BBC News: Dr. Sarah Lipson Explains College Mental Health Trends
BBC News covers the pandemic’s effects on college student mental health, following the first-year journey of Cornell University student Ana Carmona. Carmona uses her photography skills to capture moments from quarantine, and says, “I could be with people and still feel alone.”
MCI Board Director, Boston University School of Public Health faculty member, and Healthy Minds Study co-Principal Investigator, Sarah K. Lipson, PhD, explained the negative trends in college mental health over the past 10 years. Lipson says, “I think one of the most important things we can be doing right now in talking about mental health is to normalize the experiences of people who are struggling with their mental health. Mental health exists on a continuum. … All incoming first-year students, and all incoming sophomores will have never experienced what college life is like. And with that really comes an opportunity for higher education to think about ‘how do we orient students?’”
Mental and Behavioral Health
Main Stories
The Boston Globe details new findings revealing mental health and housing insecurity worsened for LGBTQ youth in Massachusetts during the pandemic. On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth released an annual report, which includes data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Eighty-three percent of nonbinary respondents and 78% of transgender respondents reported “feeling sad or hopeless every day for more than two weeks.” The article notes that the closing of shelters and college and university campuses last year caused many LGBTQ youth to become homeless or move into unsafe or unaccepting home environments. The report also shows that LGBTQ youth are two times as likely than non-LGBTQ youth to enter the criminal justice system, and 85% of LGBTQ youth in the juvenile system are people of color. Jordan Meehan, the Commission’s legislative and policy manager, said the pandemic’s impact on the LGBTQ community “has been so much worse . . . than anticipated.” In related news, a new survey from The Trevor Project polled approximately 35,000 LGBTQ individuals aged 13 to 24, revealing that respondents were particularly hard hit by the negative mental health impacts of the pandemic. The vast majority (70%) disclosed “poor” mental health during most or all of the pandemic — likely tied to high reports of stressful living situations, political concerns, and unmet counseling needs. Forty-two percent of LGBTQ youth also seriously contemplated suicide, and 1 in 5 attempted it. Read additional commentary on the survey results here and here.
Higher Ed Dive imagines how the widespread transition among colleges to virtual mental health services will affect schools as they return to otherwise normal programming. The use of online campus counseling and extended hours may continue to be helpful for students who are not comfortable meeting face-to-face or do not have time to attend in-person sessions. Schools that made an effort to educate and train faculty to deal with student mental health problems during the pandemic may also benefit from these measures in the new academic year. But as colleges anticipate increased demand for counseling services come fall, experts are exploring how they can further prepare faculty and staff to support students. Off-campus virtual programs designed to target student mental health offer another promising solution, although some remain skeptical about the extent to which external providers can help if they are unfamiliar with a specific college and its culture.
Other News
According to The Washington Post, research on the behaviors of around two hundred Dartmouth College undergraduates over the last four years finds that the onset of the pandemic is correlated with decreased sleep and increased anxiety, depression and phone use. And while the worsened state of student mental health is clear, experts continue to question when they can expect a return to normalcy.
Inside Higher Ed reports on the Campus Caring Initiative, a new national initiative aimed at coaching community college faculty to better connect with students and foster a heightened sense of care. Various community colleges describe their institutional changes and ways staff members have worked with students.
The Boston Globe’s editorial board discusses potential alternatives to the way that law enforcement traditionally responds to behavioral health emergencies. The writers encourage the funding of community-based solutions, including restoration centers, to adequately treat current or at-risk prisoners with mental health problems.
With more 18 to 24 year-olds struggling with anxiety and depression, WCVB5 explores how the pandemic has exacerbated the typical stressors of young adulthood, including transitioning to a new job or school without the same degree of parental supervision.
TIME Magazine suggests that, despite hopes for telehealth to make mental healthcare more widely accessible, many of the same barriers to entry for in-person therapy persist, especially for lower-income people and people of color. Despite the increase in mental health problems during the pandemic, many of those struggling are still not receiving teletherapy perhaps because of technological or financial challenges, or the shortage of mental health professionals.
Responding to The Boston Globe’s recent story about the mental health crisis at Dartmouth and colleges around the country, several Yale alumni co-signed a letter demanding improved resources at their own school. Pointing to the suicide of Yale freshman Rachael Shaw-Rosenbaum this spring, the authors suggest that “Ivy League universities as a group have remained willfully blind toward the desperate need for reform.”
USC Trojan Family highlights the mental health issues of some of its current and graduated student-athletes, calling their common struggle the “quiet crisis in college sports.” Sports psychologists at USC and beyond are now exploring ways to support and establish a healthy culture among student-athletes, who are often exhausted from the physical and mental pressures of their sports before even reaching campus.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
The Chronicle discusses the Institute of International Education’s recent survey of 414 US colleges, which finds that the number of international students who applied and enrolled this fall has risen from last year. Compared to a notable decline (43%) in enrolled international students in 2020 — explained largely but perhaps not entirely by the pandemic — more than 40% of colleges reported an increase in applications this year. As many colleges have also tried to direct more funding and mental health services toward their international communities, Higher Ed Dive highlights that 90% of colleges will welcome international students for in-person classes, while none plan to offer remote-only courses.
