Mental and Behavioral Health
A jury found Iowa State University partially responsible for the suicide of Dane Schussler, a 21-year-old junior, and awarded his family $315,000. The jury heard from the former director of the counseling center, who testified that budget reductions caused staffing shortages and warned in 2011 and 2012 about the consequent risks, including possible suicides. Additionally, expert testimony suggested that despite Schussler’s discussion of suicide, the therapist misdiagnosed a major depressive disorder as a mild one. And Schussler’s therapist asked him to sign a “contract” stating that he wouldn’t harm himself. The contract, she said, satisfied the therapist’s concerns about self-harm. The case raises questions about the extent of colleges’ responsibility for their students’ well-being, how much liability institutions could incur when their mental health services are cut back, and whether some common treatment practices should be reexamined.
In a column in The Conversation, Nick Joyce, a licensed psychologist at the University of South Florida Counseling Center, discusses the importance of being mentally and emotionally prepared before attending college. Joyce blames the increased pressure on young people to earn a degree and get a good job that leads students and their parents to overlook concerns about mental health. Joyce warns that ignoring mental health issues often leads to academic problems, which can delay graduation and require students to spend more time and money to complete their degree. He advises students to get help with mental health issues before college begins.
The Georgia Tech University Undergraduate Student Government Association (SGA) has partnered with the Division of Student Life to create a Mental Health Resource Guide. The guide is designed to provide tools for identifying concerning behaviors and getting students the help or resources they need. It was recently distributed to all faculty and academic advisors. Rachael Price, an undergraduate and advocate of the resource guide, said, “I hope this folder will allow staff and faculty to feel better equipped to navigate a difficult situation with a student’s and their own well-being in mind.”
University of Colorado Athletics designated a football game last weekend as this year’s “mental health awareness game.” This is the second year the Athletics Department has featured this important topic throughout a football game to help destigmatize myths about mental health and encourage those in need to seek support. During the game, fans saw three videos promoting messages about mental health support services. This included informing students of what the Athletics Department and broader campus are doing to address issue, including the CU Athletics Bolder Buffs peer advocacy support group and the “BeThe1To” suicide prevention campaign. Chancellor Phil DiStefano and Athletic Director Rick George also spoke about mental health progress made on campus.
Despite the addition of staff members, long counseling session wait times still affect students at the Oklahoma University Counseling Center. The counseling center added two staff psychologists before the start of the school year and is working to hire a case manager to transition patients from off-campus in-patient care to counseling at the university. Staff psychologist Brittany Stewart said, “We’ve definitely noticed an understaffing need – and then have been supported by the student body and been supported by the administration to bring in additional employees, additional psychologists, to help meet some of that need.”
Stanford University is changing how students receive counseling services to reduce long wait times and to meet a growing demand for mental health support on campus. In an announcement last week detailing a new intake process, the university acknowledged the counseling system’s shortcomings. Under the previous intake model, students would request a phone assessment appointment, complete an intake and then begin therapy. But “bottle-necking” meant some students would wait weeks just to start the intake process, according to Oliver Lin, operations director at Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). Under a new model, the phone assessments have been eliminated. Students will now be able to call or go into Counseling and Psychological Services on any weekday to be connected with a clinician to determine what resources and services they might need. This “brief discussion” could then be followed by a more specific conversation with a clinician about what the student is experiencing. Stanford has also renamed and relocated Wellness and Health Promotion Services, now Well-Being at Stanford, which is taking a more holistic, public health approach. The office will collaborate with departments across campus like CAPS, the Office of Alcohol Policy and Education and Residential Education. The office is also launching a pilot coaching program for students who might not need therapy but are looking for support with issues such as mild depression or anxiety, or balancing academics with co-curricular life. Also, under consideration is an “adulting” class that would teach students about effective communication and sleeping habits.
For online students, mental health counseling is on the list of discretionary offerings, on the assumption that those students may be more mature and less likely to need emotional or other nonacademic support. That assumption is misguided, says Lisa Antel, director of the counseling center at Post University, in Connecticut, which has a large population of online students. “The online population is often juggling quite a bit more than our main campus population” — roughly 800 mostly traditional-age students, she says. “They’ve got life, family, work and then school, and our online program has accelerated eight-week classes that move at a very fast pace, so when something happens in your life, it can be difficult to keep up.” And according to Antel, online students often feel isolated, as they aren’t able to connect to campus life the way traditional students do. Post University began several years ago to ramp up the mental health services they provide to their online students. They added a service that helps individuals find local counseling in their areas and began offering mental health screenings to students. They have also added a digital platform that helps students assess their own well-being, that Antel says can help institutions serve a student body that is geographically dispersed. However, Antel says that digital tools can’t and shouldn’t replace human beings in identifying and helping students with mental health problems.
In an email to students, Rutgers University Office of Student Health highlighted its mental health resources and urged people who are struggling to reach out. The university is closing its on-campus student pharmacies in part to invest in more staff at CAPS, as mental health problems have seen an increase in prevalence.
