downs. The Arabic
name for Alpha (α) was Al Chiba, or Al Hiba, meaning the “Tent.”
Gamma (γ), now the brightest star of the constellation, was called
Gienah, the “Wing,” and Delta (δ), Algorab, or Al Ghurab, the Arabic
name for “Raven,” but Beta (β), which is perhaps as bright as
Gamma (γ), has no special designation.
From Corvus the eye wanders naturally to its neighbor on the
west, Crater, the “Cup.” Both of these constellations rest on the back
of the long serpentine Hydra. Crater is far less conspicuous than
Corvus; but its resemblance to a cup is rather striking, although the
imaginary vessel lies tipped up on its side with the open part toward
the east. Among the many ascriptions of this starry cup in ancient
mythology to various gods and goddesses, none is more interesting
than that which made it the cup of Medea, thus including Crater
among the numerous constellations which were associated in the
imagination of the Greeks with their great romance of the Argonautic
Expedition. Its brightest stars are only of the fourth and fifth
magnitudes, and individually not worth much attention.
Hydra, which stretches its immense coils across about seven
hours of right ascension, passing under Cancer, Leo, Crater, Corvus,
Virgo, and a part of Libra, also carries the mind back through the
golden mists of the morning of Greek mythology to the adventures of
Jason and his crew of Argonauts, for it was once identified with the
Aonian Dragon. It would be interesting to inquire how much of the
perennial fascination of this ancient romance may be due to its
traditional association with the stars. Look first at the head of Hydra,
now well west of the meridian, below the glimmering “Beehive” in
Cancer. It is marked by five stars of various magnitudes making an
irregular pentagon. Then let the eye follow the line down
southeastward until it encounters Cor Hydræ, or Alphard, the latter
its Arabic name, meaning the “Solitary One.” It is of the second
magnitude and of a reddish color, and the space about it is vacant of
conspicuous stars. There is an attraction about these solitary bright
stars that is almost mystical, their very loneliness lending interest to
the view, as when one watches some distant snow-clad peak
gleaming in the rays of sunset after all the lower mountains have
sunk into the blue shadows of coming night. Cor Hydræ is the Alpha
(α) of its constellation.
Above Hydra, northeast of Cor Hydræ, at the crossing of the
ecliptic and the meridian, is the great star Regulus in Leo, the “Lion.”
It stands at the lower end of the handle of a very distinctly marked
sickle-shaped figure, which includes the breast, head, and mane of
the imaginary lion. Regulus is not only a beautiful star, but it
possesses much practical importance as one of the principal
“nautical stars,” having been employed by sailors ever since the
beginning of navigation to determine their place at sea. The sun
almost runs over this star about the 20th of August, and every month
the moon passes close beside it, and sometimes occults it. Thus it
serves as a golden mile-stone in the sky. It has strangely affected the
imagination of mankind in all ages. From the remotest times it has
everywhere been known as the “royal star” par excellence. In Greek
it was βασιλίσκος, in Latin Rex, from which Copernicus constructed
our name, Regulus. There are three other “royal stars,” Aldebaran,
Antares, and Fomalhaut, but Regulus has always been, in a certain
way, their chief. For five thousand years it has been believed,
traditionally, to control the affairs of heaven, and the astrologers
have seized upon this idea by making it the natal star of kings, and
those destined to kingly achievements and rule. In our age of
science we may safely indulge these fancies; they can now do no
harm, and they add immensely to the interest with which we regard
the star that gave birth to them. When the “Royal Star” crosses high
on the meridian in the vernal evenings, the imagination is thrown
back over almost the whole course of the history of the Aryan race,
and the rays of Regulus bring again the dreams of Babylon and
Nineveh, of Greece and Rome, of India, and of the star-watching
deserts of Arabia. Cyrus, in his conquering marches, may have
looked to that star for help and inspiration, for it was the heavenly
guardian of the Persian monarchs.
The spectroscope tells us that Regulus, like Spica, is approaching
us, but less rapidly, drawing nearer about 475,000 miles per day. But
its distance is 950,000,000,000,000 miles (parallax 0″.02), and it
outshines the sun one thousand times.
