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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded $131.7 million in grant programs to connect youth and families to behavioral health services. These grants are aimed at addressing the mental health crisis, particularly among youth, which has become a top priority of the Biden-Harris Administration. The awarded grants cover various areas such as promoting mental health in Native American communities, providing trauma-informed support services in schools, improving life trajectories for young adults with mental disorders, expanding substance abuse treatment capacity, and supporting LGBTQI+ youth and their families. In a Monday statement, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said “The Biden-Harris Administration is deeply committed to tackling the mental health crisis facing America, particularly among our young people…We are transforming mental health and substance use treatment across the country by providing equitable access to services for all Americans. These tools and resources will help families struggling to meet the mental health care needs of their children.”
Mental and Behavioral Health
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Sian Leah Beilock, a cognitive scientist and the first female president of Dartmouth College, has been in the news for her support of increased mental health support at the school. announced her plans to prioritize student mental health and wellbeing. On September 28th, Beilock will bring Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy to campus to discuss the youth mental health crisis. Beilock will also introduce Dartmouth’s first chief health and wellness officer, who will oversee the implementation and assessment of a new mental health strategic plan, which includes training more faculty and staff in mental health aid and suicide prevention. Following the Yale settlement in a lawsuit brought by students advocating for better mental health leave policies, Beilock announced changes to the College’s medical leave policies. Students on leave will now have access to public facilities, events, and job opportunities on campus, as well as access to the College’s teletherapy program, NPR reports.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Beilock addresses the complex role of technology in young adult mental health, proposing an approach to smartphone use that may combat mental health struggles rather than exacerbating them by utilizing data collection tools to understand the root of the problem, as well as encouraging open communication and connection online. “If we allow ourselves to focus blame entirely on texting, social media and smartphones as the problem,” Beilock writes, “we miss an opportunity to be smarter users of technology.”
An op-ed for Inside Higher Ed examines what a trauma-informed education looks like—and why it matters. Stephen Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, proposes “adding an interdisciplinary course on trauma to the curriculum.” Such a course, Mintz writes, might include biological and neurological analysis of trauma in the body, studying neuroplasticity, cognition, and behavior in relation to traumatic events. In the humanities, he suggests incorporating first-person and literary texts that portray trauma narratives through the lenses of intercultural, personal, and intergenerational healing.
The Messenger reports on the findings of a survey conducted by Harris Poll and CVS Health. After suicide deaths in the United States reached an all-time high last year, the new research finds that 36 percent of adults surveyed reported that they had considered suicide in the last year, and nearly 90 percent of respondents said that suicide prevention efforts should be of higher priority in society.
Other News
Stat News reports that medical students experience significant mental distress, including anxiety, alcohol use, depression, and suicidal ideation, listing the Covid-19 pandemic as a factor in worsening mental health issues among medical students. The report states that medical students often do not receive care for their mental health conditions, as high out-of-network annual deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses, as well as significant cost sharing, discourage them from accessing mental health care. The article urges medical schools to lower healthcare costs for students, especially for out-of-network care, and provide greater access to confidential, third-party therapy resources.
Time reports on Duke University professor of public policy Nick Carnes, who, when campus shut down in 2020, added a brief note to his email signature, urging students to get in touch with him or another professor if they were struggling with their mental and emotional wellbeing. Carnes hasn’t removed the statement three years later, even though the campus has returned to its pre-pandemic state of affairs, because he wants students to internalize his willingness to assist in a crisis.
Business Insider profiled Gen-Z youth on the effects of the loneliness epidemic. Over a third of adults aged 18-25 report frequent feelings of loneliness and social isolation, and many young adults are spending large sums of money in pursuit of friendship and connection. This spending can include gym memberships, social clubs, art classes, and social apps.
An op-ed in Stat News urges cell phone providers to ensure that every smartphone connects users to 988, the mental health crisis hotline. While all smartphones in the U.S. can call 911, regardless of whether they are connected to a cellular provider, phones do not provide the same access to 988 for mental health emergencies. The opinion piece suggests that a shortcut to allow users to easily and quickly connect with 988 could be a potentially life-saving measure.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Inside Higher Ed highlights a recent report that examines college course structure and equity gaps in student grades. The study suggests that slight changes to course structure can close or remove equity gaps without altering the level of expertise expected, and that changing the order in which course content is introduced and altering how tests are given can result in narrower achievement gaps. Experts argue that professors should stop approaching instruction from a “student deficit” perspective and start thinking about a “course deficit,” advocating for a move toward interactive learning over traditional lecture-style courses and for a “concepts first” education model.