Diversity and Inclusion
In the Boston Globe, Wellesley College President Paula Johnson writes that with the approach of the 2020 elections and the increased polarization, higher education institutions would do well to home in on a new mission: “Equipping students with the tools they need to talk across difference – politics, race, economic class, and the myriad other fault lines of 21st century life. To prepare them to “talk to people back home” – as well as far beyond.” According to Johnson, a liberal arts education should teach students not only how to think, but also how to connect, a core competency for life in a healthy democracy. Johnson believes that college courses can help prepare students for the duties of citizenship, but one course is not enough. Johnson writes, “What I’ve come to think of as the Curriculum of Connection cannot exist within a single silo. To the contrary, it needs to infuse every aspect of campus life, from how we teach and interact with students in the classroom; to how we organize student affairs and government; to how we support and foster residential life.”
According to the Chronicle, recent high-profile incidents in which international students holding visas were stopped at airports and sent back to their home countries could deal another blow to higher education’s image abroad. The visa revocations, including to students at Arizona State and Harvard Universities, have alarmed educators, many of whom see the actions taken by customs officials as both arbitrary and excessive. And because it remains largely unclear what led officers to flag the students, administrators say they are at a loss for how to advise others who may be traveling. “Not knowing what will happen at the border increases fear and anxiety,” says Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance for Higher Education and Immigration, an association of college leaders that advocates for international and undocumented students. “It reinforces doubts and concerns that students may have about studying in the United States.” Sarah Spreitzer, director of government and public affairs at the American Council on Education said, “What we continue to message is that international students need certainty. This does not create certainty.”
International students are also struggling to get visas they need to study in the United States as a result of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Representatives from 10 schools recently told The Atlantic that they are facing an increasing workload as they try to help students navigate bureaucracy and advocate on their behalf. After steadily climbing for more than a decade, the number of new international students enrolled at U.S. colleges has declined in recent years. Brian Rosenberg, the president of Macalester College, a liberal-arts institution in St. Paul, Minnesota said, “I think that both [the Trump administration’s] immigration policy and the messaging of the day are literally turning [international] students away … and making them less inclined to want to study in the United States.” Another president at the dinner, Philip A. Glotzbach of Skidmore College, said that while his liberal-arts school in Saratoga Springs, New York, hasn’t yet experienced a decline in international students, it has had to “work a lot harder” to recruit and retain them.
Dozens of colleges and universities have started offering services tailored to the needs of undocumented students. But the Trump administration’s use of raids and other tactics to target undocumented immigrants has forced administrators to rethink the services they offer and how they offer them. Jesus Cisneros, an education professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has studied university resource centers for these students said that colleges and universities will likely take a more active role in supporting undocumented students. At least 56 colleges or universities had established a support center for them as of May 2018, he said. That number has been growing. “Administrators are beginning to recognize that inclusion in higher education does not and should not end at access,” he said. “Institutions are identifying ways in which they can support the students that they recruit … all the way through graduation and even post-graduation.”
The Hechinger Report‘s Meredith Kolodner found there to be large enrollment gaps among black and latino students at flagship state universities. Each year for the past three years, Kolodner has reported on the gap between the number of Black and Latino students graduating from high schools in each state, and the number choosing to enroll at their state flagship university. Kolodner says it’s important to track this because flagships are supposed to be the best and most accessible schools for all students in each state. “They’re considered the best public universities in the state, they usually have more funding, they have more resources, they have alumni networks, their graduation rates are higher,” she says. Kolodner believes the gap persists, in part, because of narrow standards used in admissions – like using a minimum ACT or SAT score and a minimum GPA to be considered. She also says that with major cuts to higher education in most states, schools are trying harder to attract out-of-state students who have to pay higher tuition.
In the Washington Post, two experts at Harvard proposed a new way to make the admissions process more fair. Brennan Barnard, the college admission program manager at the Making Caring Common project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Richard Weissbourd, a senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as well as the faculty director of the Making Caring Common project, argue that despite its problems, the concept that the College Board introduced with its Environmental Context Dashboard was a good one, and that a version of it could help level the playing field for students facing disadvantages. Barnard and Weissbourd say that admissions offices need better information about the adversities and burdens of individual applicants, and they need good ways of assessing and weighing that information. They suggest, in addition to using neighborhoods, schools or parental education as proxies for level of adversity, admissions officers ask students to list the particular burdens and adversities they face in their applications.
U.S. News & World Report made several changes to its annual college rankings, including ranking schools based on their contributions to underrepresented students’ social mobility, and rewarding institutions for graduating first-generation students. The “Top Performers on Social Mobility” lists evaluate schools based on how many low-income students they enroll and graduate. Three University of California System campuses – Riverside, Santa Cruz and Irvine – topped that list for national universities.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
The Department of Education has levied a $4.5 million fine against Michigan State University – the largest such penalty ever – for failing to comply with campus-safety regulations in its handling of the Larry Nassar scandal. Nassar, a former team doctor who was accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of women and girls during his decades at the institution, is serving a long prison term after pleading guilty to some of those charges. The settlement resolves a Clery Act review that found the school repeatedly failed to act to address complaints against Nassar, subjecting students to a sexually hostile environment. The university also must implement a corrective action plan, including hiring a Clery compliance officer.