The second star above Regulus, in the curve of the sickle’s blade,
is Gamma (γ), or Algieba (Arabic the “Forehead”), a beautiful double,
probably binary, with a period of revolution which Doberck has
estimated at about four hundred years. The larger star of the pair is
golden-orange and the smaller bronze-green, a marvellous contrast,
and an ordinary telescope shows well the spectacle, the distance
between the components being 3″.78. And this wonderful pair is
rushing toward the solar system at the rate of two million miles per
day. Yet so great is its distance that we have no record that in a
thousand years men have noticed a brightening of the headlight of
this terrible locomotive of space! But probably the more refined
methods of the present time, if applied for a similar period, would
reveal an ominous expansion of that oncoming light. Gamma is
interesting as marking, roughly, the spot in the sky which was the
apparent centre of radiation for the November meteors, which were
last seen in their splendor in 1866-67, their return in 1899-1900, for
which the world had long been waiting, having been prevented by
the disturbing attraction of Jupiter and Saturn, which shifted their
orbit.
The “Sickle” in its entirety is an attractive asterism, and hanging so
conspicuously in the sky on a spring evening it may be imaginatively
regarded as a harbinger of the opening of the season when the
thoughts of men are turning to preparations for future harvests. In
the height of the harvest season the “Sickle” sets near sundown,
then no longer standing upright, but lying along upon the horizon—a
symbol of the wearied husbandman’s approaching hours of rest:
“Nor shall a starry night his hopes betray.”
Away off at the eastern end of the constellation, in the lion’s tail,
shines its second star in rank, Denebola (Arabic Al Dhanab, the
“Tail”). It too is speeding hitherward, but only half as fast as Gamma.
Like Aldebaran, the name Denebola has an indefinite charm, from its
full round vowel sounds, and a certain nobility in the look of it as it
lies on the printed page. As with many sonorous Indian names in
American geography, these old star names lose something of their
effect when they are translated. It is better to take them as they
stand, transcending terrestrial analogy and definition, like the
sublime objects that they designate.
Northeast of Denebola lies the small constellation of Coma
Berenices, “Berenice’s Hair,” remarkable for the confused glitter of
the small scattered stars of which it consists. It is a constellation with
a romantic history which I shall not retell here. It forms an attraction
for an opera-glass.
We now return to the region of sky above the head of Hydra, west
of the meridian. There the attention is arrested by a glimmering spot,
a kind of starry cobweb, which represents the “Beehive” cluster in
Cancer. Its classical name is Præsepe, the “Manger.” In Astronomy
with the Naked Eye will be found a copy of Galileo’s drawing of the
stars of Præsepe as they appeared to him with his newly invented
telescope. It is delightful to look at them on a clear night with a large
opera-glass or a small telescope. They are an example of that
clustering tendency so often seen among the stars, and which
reaches its most wonderful manifestations in such assemblages as
the famous globular clusters in Hercules and Centaurus, where
countless thousands of small stars appear to be so crowded together
that in the centre they run up into a perfect blaze. But in Præsepe
there is no such apparent crowding, though the stars are so
numerous that they resemble a swarm of bees. The probability is
that none of the stars in this company is as large as our sun—
although we cannot be perfectly sure because we do not know their
distance—but they are, nevertheless, true stellar bodies, solar
children, which seem playing together, overwatched by larger stars,
waiting not far away. Plato, or his disciples, taking the suggestion
from older dreamers, regarded Præsepe as a gateway of souls
through which descended the spirits that were to animate the bodies
of men during their earthly life. There are moods in which one can
hardly consider our coldly scientific way of treating such celestial
wonders as being essentially superior to the more spiritual ideas and
suggestions of the visionaries of antiquity, before man became
possessed with the notion that all science is summed up in
measurement. Unquestionably we have more “facts,” but have we
more inspiration? Are we as near to the stars as were those who
knew less about them? Have we yet got the key to unlock the
universe? Do many of us comprehend the dictum of one of our own
modern sages—“Hitch your wagon to a star”?
Cancer has no conspicuous stars, and it covers but a small space
on the sky, yet as a constellation it is as old as any, and it has given
us our “Tropic of Cancer,” because in ancient times, before the
Precession of the Equinoxes had drifted the zodiacal signs and
constellations apart, the place of the Summer Solstice, where the
sun is at its northern extreme of declination, was situated in Cancer,
though now we find it in Gemini, close to the borders of Taurus.
Westward from Cancer we see the great group of mighty stars and
constellations of which Orion is the chief and centre, but Sirius the
brightest jewel. They are now declining rapidly toward the horizon,
and will be better studied at another season. They include, besides
Orion, Gemini, Auriga, Taurus, Canis Major, and Canis Minor, and
will be found more favorably situated in the chart devoted to the sky
at the Winter Solstice. For the present, then, we turn our eyes to the
northern central part of the vernal heavens. There, almost overhead,
shines the “Great Bear,” Ursa Major, always recognizable by the
remarkable figure of the “Great Dipper,” or, as they prefer to call it in
Old England—where brimming dippers of sparkling water lifted
dripping from the “old oaken bucket” are not so familiar as in New
England—the “Wain,” or the “Plough.” We have already remarked
that at this season the Bear has his feet uppermost in the middle of
the sky and his back downward toward the pole. The Dipper, too, is
now upside down, drained of its last imaginary drop, though its stars
may be the more brilliant for that. The figure of the bowl is situated
on the flank of the Bear, and its handle represents his impossible tail.
