Thankfully, leaders in the education community are increasingly recognizing the pivotal role of the school counselor in the lives of students, particularly low-income and first-generation ones who might not have any other adult in their lives who applied to and attended college.

The problem, as documented in a 2012 report, is that many high-school counselors are overburdened by huge caseloads, especially at schools where a majority of children are first-generation and low-income students. The American School Counselor Association recommends a student-to-student counselor ratio of 250:1. According to the most recent data, only three states meet that recommendation. The national average is 491:1, while in California and Arizona, it’s 822:1 and 941:1, respectively. In far too many schools, security officers outnumber school counselors. A recent survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling revealed that while counselors at private schools spend 55 percent of their time on college counseling, public-school counselors can devote only 22 percent of their time to doing so. And then there are the almost 850,000 students who, according to federal data, have no access to a counselor at all, which is why a growing number of nonprofit organizations dedicated to increasing access to college are working to provide the advice that wealthier students already receive.

Some of these organizations are distinguishing themselves by using innovative, data-driven, and technologically savvy methods that are backed up by the latest research into college access. Significantly, the work they are doing has the potential to be done at a scale that could have a large impact. But will it be large enough? The benefits of these supplemental-advising measures are indubitable—they take some of the onus for college and career planning off overworked school counselors. But their efficacy derives in part from their not having to tackle the entire range of issues facing school counselors, from mental-health concerns and family crises to course planning and disciplinary issues. For all the good that organizations like College Possible, the College Advising Corps, and Strive for College are doing, their efforts cannot replace the work that school counselors do to transform society—a challenge that even representatives of these organizations acknowledge. Public policy and funding play a crucial role in improving the advising and, consequently, the future of millions of students. As it stands, some states and districts are making a serious commitment to redressing the advising gap, but the majority have demonstrated little sense of urgency on this issue.

The nonprofit advising movement was born a little over a decade ago out of the growing recognition that even when some wealthy colleges practice need-blind admissions and cover up to 100 percent of demonstrated need, they still enroll students from the bottom economic quartile at very low rates. According to the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which provides scholarships and support for this demographic, students from the bottom economic quartile compose only 3 percent of enrollment in the most competitive schools; those from the top economic quartile compose 72 percent. Even worse, a recent report from ACT identified nearly 90,000 students in the class of 2015 who met all four ACT college-readiness benchmarks and earned an average ACT composite score of 27.6 (close to the 90th percentile), but did not enroll in college this past year.