The Chronicle reports on controversy at Washington College, a small Maryland liberal-arts institution, following a speech on “campus illiberalism” by conservative legal scholar and director of Princeton University’s Program in American Ideals and Institutions Robert P. George. George gave a campus talk about growing intolerance of certain viewpoints in higher education, eliciting a student protest over what they perceived to be anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion views. The protest lasted for about 15 minutes. Some colleges and universities do not issue speaking invitations to dissenters from campus orthodoxies, and those who are invited can be disinvited or pressured to withdraw. The circumstances of the event highlight the contentious nature of campus-speech issues in the current political climate.
The Chronicle published a deep-dive into the Classic Learning Test (CLT), a college entrance exam introduced in 2015 and now accepted by public colleges and universities in the state of Florida. Florida is the first state-university system to accept the CLT, which is primarily taken by home-schooled students and those at private or charter schools. The CLT was previously widely accepted by small private religious institutions. The test is based on a classical education model and assesses verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and grammar and writing with an emphasis on classical Western and Christian texts. From 2016 to 2023, approximately 21,000 juniors and seniors took the CLT, compared to millions of students who took the SAT and ACT.
College Affordability
Inside Higher Ed reports that a group of higher education institutions has launched the College Cost Transparency Initiative to make financial aid offers easier for students to understand, an initiative that followed the Government Accountability Office’s criticism of colleges and universities for not providing students with clarity about the cost of their education. According to The Washington Post, the initiative aims to make financial aid letters more standard, clear, and accurate. Some advocates are skeptical that this voluntary effort will lead to meaningful change and believe that Congress should take action to enforce compliance.
Campus Safety
A CNN report highlights the lasting impact of trauma at Umpqua Community College in idyllic Roseburg, Oregan after a 2015 shooting left nine people dead. Eight years after the massacre, victims’ families and the Roseburg community report that the reverberations of fear and grief remain ingrained in them. The college built a memorial to the nine victims and holds an annual Day of Remembrance.
Student Buzz
Editors of The Dartmouth, the student-run newspaper at Dartmouth College, respond to changes in Dartmouth’s medical leave policy. The changes are seen as a victory for students and prioritize the health of the community, as students on leave will have access to public facilities, events, and job opportunities on campus, as well as access to the College’s teletherapy program. Students report that while the changes are promising, the efficacy of the new practices remains to be seen, and they hope for further change in the future.
An article in The Oracle, the student-run newspaper of The University of South Florida’s Tampa campus, argues that the university should do more to combat student burnout, shown to lead to depression, emotional unavailability, and other mental and physical illnesses. The students urge the campus to offer more group counseling, which may be more effective than individual counseling for burnout-related mental health issues, as well as implementing mindfulness programs. The article implores USF to better advertise their services to students with burnout so they know how to seek help.
Student Success
A report from Inside Higher Ed highlights a study that found that high school GPA and socioeconomic status play a less significant role than instructor practices in student degree completion. The study, which was conducted by Education Equity Solutions, a research organization focused on equity-centered higher ed policy, adds to the limited existing research on the impact of instructors and pedagogical styles on student outcomes in introductory college math. Previous research has focused on students’ academic preparation and structural factors, but this study highlights the importance of instructors in improving college persistence. Instructors were found to be the greatest predictor of whether students passed the course.
An article in The Chronicle looks at whether early decision may be the next admissions practice to go, following the Supreme Court striking down race-conscious admissions and many universities abandoning legacy preferences. Early decision, a process where students apply in the fall of their senior year and agree to delay other applications, is now being criticized for favoring affluent and well-connected students. If admitted and offered adequate financial aid, students attend. If accepted but offered insufficient aid, students from low-income backgrounds must apply elsewhere in pursuit of financial aid.
An op-ed in The Chronicle questions how colleges value and promote good teaching. The article asserts that professors at most colleges receive little to no training on how to be effective teachers during graduate school and that teaching is rarely examined or rewarded in the tenure-and-promotion process, as tenure-track professors are often advised to prioritize their independent scholarship over their teaching. While surveys show that the public overwhelmingly values good teaching and meaningful learning in higher education, only 26% of colleges and universities have teaching centers. According to the op-ed, although high-quality teaching and engagement are crucial to student success, universities do not often encourage professors to go beyond traditional lectures.
The Mississippi state auditor has made a call to defund some college degree programs, arguing that these programs burden taxpayers and lead to graduates seeking out-of-state careers, Higher Ed Dive reports. The auditor, Shad White, recommends implementing an outcomes-based funding model, which provides additional funding to education in high-demand fields. White stated that some programs “warp the minds of young people,” citing gender studies departments as an example.
