The first article I read, from USA Today College, entitled “More and more students need mental health services. But colleges struggle to keep up,” discussed the many challenges facing college administrators attempting to improve mental health resources on campus. From the very beginning of the article, I was surprised to learn that the push for better resources only began within the last four or five years. For example, a student at Georgetown, who graduated in 2017, was the first person to push the school to dedicate more funds to mental health resources, enabling students to get counselling sessions without paying a copay.
As the article noted, this push for more services comes following the rise in student demand for mental health services. A service from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health discovered that as college enrollment rose by 5.6%, the need for mental health services rose by 29.6%. This increase stems from the fact that mental health treatment has improved, allowing students with diagnosed mental illnesses to attend college and be successful. As the piece also noted, many campaigns to remove the stigma from mental health have been successful, and students are now more open to talking about their struggles.
However, this openness has put colleges in a precarious financial situation. Public universities such as Penn State face the greatest challenges, as their budgets are controlled by the state legislature. If the year’s funding is tight, mental health resources may have to suffer. It can also be difficult to acquire the necessary number of counselors, and low numbers on the part of the university could make for longer wait times for students.
The next article I read was from STAT News, entitled “A Dangerous Wait: Colleges can’t meet soaring student needs for mental health care.” This piece delineated the stories of individuals at various universities who struggled to get appointments due to staggering wait times at campus counselling centers. A student at Indiana University, who was struggling with depression and an abusive relationship, had to wait two weeks before the next available appointment. However, the wait was nearly deadly for this student as she attempted to commit suicide the day before her appointment. A student at the University of Maryland had a similar experience, as she could not discern whether or not she was having an emergency so she was put at the end of the appointment line. Students at other universities have been bounced between counselors, and have ended up having to pay for outside counselling because they are not fit into school counselors’ schedules.
There were many parallels between the two articles, mainly in the discussion of the challenges facing both students and universities in regards to mental health resources. Both articles discussed the fact that universities have absurdly long wait times for appointments, which is detrimental to student health. At Northwestern, the wait time is three weeks. At the University of Washington, the wait time is between two and three weeks. Even smaller colleges battle the same issue; at Carleton College, the wait time is ten days. As both articles reiterated many times, these extreme wait times force colleges to seek out more funding for services, but often do not have the money necessary to expand services.
The information found in these articles can be beneficial to my group’s deliberation. One thing that I did not realize was the difficulties many universities face when looking for funding for mental health services. Knowing this fact, I can be more understanding towards Penn State CAPS employees who might argue at our deliberation that making the suggested changes is more difficult than we may anticipate. Knowing more about the wait times facing students who seek out appointments, my group can focus our deliberation approach on how to fix this issue specifically, as it is incredibly frustrating for many college students across the US.
Work Cited
Simon, Caroline. “More and More Students need Mental Health Services. But Colleges Struggle to Keep Up.” USA Today College, 4 May 2017. Web. http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/04/more-and-more-students-need-mental-health-services-but-colleges-struggle-to-keep-up/
Thielking, Megan. “A Dangerous Wait: Colleges Can’t Meet Soaring Student Needs for Mental Health Care.” STAT News, 6 Feb. 2017. Web. https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/06/mental-health-college-students/