Nearly 50 percent of college students are likely to suffer some degree of depression, according to Richard Kadison, chief of mental health services at Harvard University and author of College of the Overwhelmed, a recent book about the college mental health crisis.
“We need more awareness about this,” Kadison said in a telephone interview. “Parents, faculty and students need to be educated and promote healthier lifestyles. … College administrators are missing the point on how important it is to have adequate resources to help students stay healthy.”
The American Medical Association this month called for increased mental health services on college campuses.
“Among college students, depression and related mental illnesses are significant, growing problems and contribute to self-harm and suicide,” AMA board member J. James Rohack said in a news release.
“Existing campus counseling and health services are often overburdened due to inadequate resources as severe mental health conditions increase among students.”
College counseling specialists in Missouri and Kansas agree they are stretched thin and could use more resources. “One really useful thing to do would be to require students to have health insurance so that it can be factored into their financial package and at least when people get quite ill, they can afford to get help,” said Sherry Benton, assistant director of the counseling center at Kansas State University.
She said 35 percent of Kansas college students have no health insurance. Some states, including Massachusetts and Ohio, require that students have health insurance.
K-State officials were among the first to quantify the growing mental health problem on campuses in a study three years ago.
In a 13-year period, K-State found, the number of students seeing school counselors for depression had doubled; the number reporting suicidal thoughts had tripled. The majority of the students seeking help were upperclassmen, not incoming freshmen.
The university’s study of 13,257 students concluded that the problems of today’s college student are as varied as difficulties with relationships and classes and more severe issues such as depression, grief, sexual assault and thoughts of suicide.
The numbers of students seeking help at UMKC mirrors the national trend, Barkis said.
UMKC counselors saw 377 students in the 2001-2002 school year. That number grew to 536 students in 2004-2005 and 574 this past school year.
“Stress is a big factor,” Barkis said, because young adults 18 to 25 are juggling a lot, vying for the best grades and the best jobs.
“There is a lot of pressure on young people, high expectations, and it is very competitive,” Barkis said.
“Think about how competitive and organized all children have become from a very early age with sports and everything — get this experience, get that experience, things that used to be free play are now structured and high stakes. When we played stickball in the street, if you struck out so what, it was just for fun. Not any more.
“Where is the opportunity to fail and have everything be OK?”
She suggests that many children have no idea how to “explore, meet a roadblock, back up and try again.”
A University of Pittsburgh study released this year revealed that nationally, the number of college counseling center clients on psychiatric medication rose from 9 percent in 1994 to 25 percent in 2005.
K-State’s Benton said the increase has a lot to do with advances in pharmaceuticals.
Decades ago, students with serious mental illness were unable to take on college, but now more students being treated for mental illness are enrolling.
This growing situation, “if unchecked, could impact significantly on college life,” said Robert P. Gallagher, former director of the University of Pittsburgh’s counseling center and director of the Pittsburgh study.
Gallagher, who has been tracking trends in the mental health concerns of college students for 25 years, said mental health problems can adversely affect academic achievement, classroom management and student retention.
The Pittsburgh study found that an increase in severe psychological problems among college students was first noticed in 1988, when 56 percent of more than 300 counseling center directors reported an increase in the more serious cases. In the 2005 survey, 90 percent of 366 center directors reported increasing problems.
“Directors have been saying for years that pathology coming in is increasing, that there are more students coming in with psychiatric history,” said Maggie Olona, president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors. “This has been a pattern that we have seen here at Texas A&M, too.”
“I think every year it can’t go any higher, and every year it does,” she said. “Yes, it is a problem because the resources have not kept up with the demand. I do not know one campus counseling center director who does not say, ‘I have too may students and not enough staff.’ ”
Olona said she has 22 staff members responsible for 45,000 students.
“State support for higher education has been reduced dramatically, and funding is a constant battle,” Olona said. “For psychiatric services, there is absolutely no way they can get appropriate funding for us to take care of all the psychiatric problems on campus. Meanwhile, all of us are desperately trying not to become case law and not to have a student die on campus.”
How to get help
Students who have problems with depression or anxiety should talk to mental health counselors at their school.
Symptoms that parents and friends should watch for:
•Change in sleep patterns
•Loss of appetite
•Loss of motivation
•Social withdrawal
•Isolation
•Substance abuse
Source: Harvard University counselor Richard Kadison
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