According to a new report on college admissions from the Institute of Higher Education Policy, many higher education institutions continue to use policies that disadvantage minority students. The report, “Realizing the Mission of Higher Education Through Equitable Admissions Policies,” states “such policies judge applicants based on factors like whether and where their parents attended college, the resources and connections of the high school they attend, and their ability to afford expensive test preparation materials, rather than their academic potential.”
In West Point, Mississippi, conflict recently arose at the local high school after parents complained that the administration had misselected the senior valedictorian and salutatorian, who are both Black girls. In response, the school ended up appointing two white students as co-valedictorian and co-salutatorian. While competitive students and parents evidently regularly bring about disputes over valedictorian selections, The New York Times considers how Mississippi’s history of racial and educational inequity, as well as “family influence,” affected this school’s decision making.
For The Washington Post, University of Notre Dame English Professor John Duffy explains why he chooses to explore The New York Times’ 1619 Project with his students. While the 1619 Project’s efforts to reframe US history by centering discussions of slavery and its effects have been controversial, Duffy suggests that even “the questions these criticisms raise about history, ideology and the legacies of slavery provide compelling reasons for teaching the project in schools and universities.” By assigning readings that reflect both sides of the debate, Duffy pushes his students to think deeply about how and why history is written, the contemporary politics of studying US history, and the shortcomings of their educations on slavery.
In Diverse Education, Kwadwo Assensoh, Program Assistant at the University of Oregon’s Center on Diversity and Community, outlines four ways higher education institutions can better retain Black students and faculty, especially at predominantly white schools. Assensoh advises (1) providing mutual support in the classroom; (2) providing a sense of community; (3) working toward a hopeful future; and (4) institutional reinforcement with institutional funded grants.
For Diverse Education, researchers Dr. Terry Calaway and Dr. Deborah Manning discuss the potential for Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) to help close persistent educational gaps that especially impact African American, Hispanic and Native American students. Focusing on the innovative practices at Community College of Baltimore County, Calaway and Manning find that effective culturally responsive educators encourage a “growth mindset” and active engagement among their students, and they also think critically on an individual and institutional level about the type of culture that they bring to the classroom.
After being awarded a $40,000 scholarship at her high school graduation, Verda Tetteh refused the prize and instead suggested it be offered to a student who would be attending community college. As Tetteh, who is going to Harvard, already expected to cover her college expenses thanks to university and other scholarship funding, she felt that her school’s “General Excellence Prize” would better serve a different recipient. In Tetteh’s longtime home of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, the State Department has designated 60% of the high school’s students as “economically disadvantaged” and 67% as “high needs,” according to The New York Times.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
Amid an ongoing investigation into the treatment of USC Song Girls by their coach Lori Nelson, The Los Angeles Times reports that Nelson came up against similar accusations of Title IX violations in 2016. That year, after a member of the Song Girls reported inappropriate text messages from Nelson, the school examined the coach’s conduct but ultimately decided not to discipline her. Still, another member of the team during that time calls it “the worst period of my life,” as she remembers struggling with depression and the team’s disordered eating culture but fearing backlash if she spoke out against Nelson.
Given the high incidence of sexual assault being reported at US colleges, those that receive federal funding are required to educate students through bystander intervention programs, which teach students to step in and try to prevent any sexual misconduct that they might see or anticipate. However, Psychology Today cites a 2019 review of bystander intervention programs to consider the mixed results surrounding their efficacy: While the training may be effective short term in educating students and lessening prejudiced attitudes, it does not seem to have a long term positive impact on the rate of sexual assault.
A Bryn Mawr college student filed a federal lawsuit against the college and former professor David Barreto for sexually assaulting and harassing her and other students. The 22-year-old undergraduate student says she was a student in Barreto’s Spanish class in the spring of 2019. The lawsuit states Barreto took her and another student out to dinner and afterwards arrived at the other student’s apartment with alcohol. Barreto allegedly touched the plaintiff without her consent. The suit states multiple students have previously reported Barreto’s nonconsensual sexual misconduct.
In related news of the four Dartmouth College deaths, Elizabeth Reimer ‘24, one of the first-year students who died by suicide, reportedly posted a video to her Tik Tok account stating that she had been sexually assaulted during her first year at Dartmouth. In December, Reimer posted a video of her responding to an online form from Dartmouth administration that asked her to describe challenges faced that led to a “less than ideal” experience at Dartmouth. Reimer wrote “getting sexually assaulted.”
Student Success
In a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, data found spring enrollment numbers declined by 600,000 students. The report examined 97% of degree-granting U.S. institutions. Community colleges had the largest decline in enrollment with a 9.5% plunge, equivalent to 476,000 fewer students. Low-income students suffered the greatest impact in retention numbers from the pandemic. The report’s trends also show that male student enrollment fell more than female student enrollment in the past academic year. Graduate school attendance, however, increased by 4.6%, or 124,000 students, this spring.
