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Megan Piet
Instructor: Fran Voltz
UWRT 1102
9 December, 2015
College Mental Health: An Epidemic
After the tragic death of NC State sophomore engineering student, Joseph Banks, mental
health has been a prevalent topic of discussion on campuses across the country. College is a
stressful environment for many students. It is often the first time newly graduated adults are
living away from their parents, experiencing freedoms they had only seen through movies and
television. Add difficult coursework to an expectation of parties and a full social life, and
students mental health can suffer. This is not to say that students are incapable of managing
classes and their social lives, but some do struggle and many develop anxiety or depression or
even suicidal thoughts. Because of this struggle, campuses need to make their counseling centers
more accessible for their students to get the help they need.

Figure 1: Katie Couric reports on the epidemic of depression and anxiety on campuses across America

To sufficiently talk about mental health, it first needs to be defined. Mental is anything
that happens within the human brain Philip Rosenbaum and Heather Liebert liken mental
health to physical health, comparing a mental illness to a blocked artery (183). Both have

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symptoms to be treated, however one has behavioral symptoms, the other physical. Rosenbaum
and Liebert also discuss the definition of mental health in the context of college. They define
normal college behavior as the student being able to balance their coursework, social life, sports,
family, etc. Some college students take college as an opportunity to experiment and push the
boundaries their parents had previously given them, and, to an extent, this still fits within
normative behavior. Its when a student begins failing classes and getting drunk too often that
there becomes a problem (182). To sum these ideas up, a mentally healthy college student will
have friends, pass their classes, maintain their relationship with their family, and not feel too
much stress about it all.
How many college students are afflicted with poor mental health? A study was done of
over 43 thousand undergraduate students at 72 colleges and universities to find how many
experienced mental health problems. The authors studied students with depression, anxiety,
suicidal thoughts, and non-suicidal self-injury (hurting themselves without the intent of killing
themselves) and divided the schools into several categories, such as residential and nonresidential, high graduation rate and low graduation rate, and public and private. They
determined which students dealt with these issues through a survey that asked questions such as
In the past year, have you seriously considered committing suicide? (Lipson et al 390).
The study found that roughly 34% of all students studied had at least one of the mental health
issues, but only about 39% of the students afflicted received treatment (Lipson et al 391).
Students at the highly residential schools were more likely to seek out and receive treatment than
at non-residential schools, though students at small schools were more likely to receive treatment
than those at large schools. The study found that the lowest rate of students using treatment was
at schools that were large, public, non-residential, and had low graduation rates. These schools

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also had the highest rates of depression and anxiety. Contrary popular belief, the study also found
that depression rates were lower at more competitive schools, whereas the percentage of students
with anxiety and/or depression was higher at the less competitive schools (Lipson et al 395).
A similar study was done, but focused only on students struggling with suicidal thoughts.
Suicidal thoughts are the most dangerous mental health problem, because these students are
seriously considering ending their lives, and the students who succumbed to these thoughts are
who have brought mental health issues to a foremost concern for colleges and universities today.
This study found that 6% of the college students surveyed had seriously considered suicide,
while only about 35% of those students sought help (Czyz et al 398). This number is similar to
the total number of students who suffer mental health problems and sought help less than half.
The researchers set out to find out why the majority of mentally ill students were not
looking for treatment. The students' self-reported reasons for not seeking treatment are as
follows: the idea that help isn't needed, "lack of time," "preference for self-management of
problems," "preference for seeking help from family or friends," other concerns like not knowing
where to get help, or how to pay for it, worry about the "stigma" of getting help, "doubt that
professional help would be beneficial," and bad previous experience with seeking help (Czyz et
al 402).
The students who think they don't need help have shifted their idea of what's "normal" to
accommodate their depressive behaviors; they have decided that their suicidal thoughts and
depression are okay and normal, in order to convince themselves that they don't need to seek
help. Many students who manage their depression on their own do so through heavy drinking another problematic behavior in and of itself. Not having enough time is a somewhat healthier
reason for not seeking help, though it is used as an excuse primarily by female and nonwhite

