For Educators

Amplify Your College & Career Efforts Without the Cost

myOptions Encourage is a free college & career program for busy educators. Get reports to focus your efforts, ongoing resources, and continual support for your students with our mobile app.

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The Largest Free College Planning Program in the U.S.

Every year more than 20,000 educators use myOptions Encourage to serve about 1 million students across 5,000 school districts and 13,000 high schools in all 50 states.

We believe all students—regardless of background, income, or zip code—should have access to free and robust college and career planning tools.

Support for Your Work

The no cost myOptions Encourage program complements the critical college and career work you do each week, month, and quarter. It supports your students outside of 1:1 meetings.

Learn How

Resources that meet your students where they are – day or night

  • Stay on track with bite-sized tasks based on their graduation year
  • Receive personalized matches from more than 4,200 colleges and 5 million scholarships
  • Explore or match with careers and majors after a short interest quiz
  • Opt-in to be contacted by our network of 2,000 partnering colleges, universities, and scholarship organizations who are looking for students who are a good match

Explore the Student App

Open the door to new opportunities with recruitment

Students have the option of being contacted by our network of 2,000 partnering colleges and universities looking for students like them. This network allows us to offer the program for free and provides previously unknown or out-of-reach opportunities, making college more accessible.

"Encourage helps me understand what colleges would best fit me and what majors they have to offer so I know what college would be best for my future professions. A college has also reached out to me via email and showed interest in me as a future student."
9th Grade StudentArkansas

Information From Trusted Sources

The college, scholarship, and career data in the Encourage app comes from respected national sources including SuperCollege, O*NET, and IPEDS so you can rest assured your students are making decisions based on credible information.

Ready-Made Resources to Support Students and Families

Use the Encourage app to structure the big conversations about college – including career and college exploration, financial planning, and more.

Our free lesson plans include ideas for in-class interactive activities and our family guide is a resource to provide to families to guide conversations with their student(s).

Download Lesson Plans

Download Family Guide

Make the most of 1:1 meetings

Make the most of 1:1 meetings

  • Inform students about the scholarship deadlines from their plan.
  • Reflect with students about colleges that aren’t currently on their lists but could be an ideal fit for their futures.

Identify Development Opportunities

  • Discover insights from aggregate reports of your student's majors of interest and college characteristics.
  • Identify additional education opportunities if there are gaps in student interest in specific programs or schools.
Image of College Planning Dashboard

Partnering with the Leading Education Organizations

As a partner organization, you can customize questions on the college and career preference form for students and educators in your network. myOptions Encourage will add your results to an interactive dashboard with comparative local, state, and national data to inform:

  • Program evaluation and feedback
  • Advocacy and policy initiatives
  • Internal communications and strategy planning (including professional development)
  • Fundraising and report writing
  • Membership drives
  • Monitoring student interests
  • Key planning milestones

How the Program Works

  • Students share their preferences for life after high school via the Encourage app profile or a college and career preference form.
  • Students access Encourage, our free college and career planning app—online through a web browser, on iOS or Android—to explore colleges, scholarships, careers, and majors.
  • Educators invite students and access reports from their accounts to see students’ college and career plans as well as school, state, and national trends to plan support.
  • Educators and students receive ongoing guidance, resources, and encouragement from our newsletters.

Contact Us

We'd love to connect, demonstrate our tools, and show the suite of resources available to students and educators. Complete the form below to reach out to our team!

Melissa Caperton Melissa Caperton Senior Director of Education
Programs and Partnerships
Peggy Jansen Peggy Jansen Education Liaison
myOptions Encourage
Melanie Goodson Melanie Goodson Program Manager
Education Partnerships

Frequently Asked Questions

What is myOptions Encourage?

myOptions Encourage is a free college and career planning program providing streamlined resources to broaden your impact and enhance your efforts in guiding all students toward their paths after high school. myOptions Encourage serves about 1 million students annually across 5,000 school districts and 13,000 high schools in all 50 states.

Encourage is the name of our free college and career planning app for students. Find it online through your browser, on iOS and Android.

Why should students download the Encourage app?
The Encourage app is free and combines goal setting and milestone tracking with resources for exploration, career planning, and paying for college. Explore careers, match with colleges and scholarships, define your goals, and plan your future—all in one app. Find it online through your browser or in the app store for iOS and Android.
How is the program free?

Students with the Encourage app have the option of being contacted by our network of partnering colleges and universities looking for students like them. This network allows us to offer the program for free and provides previously unknown or out-of-reach opportunities, making college more accessible.

Students can control their recruiting preferences at any time and the app experience is the same whether they are included in recruitment or not.

Where does student data go?
Students who opt-in to recruitment from our network can expect information to be sent directly to colleges, universities, educational service providers, and career service providers for communication purposes. Unlike other college and career planning resources, we strictly utilize student information for educational purposes and never share student data with commercial marketers.
Where do you source information about scholarships, colleges, and careers?
The college, scholarship, and career data in the Encourage app comes from respected national sources including SuperCollege, O*NET, and IPEDS so you can rest assured your students are making decisions based on credible information.