As the onset of the pandemic pushed colleges around the country (more than two-thirds of four-year institutions) to become test-optional, Higher Ed Dive discusses how many are now considering whether to revert back to their former practices. Having trained admissions officers to review applications without standardized test scores, around 1,400 schools say they will continue to be test-optional through fall 2022. Standardized tests are particularly controversial for their negative impact on low-income and Black and Hispanic students, and some schools that became test optional this year not only received more applicants but admitted a more diverse class. Still, testing remains important for administrations that may rely on test score-based school rankings or student data that testing companies gather and share.
For Forbes Magazine, college counselor and longtime educator Brennan Barnard interviews various “admission leaders” about the effective ways to incentivize education, including by making it free. Some experts believe that scholarships could help improve college retention and graduation rates, while others discuss the potential in scholarships for students that engage in community service work. Beyond incentives for students, however, there is the question of how to encourage investing in school resources in order to bolster support and ensure opportunities for students.
CNBC interviews college students who chose to take time off instead of learning remotely during COVID-19. Many students stated they either could not afford to enroll or did not want a diminished college experience. Some students took the time to pursue a gap year, after experiencing pandemic stress and burn out. For those who did decide to take gap years, students remark that the pandemic provided time to reflect and thoroughly consider their career paths and what they wanted to do for the future. Higher education experts worry about the long-term impacts for students who could not afford enrolling in college due to financial hardships. Enrollment numbers for incoming first year students in the fall of 2020 plummeted by 13.1%.
College Affordability
Politico reports that, although originally intended to roll out for the 2023-24 academic year, efforts to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) will not come to fruition until 2024-25. For the Department of Education, reworking the current, 45-year-old system has turned out to be more difficult and require more time than anticipated. The Department’s head of federal aid, Richard Cordray, also spoke with The Washington Post about the future of student loans, including what borrowers and servicers can anticipate from the new administration.
The Washington Post reports on a new report being released on Friday by the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) that accuses a number of public colleges and universities of promoting costly private education loans. Seth Frotman, former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau official and founder of SBPC, says “colleges could be violating federal rules by failing to disclose arrangements with the lenders. The report’s researchers analyzed dozens of public colleges’ marketing materials, reviewing their contracts with third-party contractors for non-degree programs or short-term courses. Since students are unable to use federal loans for these programs, they may resort to the private market. How these colleges engage with the terms of the product loans is under scrutiny.
In an op-ed for The Hechinger Report, Lina Bankert, who is a partner at the nonprofit Bellwether Education Partners, discusses the need for improved support for low-income and first-generation students in their transition from secondary school. Particularly as the pandemic introduced new uncertainty and non-academic responsibilities for many students, Bankert suggests that community colleges can work to improve retention by engaging with local high school students and helping them plan for the future: Already, she says, “There are clear examples of communities working together across K-12 schools, colleges, and nonprofit organizations to prioritize the needs of first-generation college-goers.”
College Promise, a campaign dedicated to reducing postsecondary tuition fees, in partnership with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), presented research findings on financial models to meet student needs last Wednesday at the “Expanding Promise Symposium.” Research teams designed financial programming for five student groups: first-generation students, youth in or out of foster care, students with disabilities, student-parents and students needing academic support. First-generation students, for instance, face five specified barriers: return on investment, work and home commitments, cultural capital and navigational skills, bureaucratic structures and disparities in educational attainment.
Basic Needs
Virginia’s community college students report struggling to pay for basic necessities last fall. According to a new survey conducted by the Hope Center at Temple University, of 11,000 students, approximately 32% of Virginia community college students had difficulty affording food while 42% struggled to pay for housing. Forty-two percent of students heard of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act’s emergency grants; however, only 19% said they received coronavirus relief aid from their community colleges. Many students who were likely eligible for public benefits did not apply, while two-thirds of students reported not knowing how to apply for emergency aid.
Coronavirus: Safety and Reopening
The Chronicle has compiled an updated list of colleges that will require vaccines prior to the start of the fall 2021 semester. As of June 14, 506 colleges have announced vaccination requirements. Whether colleges require or strongly encourage students to be fully vaccinated varies upon each institution. The list also labels institutions that indicate their vaccination requirements correspond to the fully approved vaccines under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines. In addition, here is an updated Chronicle list of colleges loosening their mask mandates for those fully vaccinated.
Inside Higher Ed’s live updates on the latest news regarding Coronavirus and higher education includes new state university COVID-19 policies from Kentucky and Minnesota. Both university systems are encouraging students and employees to get vaccinated. Some colleges are adding penalties for students not vaccinated against COVID-19. Rhodes College announced that it will charge students with a $1500 fee per semester if they are not vaccinated against COVID-19.
Ohio state universities announced on Wednesday that masks will not be required inside campus buildings for fully vaccinated people. Campus officials said social distancing will also not be required for those vaccinated.
