Mental and Behavioral Health
Main Stories
Inside Higher Ed covers a new report from the educational consultant group College Futures Foundation, which reviews how the structures of higher education impact student mental well-being both positively and negatively. Negative impacts include: promoting social isolation, especially for minority students; upholding and high costs and promoting debt, creating barriers to accessing mental health. Positive impacts include teaching proactive self-care, integrating wellness into curriculum; fostering belonging and affirm and validate students.
Higher Ed Dive reports that the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education developed a program that provides free around-the-clock online mental health services to college students in the state, funded through $10 million in one-time federal COVID-19 relief dollars. Any type of institution — two- and four-year, public or private nonprofit — can opt in without any expense, so long as they received state aid. The program, announced last month, will be evaluated on multiple measures, including by how many students utilize the service.
Other news
In a column in Forbes, Jason Richmond, Founder and Chief Culture Officer of Ideal Outcomes, Inc., a corporate culture consulting agency, discusses the issue of burnout at the workplace. In the discussion, he highlights the recent MCI survey that showed that 53% of recent college graduates aged 22-28 said they experienced burnout at work at least once a week. He offered suggestions on how to prevent the problem, including staying connected and recognizing employee accomplishments.
Inside Higher Ed reports that in response to the student mental health crisis, colleges across the US are increasingly focused on creating a sense of community on campus. This is a particular challenge for universities that don’t have a physical campus or residential population, like online universities with student bodies scattered across the world. Universities like National University, which serves large numbers of parents, full-time workers and members of the military, are working to create community using strategies like creating school songs, mascots, and traditions like homecoming and other in-person events.
New data from Inside Higher Ed’s recent Student Voice survey, which queried 3,000 two- and four-year college students at 158 institutions about their own health and wellness and related campus services, showed that: Of students who reported use of telecounseling but not on-campus counseling, nearly half approve of the quality of care they received and of appointment availability. About a quarter say that follow-up care went well and that they had the “ability to schedule with a counselor [they] could relate to.” Almost half of these students say that quality of care needs improvement. Over three in 10 say that follow-up care, appointment availability, and ability to schedule with a counselor they could relate to all need improvement. Of the students who had used on-campus counseling but not telecounseling, 55% approved of the quality of care – higher than the telecounseling-only group; and had comparable approval rates for quality of care, follow-up care, and their ability to schedule with a counselor to whom they could relate.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
According to The Chronicle, conservative legislatures in several states are considering or enacting restrictions on teaching about race, ending tenure and eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion — or DEI programming.
Critics of these bills say that they are intentionally vague and misleading in order to encourage self-censorship and self-policing among professors and administrators.
“Sowing confusion and fear among faculty members about what they can and cannot teach,” says the American Association of University Professors’ recently released preliminary report on academic freedom in Florida, “may be the underlying and main goal of the curricular legislation as a package.”
Inside Higher Ed covers a new survey about trust in institutions relating to DEI. The survey of students found that they trust professors more than their presidents or DEI officers “when it comes to responding to systemic racism and racial injustice in this country.” Of the students surveyed, 63% said they trust professors, 52% trust their DEI officers, and 50%trust the president. Among the public, colleges and universities are trusted more than other groups “to do what is right when it comes to responding to systemic racism and racial injustice in this country.” Fifty-six percent of the public trusts higher education, 47% trust business, 47% trust nongovernmental organizations, 38% trust the media and 37% trust the government.
As the U.S. Supreme Court is soon expected to rule against, or limit, affirmative action in college admissions, The New York Times analyzed the 2020 vote on Proposition 16 in CA, which, if it had passed, would have restored race-conscious admissions at public universities. The campaign drew support from the governor, senators, state legislative leaders and business, and nonprofit and labor elites.The results in Proposition 16 exposed a gulf between the Democratic party establishment and its liberal voters, suggesting the politics of affirmative action are different.
Higher Ed Dive reports more than 1,900 colleges are not mandating that students submit SAT or ACT scores for admissions for fall 2023.The tally comes from FairTest, a group advocating for the limited application of standardized assessments.
