Mental and Behavioral Health
The Rochester Institute of Technology has released the results of a report focusing on student mental health and well-being. A task force was charged with conducting a comprehensive review after a student death by suicide this past winter. In a message to the R.I.T. community, the college said the task force report emphasizes the importance of having an integrated campus wide approach to meet the increasing demand for mental health and well-being services to include professional treatment services, wellness educational programming and operational improvements.
At the opening press conference at the 2019 SEC Media Days, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said talks about mental health “represent not a ripple of change, but a wave of new reality.” Sankey also referenced studies about Generation Z and its open attitudes towards a range of topics, including mental health. “If you were part of the student-athlete advisory committee meeting in the SEC ten years ago, you would have commonly discussed campus parking issues,” Sankey said. “Now, at every meeting, our student-athletes themselves ask to discuss issues around mental health.”
Diversity and Inclusion
According to a report by the Partnership for College Completion, none of the Chicago-area four-year public universities, as of 2016, has been able to graduate more than half of their Black and Latinx students. The seven-county Chicago area is home to 54 schools – including public, private, non-profit two- and four- year institutions – which enroll 319,000 undergraduates.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
In separate posts on Twitter this week, two young men who identified themselves as students at Morehouse College shared their experiences with a staff member at the college who they claim had been sexually inappropriate with them. They complained of sexualized comments and inappropriate references to their sexuality. The videos were shared thousands of times. In statements last week, Morehouse, an all-male, historically black school in Atlanta, said it was investigating the complaints and had placed the staffer on unpaid administrative leave. Later in the week, the college announced it was expanding its investigation to include additional complaints it had received against other employees. This is the latest in a string of instances in recent years in which students have taken to social media to express frustration at how Morehouse has handled sexual-misconduct accusations.
In their upcoming book, Campuses of Consent: Sexual and Social Justice in Higher Education, two Miami University professors, Theresa A. Kulbaga and Leland G. Spencer, discuss federal laws and institutional policy around consent, and what colleges get wrong. In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, they say that most administrators don’t have a holistic understanding of consent and so can therefore use victim-blaming language to communicate with the university community or purchase a one-time online training program full of gender and sexuality stereotypes, victim blaming, and other damaging myths about sexual violence.
College Affordability
In a story about federal student loan defaulters, NPR cites an analysis by The Hechinger Report, which showed that from mid-2014 to mid-2016, 3.9 million undergraduates with federal student loan debt dropped out of school. The default rate among borrowers who didn’t complete their degree is three times as high as the rate for borrowers who did earn a diploma. Through the stories of those who’ve experienced it, NPR explains that when these students drop out without a degree, they forfeit the wage bump that would help pay back the loans.
Only 42 percent of first-time, full-time college students graduate on time, and the longer students take to finish, the more they will pay. A growing number of students have started to forgo summer breaks to cut costs and stay on track to graduation. And since many four-year institutions largely shut down, many are going to community colleges. This phenomenon has even got a name — : “summer swirl.” Summer swirlers are more likely to graduate from their home institutions than their classmates who don’t take summer classes, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Student Success
Community colleges awarded more than 17,000 bachelor’s degrees in 2014, up from about 1,700 in 2000, according to a working paper from University of Florida researchers. In total, 121 two-year institutions offer bachelor’s degrees. And that number is poised to grow, as some 24 states allow their two-year institutions to award bachelor’s degrees. Proponents of four-year degrees at community colleges often tout their ability to boost economic mobility for students and community colleges contend that they are the proven pathway to a four-year degree. However, efforts to bestow four year degrees have gotten heavy pushback with critics concerned that two-year schools will award bachelor’s degrees of lower quality. But early research on the impact of two-year colleges offering four-year degrees is promising, suggesting doing so could help address the skills gap.
According to data on some 82,900 graduates from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), growth in graduates starting salaries stayed stagnant in 2019. Graduates who earned bachelor’s degrees in 2018 received an average starting salary of about $51,000, only marginally higher – by less than 1% – than that of 2017 graduates, who earned $50,500 as their average starting salary. Computer science and engineering bachelor’s graduates in 2018 had the highest average starting salaries, at $71,400 and $66,600, respectively. Social science graduates had the lowest of those tracked, at $46,800.
Substance Use
A new study released by the Dartmouth College Student Wellness Center shows the number of high-risk drinkers on campus is dropping. The report, “Expanding the Healthy Majority,” shows that most Dartmouth students either do not drink or consume alcohol in a responsible manner. “Providing consistent alcohol-free and low-risk social options for students particularly during traditional drinking times sets a tone for incoming students and creates circumstances that can moderate the college effect,” the report states. While the number of problem drinkers at Dartmouth may be dropping, the number of problem drinking incidents is on the rise, according to a Wellness Center study released earlier this year. Overall alcohol-related incidents involving safety and security officers or residential life staff increased from 388 in the 2016-17 academic year to 437 in 2017-18.
Basic Needs
At a meeting last week, the UC Board of Regents reviewed basic needs within the UC system, focused on empowering the system to innovate and find new ways to “provide an elite education without elitist barriers that limit education.”
Free Speech
More than a dozen states are filing legislation to double down on the free speech protections provided by the First Amendment, extending such rights to public-college campuses. The Chronicle explores whether these measures are, as one skeptic suggests, largely symbolic gestures aimed at appealing to conservative voters, or a necessary check on campuses that are going overboard in shielding students from views that offend them. At least 16 states have approved these laws, which proponents say are needed to prevent controversial speakers from being disinvited or shouted down by protesters. Many of the laws also aim to ensure that an entire campus – not just a designated free-speech zone – is open to demonstrations and protests. However, critics worry that some of the laws interfere with colleges’ autonomy and could have the unintended consequence of trampling on the free-speech rights of protesters, such as one that calls for the mandatory expulsion for students who shout down speakers.