For years, Chanel Miller was known in legal proceedings as “Emily Doe,” the woman assaulted while unconscious by Stanford University student Brock Turner outside an on-campus fraternity house. Her story became national news after she read a searing, emotional victim impact statement at Turner’s sentencing. Now, she’s revealing her identity in a memoir, “Know My Name,” scheduled to be released this month. Her famous victim statement detailed how the assault and the aftermath affected her life. She wrote, “My independence, natural joy, gentleness, and steady lifestyle I had been enjoying became distorted beyond recognition. I became closed off, angry, self-deprecating, tired, irritable, empty.”
Morehouse College has come under repeated scrutiny for mishandling cases of sexual misconduct. Former students and others who have worked on the campus say that disarray at the school’s Title IX office, coupled with a culture of hypermasculinity among the mostly male leadership, has allowed sexual misconduct and homophobia to persist at Morehouse. In a statement provided to The Chronicle, Morehouse called Title IX “an essential part of addressing sexual misconduct and assault on college campuses” and said the college is “doing more than ever” to hire its next Title IX coordinator, a process that includes student input. Morehouse said it is pursuing multiple initiatives to prevent sexual misconduct on campus, like dialogues and events about masculinity; student leaders being trained to lead conversations about sexual misconduct; and a new, recurring campus-climate survey.
Physical Health and Wellbeing
In an op-ed for the Commonwealth Times, Tagwa Shammet argues that Virginia Commonwealth University Student Health’s lack of prenatal services makes health care too expensive for pregnant students. Shammet argues that pregnant students pay the Student Health fee, but are not provided valuable services they need.
“https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2019/09/pasciak-make-student-health-a-more-accessible-resource” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener” shape=”rect”>Cavalier Daily, Zachary Pasciak writes that the school’s health center’s limited hours present a serious barrier to students seeking medical attention. Pasciak does note, however, that Student Health is making strides towards accessibility for all students, especially with their focus on LGBTQ+ health care.
Student Success
The Chronicle reports on recent studies that found that using “nudges” –a strategy grounded in behavioral economics that uses low-cost, low-touch interventions to encourage, but not require, people to take a particular action — has not been successful for improving academic performance or financial aid utilization. Nudges have been touted as a silver bullet for higher education, a light-touch approach could make a measurable difference on some of its thorniest problems – at a cost of just a few dollars per student. The Chronicle explores why some nudges don’t work with college students, and what colleges should do instead.
Recent research on the effects of student loans at community colleges has found that students who borrow more end up defaulting less, the reasoning being the loans allowed students to earn additional college credits, which led to more stable careers and finances. One study found that students who borrowed less earned worse grades and fewer credits. And most surprising, those who borrowed less were more likely to default on their student loans over the next three years.
Research shows that up to 40 percent of low-income students who are accepted to college succumb to what’s known as “summer melt” and don’t make it to the first day of classes in the fall. Programs to fight this phenomenon are expanding amid a growing body of research documenting their success. Studies suggest that when it comes to fighting summer melt, programs that rely on human interaction – in the form of one-to-one counseling, “near-peer” coaching, workshops and personalized communication – may hold the most promise.
College Affordability
New York’s financial regulator said Thursday it has launched an investigation into companies that offer debt-relief services for student loan borrowers, examining whether they are charging improper fees and engaging in misleading advertising that doesn’t alert borrowers that the programs the companies offer are free through the U.S. Department of Education.
NPR and The Atlantic interviewed Caitlin Zaloom, an anthropologist and associate professor at New York University, about her new book, Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost that documents how the price of a college education has forced many middle-class families to rearrange their priorities, finances, and lives. According to Zaloom, for many, the burden of student debt raises big questions about the value of a degree.
A new analysis from the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) shows that nearly all state flagship institutions are unaffordable to low- and middle-income students. The report, examined each institution’s net price as well as the tactics it uses to help students cover costs, finding “enormous” affordability gaps for all but the wealthiest learners.
According to survey results released by New America, Republicans and Democrats agree on the value of a college education but are sharply divided over who should shoulder the cost, and who benefits from it. Previous surveys have suggested Republicans increasingly doubt the positive effects of higher ed. But the think tank’s third annual survey found that republicans see postsecondary education as valuable for building careers and as a contributor to a strong workforce. Majorities of GOP respondents also agreed that public colleges are “for people like me” and said they’re comfortable supporting those institutions with tax dollars. The results show that Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, generally agree that some kind of education beyond high school is valuable, especially for individuals seeking a better paying job. But when it comes to who should pay for higher ed, eighty percent of Democrats said the government should, because education is good for society. The majority of Republicans, 59 percent, said individuals should fund higher education because they personally benefit, while 37 percent said the federal government should pay for the costs of college.
