  urlLink Counseling Non-Traditional Students at the Community College. ERIC Digest. This ERIC Digest is by Edward Francis Ryan. From the ERIC Digest: Within ther Community college setting, counseling centers were developed to help students "find and effectively use the information, skills, insight, and understanding they need in order to be successful, first and primarily in the college and secondarily, later in life" (Helfgot, 1995 p. 49).
While there has been some variation in the types of services available, counselors have historically provided academic advising, career guidance, and personal counseling (Coll, 1993; Helfgot, 1995). Today the profile of the typical community college student is quite different than when counseling centers originated some forty years ago, but the services offered look basically the same (Cohen and Brawer, 1996).
The change in student demographics has caused many to question whether the counseling models developed in the 1960s still meet the needs of today's students (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1998; Pineda and Bowes, 1995). This digest addresses this issue, first exploring how the shifting demographics of community colleges affect the counseling function and then offering suggestions that counselors and researchers can employ to ensure that the services provided addresses the needs of today's students. 