Six of its stars are of the second magnitude, and one, at the junction
of the bowl and the handle, of the third. Their Greek letters,
beginning at the northwestern corner of the bowl, are, Alpha (α),
Beta (β), Gamma (γ), Delta (δ), Epsilon (ε), Zeta (ζ), and Eta (η), and
their names, in the same order, Dubhe, Merak, Phæd, Megrez,
Alioth, Mizar, and Benetnasch.
I once knew a country school-teacher who thought that he had
acquired a pretty good knowledge of astronomy when he had
learned these names by heart. He certainly knew more of
uranography than most people. The names seem to be all of Arabic
origin, and at the risk of destroying their charm I will give, from
Allen’s Star Names, their probable significations. Dubhe means
simply “Bear”; Merak (sometimes Mirak), “Loin”; Phæd (sometimes
Phecda or Phad), “Thigh”; Megrez, “Root of the Tail”; Alioth, meaning
uncertain, probably something to do with the tail; Mizar (originally
Mirak), “Girdle”; and Benetnasch (sometimes Alcaid), “Chief of the
Mourners,” from an Arabic phrase having that signification.
The star Megrez, now so much fainter than the others, was once
as bright as any of them. It has faded within three hundred years.
Close by Mizar a fairly good eye has no difficulty in seeing a small
star which is named Alcor (signification uncertain). The Arabs are
said to have called these two stars the “Horse and his Rider,” and to
have regarded it as a test of good vision to be able to see them both.
It is certainly not a severe test at present. Mizar itself is telescopically
double, presenting a beautiful sight in a small telescope, the distance
asunder being about 14″. The smaller star is like an emerald in hue,
and the color is usually remarked at once by the beginner in
telescopic observation. The larger star is one of those strange
objects called “spectroscopic binaries”—two suns locked in the
embrace of gravitation and spinning round a centre so near to each
other that to anything less penetrating than the magic eye of the
spectroscope they appear as a single body.
Merak and Dubhe are the celebrated “Pointers,” so called because
a line drawn from the former to the latter, and continued toward the
pole, passes close to Polaris, the Pole-star, of which we shall
presently speak. The distance between these stars is about five
degrees, so that they serve as a rough measuring-stick for
estimating distances in the sky. Immediately west of the meridian will
be seen a curving row of stars which indicate the head of the Bear.
Three of his feet, or claws, are represented by as many pairs of stars
between the Great Dipper and the Sickle of Leo, one of the pairs
being east of the meridian, one west of it, and one nearly upon it.
Below the outer end of the handle of the Dipper, in the direction of
Denebola, a fairly bright star, Cor Caroli, which English loyalty
named for the heart of the unfortunate King Charles I., shines on the
collar of one of the “Hunting Dogs,” Canes Venatici, which Boötes is
represented as holding in a leash as he chases Ursa Major round
the pole. This, too, is a beautiful double, the contrasted colors of
whose widely separated stars are finely shown by a small telescope.
Now let the eye run along the curve of the Dipper’s handle,
beginning at the bowl, and then, springing on, continue the same
curve eastward; it will encounter, at a distance about equal to the
whole length of the Dipper, a very great and brilliant star—Arcturus,
brighter than Spica and Regulus, and usually, when not very far risen
from the horizon, of a distinctly reddish hue. It is the chief star of
Boötes, the “Driver,” the “Vociferator,” the “Herdsman,” or the “Bear-
watcher,” as it has been variously rendered. We shall have more to
say about Boötes in another chapter, but Arcturus is a star so
splendid and famous that it cannot be passed in silence the first time
the beginner catches sight of it. There is a standing dispute
concerning the relative rank in brightness of Arcturus among the
leading stars of the northern hemisphere. Its principal rivals are Vega
in the Lyre, and Capella in Auriga. But all three differ in color, and
that makes it more difficult to decide upon their relative brilliance,
since different eyes vary in their sensitiveness to color. The Harvard
Photometric Durchmusterung gives Vega the first and Arcturus the
third rank among these three; but many eyes recognize rather a pre-
eminence of Arcturus. My own impression has usually been that
Arcturus looms larger than either Vega or Capella, but that Vega is
the most penetratingly brilliant. It is very curious to notice the effect
of the colors of these stars. The sharp blue ray in the light of Vega
gives it a diamond-like quality which is lacking in Capella, whose
light is white with just a suspicion of amber. Arcturus is a very pale
topaz when high in the sky, and a ruddy yellow, sometimes flaming
red, when near the horizon. It is a thrilling recollection of the writer’s
early boyhood that he felt an undefined fear of Arcturus when seen
rising ominously red and flashing through the leafless boughs of an
apple orchard in the late evenings of February. All the ancients
feared Arcturus for its supposed influence in producing storms and
bad harvests.
