Alarming Number of College Students Experiencing Mental Health Issues

The mental health crisis of students at the K-12 level has reached a critical low point. According to a study released by EAB, 92 percent of K-12 superintendents agree that the mental health of their students has never been worse, but only 21 percent believe they have adequate resources to respond to the problem. The mental health of college students around the country echoes that of their younger K-12 peers and much like many K-12 schools, lots of colleges also lack the resources they need to appropriately respond to the problem.  

College Students and Mental Health Issues 

Did you know that almost half of all college students had a psychiatric disorder in the past year? The mental health decline of elementary, middle, and high school students has been extensively covered since the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the mental health of college students has silently declined at an equally alarming rate. And at the heart of the problem- most institutions don’t have appropriate resources to handle student issues.  

Data from the American Psychological Association revealed that an alarming 95 percent of college counseling center directors said the declining mental health of college students is a growing concern. These directors reported increasing numbers of students coming to seek help with severe mental health concerns and increasing numbers of anxiety and depression. Data from the National Alliance on Mental Illness shows that 73 percent of college students experience at least one mental health crisis during their college experience.  

To make matters worse, the seriousness of these mental health issues cannot be understated. A survey of more than 90,000 students across 133 U.S. college campuses conducted by Healthy Minds revealed that 15 percent of college students who suffered from mental health disorders considered suicide.  

A Lack of Resources 

The American Psychological Association reports that on small to medium college campuses, the ratio of certified counselors to students overall is about 1:1500, and at large schools, that ratio is 1:2750. Clearly, there are not enough counselors to handle the influx of students with declining mental health.  

Many colleges around the country such as the University of Virginia report increasing the size of their counseling center staff by as much as three times, but schools still can’t keep up. Michael Gerard Mason, an associate dean at the University of Virginia said, “Counseling centers have seen an extraordinary increase in demand over the past decade. Our counseling staff has almost tripled in size, and even if we continue hiring, I don’t think we could ever staff our way out of this challenge.”  

How Kokomo24/7® Can Help 

College students fear for their physical safety on campus, with a study of more than 2,000 college students by Higher Ed and Pulse finding that students were most concerned about the lack of security on their campus and the rising rates of violence. In addition, college is a time of personal development and discovery for many which can commonly lead to bouts of mental health problems at any age. 

Kokomo24/7® knows that the increase in cases and many factors contributing to the mental health crisis of students around the country requires a robust solution and understands the unique challenges that colleges and universities face because we have been helping them implement school health, safety, and wellbeing initiatives since 2018. 

The pandemic greatly changed the way we look at student safety and school safety and our robust and easy-to-use software platform provides value to administrators, students, and parents by offering them access to our multiple software solutions. 

Here are just a few of the solutions that can help improve the mental health of the students on your campus: 

Feedback Management- Our Customized Forms provide surveys and questionnaires to collect the information you need, when you need it. Understand how your campus community feels about anything and take the appropriate actions when needed. Stay ahead of your students’ mental health before it’s too late and stay better informed about their status.  

Incident Management- Our Incident Management tool features one centralized dashboard to help you collect, track, manage, and respond to student claims and cases. Our dashboard saves prior information to create a clearer, comprehensive picture of your student’s experience and ensures that student claims are dealt with in a timely manner.  

Communications Management- The Communications Management suite helps users to streamline messages to select people or groups of people to stay informed of important emergency and non-emergency updates. Timely notify your campus community of anything they need to know or communicate with specified individuals about any mental health case.  

Ever since Kokomo24/7® was founded in 2018, we have been a leader in compliance and risk management solutions for all things health and safety. Kokomo24/7® proudly serves schools, communities, and workplaces. Our mission is to deliver highly effective, easy-to-use and trusted compliance and risk management solutions that bridge the gap between student safety and technology. 

Whether you work for a small school, a large school, or any institution in between, we want to hear from you! To learn more about Kokomo24/7® or to get a free 15-minute demo click the button below.