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students, who also have the highest levels of test anxiety and who feel they need to study harder
than their male counterparts - which would explain why they don't feel they have enough time.
The smallest percentage of these excuses was the stigma of seeking help - something the
researchers found surprising (Czyz et al 403). These reasons for why students feel they can't seek
help are the things that colleges need to attend to and address, so they can use these excuses to
help get the students who need help the help they need.
Franciscan University, a small Christian university in Steubenville, Ohio, conducted a
study of its own students to determine the causes of their mental health issues, because their
counseling center had an increase of students seeking treatment over the past few years of
upwards of 200%. This is more specific than other studies that have been done on the topic, but it
shows that colleges themselves are worrying about their students. The Franciscan University
counseling center studied willing participants based on gender, housing, transfer status, and
grade level. They found the most common sources of concern of students: academic
performance, pressure to succeed, post-graduation plans, financial concerns, quality of sleep,
relationship with friends, relationship with family, overall health, body image, and self-esteem
(Beiter et al). These concerns coincide with the majority of college students concerns all over
the country.
They found that students living off-campus and upperclassmen experienced the highest
levels of anxiety, depression, and stress likely because these students are the closest to
graduation and need to think more about their futures. Female students experienced higher levels
of concern for body image, academics, sleep, and self-esteem, things that almost all American
females think about, not just college students. The university concludes the study with a
discussion of their students' issues, and expresses a desire to increase the number of programs

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they have to help their students, as well as an outreach to other schools to do similar studies to
see if there is any similarities between the data (Beiter et al).
Despite this study being done at one specific school, it provides an example to be used in
conjunction with the statistics on how many students all over the country have mental health
problems. This study is fairly consistent with those statistics, but goes further into the mental
health problems various grade levels and genders of students face. It has to be noted that this is a
very small school and cannot be completely consistent with the rest of the country, but it is an
example of what mental health looks like at one specific college. Also, Franciscan University
was concerned enough about their students health that they conducted this study something
other universities need to look into doing.
It has become clear that there is a serious mental health issue happening to college
campuses all of the United States. Students have the highest levels of depression and anxiety of
all time these days, and colleges need to do something about it. Franciscan University took a step
in the right direction, by asking their students what was bothering them, but its just the
beginning of what schools need to be doing for their students. Now that the information is
available as to what problems students are having, why they arent getting the treatment they
need, and which students are suffering the most, it needs to be put to use. Counselors need to try
different tactics to reach out to students.

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Figure 2 Colleges don't have to provide counseling centers, but they do because they know their students need them - now they
need to help students get the help they need (Schwartz).

Schools have done a good job in getting rid of the stigma surrounding therapy, as noted
by Czyz et al, but still less than half of students having mental health problems are getting help.
So many students feel they dont need help, that theyre okay, so maybe schools need to put out
more information as to what defines mental health issues. Posters, commercials, or school
sponsored programs in the student unions they just need to tell students what to watch out for
in themselves and their friends, signs of depression and anxiety. Students dont usually realize
that their friend who drinks too much might be depressed, so they need to be informed. The only
way the mental health epidemic is going to get any better is if counselors and schools step up
their game and reach out to the sixty percent of students with mental health problems who arent
getting the help they need. If they arent coming to the counseling center, the counseling center
needs to go to them.

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Works Cited
Altman, Jamie. "NC State Student Dead after Fall, Investigation Is Ongoing." USA Today, 16
Sept. 2015. Web. 19 Oct. 2015. <http://college.usatoday.com/2015/09/16/nc-statestudent-dead-after-fall-investigation-is-ongoing/>.
Beiter, R, et al. "The Prevalence And Correlates Of Depression, Anxiety, And Stress In A Sample
Of College Students." Journal Of Affective Disorders 173.(2015): 90-96 7p. CINAHL
Plus with Full Text. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/science/article/pii/S01650327140068
67>.
Couric, Katie. "Students in Crisis: Mental Health & Suicide on College Campuses." Yahoo!
News. Web. 04 Dec. 2015. <http://news.yahoo.com/mental-health-suicide-on-collegecampuses-katie-couric-141742009.html>.
Czyz, Ewa K., et al. "Self-Reported Barriers To Professional Help Seeking Among College
Students At Elevated Risk For Suicide." Journal Of American College Health 61.7
(2013): 398-406 9p. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
<https://librarylink.uncc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=rzh&AN=104223708&site=ehost-live&scope=site>.
Lipson, Sarah Ketchen, et al. "Variations In Student Mental Health And Treatment Utilization
Across US Colleges And Universities." Journal Of American College Health 63.6 (2015):
388-396. PsycINFO. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
<http://www.tandfonline.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/doi/pdf/10.1080/07448481.2015.1040
411>.
Rosenbaum, Philip J., and Heather Liebert. "Reframing The Conversation On College Student
Mental Health." Journal Of College Student Psychotherapy 29.3 (2015): 179-196.

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PsycINFO. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/87568225.2015.1045780>.
Schwartz, Victor. "The Kids Are Not All Right: College Mental Health Needs an Intervention |
Big Think." Big Think. The Jed Foundation, 02 Aug. 2015. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.
<http://bigthink.com/videos/victor-schwartz-on-college-mental-health>.