I once wrote a suicide note. I was in college, at the peak of what turned out to be a lifelong battle with depression. It was the 1980s, a time when mental-health resources were available on many campuses, but also when colleges were only beginning to understand the immensity and complexity of the need. I was fortunate: A counselor, the hall director, and the resident assistant were all there to get me the help I desperately needed.
Now, nearly 30 years later, I am an administrator, on the other end of the problem — and it seems to have increased tenfold.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in four college-aged young adults lives with a diagnosable mental illness. And suicide is the second-leading cause of death for college students, after traffic accidents.
Mental illness does not necessarily lead to thoughts of suicide, but academic pressures and the need to fit in with peers certainly can push in that direction. As a college administrator who is involved in crisis response, I see it far too often.
Colleges are at a crucial point in their ability to attract, retain, and graduate students. Many programs and services have been affected by budget cuts, and mental-health services have not been immune. At my own institution, an additional therapist was approved after many years of requests; unfortunately, the position fell to budget cuts before hiring was completed, even though assessment data showed a strong need, and enrollment continues to increase.
College officials are faced with students in crisis every single day. I’m not talking just about the counseling center on campus. I’m talking about emergency personnel, residence-life staff, even faculty. Colleges maintain crisis teams that are trained and ready to respond to any sort of incident. That makes sense, as anything that can happen in life can happen on a campus. But what about the students diagnosed with mental illness who don’t yet have a full understanding of their condition? The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 75 percent of mental-health issues have begun by the age of 24. That means traditional-age college students are in their prime years for these diagnoses.
Many times parents have told me during orientation events that their child was just diagnosed with a mental-health condition. Their expectation is that the college will have the services on campus to fully support their child’s success while dealing with this new diagnosis.
Well, we don’t.
We do not have nurses assigned to check students’ rooms to make sure meds have been taken. We do not have doctors and psychiatrists who can adjust medications and assist students when they have adverse reactions. Some campuses are fortunate to be located near hospitals and physicians, but those colleges are responsible for getting the student there in time — and safely.
What do most colleges provide? They have a limited number of counselors and physicians (most likely nurse practitioners) on campus. They have people who respond to students in crisis — most often hall directors or resident assistants who are not mental-health professionals but who have training in suicide prevention, mental illness, depression, and so on. Colleges place high expectations on those individuals to respond to things that people in the “real world” would be dealing with in a medical setting.
What can colleges do differently? Require disclosure of mental-health conditions at application or admission? Weed out students who do not meet certain expectations of mental-health stability? Require those students to live with family? Pour more and more institutional dollars into mental-health services on campus?
I don’t have the answers, but I know we have a problem.
I have played devil’s advocate here — I don’t believe we should weed out students with mental-health problems. After all, under such a policy, I might well have been one of those weeded out. There are so many successful students and professionals who live with mental illness and lead productive, happy lives. Unfortunately, society still has such a negative view of these things that we are forced to live in secrecy — which makes the problem worse.
If more students with mental-health issues were to speak up and state that we live with these challenges, colleges might better connect with and meet the needs of their students. As both an administrator and a student, I’m speaking up — and I am hopeful for change.
