Based on empirical observations of educational guidance and interviews with students and teachers at two Danish schools, as well as critical policy analysis, this article illustrates how worry about future education for racially minoritised students in problematized housing areas is shaped in intersections of place, class, and race. Through an analytical framework combining affect theory and intersectionality, the article identifies two figures of worry: The overambitious bilingual student and the bilingual student in trouble. These figures draw on racialized histories of immigrant parents as unable to support their children, and position the students as in need of intervention from the state. Educational guidance comes to work as a further racializing force that gains momentum through affective circulations of worry and care across school practice, policy and political rhetoric. This results in a limitation of the educational opportunities considered ‘realistic’ to the students, placing them in a disadvantaged position when making important decisions for their future.