Arcturus is a sun of enormous magnitude, estimated all the way
from one to six thousand times as great in luminosity as our sun. It is
also travelling with great rapidity, its speed, according to some
estimates, amounting to two or three hundred miles per second; but
most of this is cross-motion with reference to us, its general direction
being toward the south-southwest. If it is travelling three hundred
miles per second, it would traverse the space between the sun and
the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, in about three thousand years. We
shall touch on Arcturus again when dealing with Boötes in the next
chapter.
Disregarding for the present the exquisite circlet of Corona
Borealis, the “Northern Crown,” and the quadrilateral figure in
Hercules, seen northeast of Arcturus, we turn to the great dragon,
Draco, whose diamond-shaped head may be seen far over in the
northeast above sparkling Vega, which is just on the horizon. As a
reference to the charts of the circumpolar stars at the end of the
book will show, Draco is a remarkably crooked constellation, its line
of stars winding round between the “Little Dipper” in Ursa Minor,
which has Polaris at the end of its handle, and the “Great Dipper” of
Ursa Major. Its most interesting, though not now its brightest, star is
Alpha, or Thuban, Arabic for “dragon.” It lies between the end of the
handle of the Great Dipper and the bowl of the small one. About
forty-six hundred years ago Alpha Draconis was the Pole-star, and is
believed to have shone down the long tube-like passage in the great
pyramid of Cheops into the watching eyes of the priestly
astronomers, assembled to view it in the mysterious chamber
hollowed out of the solid rock deep under the foundations of the
mighty pile. They thus had a telescope more than three hundred feet
long as immovable as the solid earth, but, alas for their calculations,
the star itself shifted its position, and their gigantic observing tube
became useless until modern science inferred from its position the
date of their building. How imposing to the imagination this
association between a particular star and the mightiest structure
made by human hands on the earth! Two centuries ago Thuban was
more than twice as bright as it is now, and when the Egyptian priests
sedulously observed it from their gloomy cavern, more than a
thousand years before the magic-working days of Moses, it may
have been brighter still.
Gamma (γ), or Eltanin (the “Dragon”), in the triangular head, is
now the brightest star in the constellation, and it, too, has a history.
Lockyer and others have identified it as the orientation star of
Rameses’ great temple at Karnak, and of the temples of Hathor and
Mut at Dendera and Thebes. There is something magnificent in this
thought of the ancient temple-builders—to square their work by the
stars, and to construct long rows of sphinxes and majestic columns
to conduct a ray from the sky to the eye of the god in his dark and
hidden chamber, where no impious foot dared follow.
When you are tired of tracing the windings of the Dragon, turn to
Ursa Minor and Polaris. The “Little Bear,” it has been remarked, has
an even more preposterous tail than his greater brother. Polaris is at
the end of the tail, or the end of the handle of the Little Dipper, and
the bowl of the latter is on the bear’s flank.
If one knows nothing else of uranography, one should at least
know Polaris, the “North Star.” To recognize that star is to be able to
orient yourself wherever you may be in the northern hemisphere. A
whole volume could be written on its connection with human affairs.
For at least two thousand years it has been the cynosure of sailors,
and of wanderers by land as well. You cannot be lost if you have
Polaris to guide you. The magnetic compass varies and misleads,
the sun and the moon change their places, all the other stars circle
through the heavens, but Polaris is always there, shining over the
pole of the earth, the image of steadfastness. Only the slow
Precession of the Equinoxes affects it. At the present time it is within
one degree and a quarter of the true pole of the heavens, and it is
drawing nearer that point, so that in two hundred years it will be less
than half a degree from it—less than the apparent diameter of the
moon. The little circle that it daily describes in the sky may be
disregarded, for it is hardly noticeable except with instruments; but it
is easy to fix the star’s position with considerable accuracy by simple
observation. Note that the Great Dipper and the “W”-shaped figure in
Cassiopeia are on opposite sides of the pole. When one is above,
the other is below; when one is on the east, the other is on the west.
