{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/educational-guidance-and-career-counselors-and-advisors/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors", "soc_code": "21-1012", "category": "Social Service", "us_employment": 353310, "median_annual_wage": 64330 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 58, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 9, "liability_shield": 10, "trust_premium": 15, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Half your calendar — degree audits, prerequisite checks, transfer-credit equivalencies, FAFSA walkthroughs, interest-inventory debriefs, resume line edits — is already handled by Slate, Navigate, and a chatbot at scale, while the other half (a Section 504 meeting where the parent is threatening to sue, a suicide-risk screen at 2pm on a Friday, talking a student out of withdrawing) needs a person in the room reading affect, which is why this lands at 11 and not 5.", "embodiment": "You are physically stationed in a building — classroom guidance lessons, hallway and cafeteria crisis response, walking a student to the nurse or the SRO, sitting at the IEP table — but nothing in the job requires manipulating equipment or working outdoors, so it scores 9 rather than the 15 of a home-visiting caseworker.", "liability_shield": "This title is two tiers stapled together: K-12 counselors hold a state school-counselor certificate, are mandated reporters under state child-abuse statutes, and can lose that credential for a failed disclosure, while college academic advisors typically need only a bachelor's degree and no license at all — the 10 is the average of a real credential and none.", "trust_premium": "The student who tells you they're being hit at home, or the first-gen senior who shows up in April because you were the one who remembered their name in September, is not transferable to a portal or to your colleague — the four-year caseload relationship is the intervention, which is why this sits at 15.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide alone whether a vague statement clears the threshold for a CPS report, whether a student is safe to go home, whether to override a teacher's placement recommendation, and whether to write the recommendation letter that decides an admission — real ownership of ambiguous calls, held at 13 rather than 17 because a principal, school psychologist, or IEP team signs off on the most consequential ones." }, "rationale": "The informational half of this job — degree-audit checks, transcript and credit-transfer review, course scheduling, scholarship and job-lead lookup, resume critiques, generic 'what careers match my interests' guidance — is exactly what chatbots and degree-planning software now do at scale, and community colleges and universities are already routing that volume to self-service. What survives is the in-person, high-stakes half: sitting with a 16-year-old disclosing abuse, running suicide risk screens and mandated reporting, IEP and 504 meetings with parents and special-ed staff, and persuading a wavering first-generation student not to drop out. Public-school counselors hold state certification, which keeps a credentialed human in the building; academic advisors at colleges hold no license and are the more exposed tier of this title.", "outlook": "Headcount thins on the pure academic-advising side as self-service degree planning and AI chat absorb routine questions, while certified school counselors handling mental health, crisis, and special-education casework hold steady or grow.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State education codes requiring that suicide-risk screening, re-entry plans after hospitalization, and 504/IEP-related counseling recommendations be conducted and signed by a state-certified school counselor (not an aide, not software) — the pattern in existing statutes like Illinois' Ann Marie's Law and California AB 2246 suicide-prevention policy mandates, extended to name a credentialed signer and record it in the student file", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Statutory minimum counselor-to-student ratios that count only certified counselors and explicitly bar substituting AI/self-service advising toward the ratio — several states (e.g. NY, TX, WA) have moved ratio bills; a bar on software substitution is the specific clause to watch", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State licensure/registration created for academic advisors at public postsecondary institutions, or a Title IV rule requiring a named human of record for satisfactory-academic-progress and financial-aid appeal determinations. Nothing of this kind is currently in motion; this is the weakest of the routes named here", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Mandated-reporter liability expanded so failure-to-report exposure attaches personally to the counselor who conducted an AI-assisted screen, plus district policy naming the counselor as the decision-owner when a chatbot triage tool flags or fails to flag a disclosure — insurers writing educator professional-liability policies adding this as a condition is the checkable signal", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier structure: as degree audits, transfer-credit checks, scheduling, and interest-inventory outputs are absorbed by self-service systems, the residual caseload is crisis response, mandated reporting, IEP/504 negotiation with parents and special-ed staff, and retention intervention with wavering students — none of which is a text task. Watch for district job postings that drop scheduling duties entirely and reclassify the role as student-support/crisis", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Post-incident litigation and parental backlash against AI advising in schools producing district procurement rules or state guidance that student mental-health and crisis contact must be human — comparable to the wave of restrictions on AI counseling chatbots (Illinois' 2025 ban on AI therapy without licensed oversight); if extended to K-12 counseling functions, the human becomes the purchased good", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "The two halves of this title do not move together. Certified K-12 school counselors have real routes upward through mandated-reporter liability, ratio statutes, and crisis-signature rules. College academic advisors have almost none: no license exists, no professional body issues a practice monopoly, and institutions are the buyer rather than the student, so no trust premium accrues to the individual advisor. Any lever above that depends on certification simply does not reach that tier, and the informational-tier displacement is already underway there." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2019, "emp": 296460, "wage": 57040 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 292230, "wage": 58120 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 296370, "wage": 60510 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 308000, "wage": 60140 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 327660, "wage": 61710 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 342350, "wage": 65140 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 353310, "wage": 64330 } ], "from": 2019, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 19.2, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": false }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "clinical-and-counseling-psychologists", "title": "Clinical and Counseling Psychologists", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 71, "median_wage": 100580, "overlap": 87, "skills_to_close": [ "Science", "Reading Comprehension" ] }, { "slug": "marriage-and-family-therapists", "title": "Marriage and Family Therapists", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 74, "median_wage": 66940, "overlap": 86, "skills_to_close": [ "Operations Analysis", "Science", "Active Listening" ] }, { "slug": "mental-health-and-substance-abuse-social-workers", "title": "Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 70, "median_wage": 60280, "overlap": 85, "skills_to_close": [ "Operations Analysis", "Science", "Operations Monitoring" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }