18-year-old student athlete, Oliver, was just three weeks into his first semester at Kenyon College when he began avoiding class and spending time with family and friends. It wasn’t until an argument with lacrosse team members that all the warning signs of a mental health crisis were recognized and led to formal intervention. Time Magazine reports Oliver was soon admitted to a hospital and transferred to its psychiatric ward shortly thereafter. While Oliver was able to get the help he needed, many college students don’t have the same luck.
The amount of students seeking mental health services at their campus is increasing at five times the rate of actual enrollment, especially for issues like depression and anxiety. While campus counseling center authorities have long noted this surge, school budgets for mental health treatment often remains based on inaccurate statistics on the number of enrolled students as well as outdated reports on the rates of students requesting appointments. This has led to understaffed centers and long wait times, sometimes more than 4 weeks. At some very large universities, there is as few as 1 counselor per 3,700 students, and those counselors are frequently inexperienced graduate students. With self-harm and suicide rates steadily rising among college students in particular, this problem is quite literally a matter of life and death.
Disturbingly enough, these delays are just the beginning. Just 56% of four-year colleges and universities offer on-campus psychiatric services, and utilizing such services can also mean a temporary end to your college career. In one case, Rachel Williams of Yale University was being treated for self-injury when a psychiatric officials came to speak with her. They determined she should temporarily leave the university and get admitted to a hospital for immediate treatment. Williams told the Huffington Post that she “…realized after a few minutes it wasn’t a choice. I had officially lost my autonomy.” Authorities proceeded to lock Williams in the Yale-New Haven Hospital before transferring her to the psychiatric department. It was entirely involuntary.
Yale is but one example of this growing issue. MIT, Northwestern University, and Princeton University have also been criticized for their management of mental health crises and subsequent forced medical leave. While most institutions cite involuntary leave as a “last resort,” it hasn’t stopped the creation of a concerning stigma. Despite mental health becoming a slightly less taboo subject in recent years, consequences like the one Williams encountered can discourage other depressed or unwell students from seeking help. An anonymous student at MIT explained that there is a “campus climate” of being concerned about becoming the next person to “disappear.” This fear not only precludes students from receiving therapy or treatment, but feeds into the very anxiety or depression they’re already experiencing.
More universities would do well to the initiative of Skidmore College, whose counseling center expanded a 24-hour hotline for all urgent mental health concerns and hired additional counselors after students created online petitions requesting improved services. Broadening accessibility to these benefits mean that mental health crises (that could require involuntary leave) may be more easily prevented. The University of Iowa, as well as the University of Michigan were able to adopt similar systems after raising class gift funds that went towards counseling and psychological services. The University of Utah should be next.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/college-students-mental-health-treat…
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2015/02/07/Study-Increased-de…
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/03/colleges-expand-access-me…