(Bloomberg) -- College financial aid counselors are supposed to be students’ primary resource to help figure out how to pay for school — determining how much they'll need to borrow, the types of loans best suited for them, and sources of cash. But a recent survey suggests that most young Americans saddled with student debt aren’t getting that level of care.

Less than half of millennials who have dealt with student loans called college financial aid offices “helpful,” according to a September online survey of 2,086 American adults conducted by ORC International for Citizens Bank, one of the nation’s largest lenders and a unit of Providence-based Citizens Financial Group Inc.

Millennials’ dim view of their schools’ financial aid offices comes nearly a decade after New York State prosecutors accused colleges and financial aid counselors around the country of accepting kickbacks from lenders in exchange for sending them business from new student borrowers. Those allegations led to numerous settlements with lenders and schools, while the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators — which lobbies on higher education finance issues in Washington on behalf of college aid counselors — agreed to abide by a detailed code of conduct.