Substance Use
Young adults ages 19-30 nearly doubled their past 12-month use of non-LSD hallucinogens in the United States from 2018 to 2021, according to a study by the University of Michigan and Columbia University. In 2018, the prevalence of young adults’ past-year use of non-LSD hallucinogens was 3.4%. In 2021, that use increased to 6.6%. “While non-LSD hallucinogen use remains substantially less prevalent than use of substances such as alcohol and cannabis, a doubling of prevalence in just three years is a dramatic increase and raises possible public health concerns. The increase in non-LSD hallucinogen use occurred while LSD use remained stable at around 4% in 2018 and 2021,” says study co-author Megan Patrick, research professor in the Survey Research Center at U-M’s Institute for Social Research and co-principal investigator of the Monitoring the Future study.
Student Success
In a recent episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast, founding president of Olin College of Engineering, Richard K. Miller, discusses the mission and work of the Coalition for Life Transformative Education, whose members strive to use data-informed experiments to rework their curricula and scale the use of project-based experiences to build a sense of belonging and growth mindset for all of their students.
Inside Higher Ed covers a new report from EAB summarizes the results of a new survey of more than 20,000 high school students, showing more than one in five (22%) have decided not to attend college because they are not mentally ready, a sharp increase from pre-pandemic levels (14% in 2019). This view is particularly prevalent among first-generation and lower-income students. One in five high school students who say they won’t enroll in college cite their doubts about the value of college, up from 8%in 2019. “It’s no secret that the pandemic has taken a toll on student mental health and academic preparedness,” says Hope Krutz, president of EAB’s Enroll360 division. “This new data shows us that it is having a profound impact on whether high school graduates decide to attend college at all.”
A recent report released by ACT, the nonprofit behind the standardized test, publishes the results of a survey given to a random sample of over 1,500 high school seniors last September that found clear impacts from the coronavirus: over two out of five students say that the pandemic affected their thoughts about at least one college or career-related choice, including whether to attend college, what type of school to go to, what to study, and what career to pursue. One third of students changed their thoughts about two or more choices. The pandemic had a disproportionate influence on students of color. Among Latinx students, 36% say COVID changed their thoughts about which college to attend. One-third of Asian students and 30% of Black students say the same. That’s compared to 22% of white students.
Higher Ed Dive reports that an experiment in Ohio that adapted a completion program originally for the City University of New York system suggests that the original success of the program could be replicated. Beginning in 2014, three of Ohio’s community colleges worked with their state’s higher education department, the research firm MDRC and CUNY to customize and implement a version of the system’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, or ASAP, which focuses on comprehensive advising and financial support. The original CUNY ASAP is an oft-cited student success story in higher education. Students within the 16-year-old CUNY ASAP have been found to graduate within three years at double the rate of students who aren’t in CUNY ASAP.
To better serve student parents, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee offers a one-stop shop for resources and peer connection in the Student Parent Success Program (SPSP). The program gives student parents opportunities to receive financial help, access coaching, and engage with other student parents to alleviate feelings of isolation and promote success. SPSP resources include discounted daycare, parent mentorship, and community resources.
College Affordability
Last week, as expected, President Biden vetoed a Republican-led resolution that would have struck down his controversial plan to forgive more than $400 billion in student loans. In a statement, the president said the resolution — which the Senate approved on a 52-46 vote – would have kept millions of Americans from receiving “the essential relief they need as they recover from the economic strains associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.” The Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling on its legality within the next few weeks.
As reported in the Washington Post, some liberal lawmakers are urging the Biden administration to prepare an alternative plan to cancel student debt. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) confirms that he has told Biden administration officials, including Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, to press forward with a new plan to cancel student debt should the court invalidate Biden’s existing plan. Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have privately made similar remarks to administration officials.
A new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finds that more student loan borrowers are behind on their credit card bills and loans than before the pandemic, and they are paying more because of rising interest rates. The rising delinquencies mean that more borrowers will be at risk of defaulting when payments turn back on later this summer after a three-year pause. Nearly 20% of borrowers, about 5.9 million, have two or more risk factors that indicate they’ll struggle with making their student loan payments. That’s up from the estimated 5.1 million borrowers who were at risk in April 2022.
