CGN Research and Insights:
Navigating the future of education and careers
Welcome to the Career Guidance Network (CGN) library of research and data-driven whitepapers to help families, school counselors, and district leaders navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of high school counseling and postsecondary transition into college and careers.
The AI Inflection Point:
How parents are rethinking college and careers for their teens
As AI begins to change the career landscape and entry-level job market, American families are rethinking education and career pathways for their teens.
In this whitepaper, based on a January 2026 national survey of high school parents, we explore the duality of anxiety and opportunity as parents evaluate the role of AI in education and counseling, as well as its projected effect on the job market as a whole.
The State of High School Counseling: Balancing caseloads and changing college & career landscape
As demands and caseloads continue to grow on school counselors, capacity is being stretched thin. And changes in the college and career pathway (along with misinformation on the internet) add a special challenge to counseling departments across the country.
This whitepaper shares the results of our 2026 national survey of high school counselors, focusing on counselor capacity, AI, and the opportunities for tech-driven advising support.
The Guidance Gap: Navigating the Increasingly Volatile College & Career Landscape
This March 2026 survey of parents across the US explores the anxiety levels of parents and teens, the perceived support from high school counseling departments, and where the guidance gap is widest.
How EVA Measures Against the CareerNet Benchmark
Are standard AI frontier models ready to deliver safe, actionable, and complete career advice to students? A recent study by Renaissance Philanthropy evaluating leading frontier models on 300 CareerNet questions concluded that AI career advice earns “a C grade,” with top frontier models fully answering student queries only ~77% of the time.
This benchmark report evaluates Career Guidance Network’s Expert Virtual Assistant (EVA v2.1) against the CareerNet Benchmark using a blind, judge-scored comparison protocol. EVA was tested on 100 real student questions submitted directly to its live product stack (including retrieval and personalization). EVA compared favorably to both frontier LLM models and human career coaches.
Who is Career Guidance Network (CGN)?
Career Guidance Network (CGN) is a college and career advising platform that unlocks Masterclass quality advising capacity. CGN serves students via their schools or colleges. Through its network of more than 400 nationally recognized experts and its Expert Virtual Assistant (EVA), CGN delivers personalized, one-to-one guidance at scale. Its solutions include its core high school advising solution as well as Career Lab which provides hours of expert coaching through a structured process that builds a career discovery plan for every student.
What services does CGN provide?
CGN provides the tools and guidance that empowers families and maximizes school counselor capacity. CGN also provides exceptional live and recorded programming, with admissions officers and industry experts that are open to all.