Draw an imaginary line from the star Mizar in the Great Dipper to the
star Delta (δ) in Cassiopeia and it will pass almost directly through
the pole. Polaris is on that line, a degree and a quarter from the pole
in the direction of Delta Cassiopeiæ. If the observation is made when
Delta is above the pole and Mizar below it, Polaris will be on the
meridian, or north and south line, a degree and a quarter above the
pole; when Delta is west of the pole and Mizar east of it, Polaris will
be a degree and a quarter west of the meridian; when Delta is below
the pole and Mizar above it, Polaris will be on the meridian a degree
and a quarter below the pole; and, finally, when Delta is east of the
pole and Mizar west of it, Polaris will be a degree and a quarter east
of the meridian. The intermediate positions you can easily deduce for
yourself.
But Polaris will not continue to be the unerring guide to the north
that it now is. The Precession of the Equinoxes is carrying the pole
progressively westward in right ascension, so that Polaris will
eventually be left far behind. But the motion of the pole is in a circle
about twenty-three and a half degrees in radius, and it requires
about 25,800 years to complete a revolution round this circle.
Consequently, at the end of that period, Polaris will have come back
to reign again as the North Star for many centuries. In the interim
other stars will have occupied its place. About 11,500 years from
now the brilliant Vega, or Alpha Lyræ, will be the North Star, and in
about 21,000 years Alpha Draconis (Thuban) will once more shine
down the great northward-pointing passage in the pyramid of
Cheops, if that pyramid shall still exist.
Polaris, unlike some of the others stars that we have been looking
at, is running away into space instead of approaching us, at a speed
which has been estimated at about 1,380,000 miles per day. Its
present distance is not less than 200,000,000,000,000 miles. It has
an invisible companion with which it circles in an orbit of a few million
miles diameter in a period of about four days.
Polaris is also a celebrated visual double. With a telescope of two
or three inches aperture you can see close by its flaming rays a
minute blue star, a delicately beautiful sight. In the older days of
telescopes, before they had attained the perfection which
improvements in glass-making and lens-shaping have rendered
possible, this little companion star of Polaris was a universal test of
excellence. Its prestige was historical. The amateur owner of a
telescope who could see that star clearly felt a joy that he could
hardly express. The old makers of object-glasses, by rule of thumb,
always tried them on the companion of the Polestar as a standard
test for small apertures. The small star is of the ninth magnitude, and
situated about 18″.6 from its primary.
The stars Beta (β), or Kochab (the “Star”), and Gamma (γ), in Ursa
Minor, are called the Wardens, or Guards, of the Pole. In low
northern latitudes, where these stars sweep the horizon at their
lower culmination, Shakespeare’s description in Othello would be
literally true during a great storm at sea:
“The wind-shak’d surge, with high and monstrous mane,
Seems to cast water on the burning Bear
And quench the guards of th’ ever-fixed pole.”
The constellations Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and Perseus, now low in
the northwest and north, we leave for description to another chapter.
 II
THE EVENING SKY AT THE SUMMER SOLSTICE

At 10 o’clock p.m. on the 21st of June, the longest day of the

northern hemisphere, the aspect of the sky is that shown in Chart II,
accompanying this chapter. The same chart will answer for 11 p.m.
on the 5th or 6th of June; 9 p.m. on the 7th of July, and 8 p.m. on the
22d or 23d of July. In fact, for any of the hours mentioned the date
may be shifted several days forward or backward without seriously
affecting the comparison of the chart with the sky, and the same may
be said of each of the other circular charts. The stars simply rise
about four minutes earlier each evening, and four minutes of time
correspond to one degree of space measured on the face of the sky.
So the whole sky shifts about one degree westward every twenty-
four hours.
For the observation of the heavens at the epoch of the Summer
Solstice, observers who are situated at least as far south as 40°
north latitude have an advantage over those whose place on the
earth is much farther north, because in the more northern regions
sunset occurs later, and in England and Northern Europe the day, at
this time, may exceed sixteen hours in length, while twilight is
perceptible throughout the night. This interferes with the brilliancy of
the stars.
 CHART II—THE SUMMER EVENING SKY
At no other season do the heavenly bodies seem so intimately
associated with the earth as in summer. All nature is now attuned,
and the stars glow softly in the tepid atmosphere, stirred by faint
breezes, like veritable flowers of the sky. The firmament becomes a
vast garden lit with beautiful lamps, which seem to have been placed
there to dimly illuminate nocturnal wanderers in the transparent
gloom beneath. Their beauty is as refreshing as the cooling breath of
night itself. A mystic influence steals from them over the earth.