And many schools are finding ways to incorporate a broader culture of wellness into their policies, systems, and day-to-day campus life. They’re also better equipping faculty and staff to spot-and support-students in distress, and rethinking how to respond when a crisis occurs. Institutions across the country are embracing approaches such as group therapy, peer counseling, and telehealth. Stigma around mental health issues also continues to drop, leading more people to seek help instead of suffering in silence.īut college students today are also juggling a dizzying array of challenges, from coursework, relationships, and adjustment to campus life to economic strain, social injustice, mass violence, and various forms of loss related to Covid-19.Īs a result, school leaders are starting to think outside the box about how to help. Compared with past generations, more students on campus today have accessed mental health treatment before college, suggesting that higher education is now an option for a larger segment of society, said Micky Sharma, PsyD, who directs student life’s counseling and consultation service at The Ohio State University (OSU). Some of the reasons for that increase are positive.

“, our counseling staff has almost tripled in size, but even if we continue hiring, I don’t think we could ever staff our way out of this challenge.” “Counseling centers have seen extraordinary increases in demand over the past decade,” said Michael Gerard Mason, PhD, associate dean of African American Affairs at the University of Virginia (UVA) and a longtime college counselor. In another national survey, almost three quarters of students reported moderate or severe psychological distress ( National College Health Assessment, American College Health Association, 2021).Įven before the pandemic, schools were facing a surge in demand for care that far outpaced capacity, and it has become increasingly clear that the traditional counseling center model is ill-equipped to solve the problem.

K., et al., Journal of Affective Disorders, Vol. During the 2020–2021 school year, more than 60% of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health problem, according to the Healthy Minds Study, which collects data from 373 campuses nationwide ( Lipson, S. By nearly every metric, student mental health is worsening.

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