How Can We Solve the College Student Mental Health Crisis

a few years ago

i attended a conference that brought

together faculty members and

administrators

from universities all over the country

and as a psychologist who works in

higher education

i was eager to attend because one of the

goals of this conference

was to see if we could gain insight into

a question

that is on the mind of every college

administrator from coast to coast

which is how can we solve the college

student mental health crisis

now just a year before this conference

took place

the chronicle of higher education

surveyed more than a hundred college

presidents

asking them to report their most

pressing concerns outside of the

classroom

and according to the chronicle 66

of these leaders identified student

mental health as the

top issue which far outweighed any of

the other concerns that made the list

and this finding is not altogether

surprising when you consider that in

recent years

the proportion of students suffering

from depression and anxiety

has been skyrocketing well on the second

day of this conference

which was being held on a beautiful

college campus on the east coast

during a week with lovely fall weather

that was sunny and warm

i decided to play a little hooky and go

for a walk outside

and as i was making my way around campus

i happened upon the admissions office

where i was told an admissions

presentation was scheduled to begin just

minutes later

so out of curiosity i joined this group

of other campus visitors

and we were led to this admissions

presentation

which just so happened to be in the

exact same building as the conference i

was attending

the admissions presentation was upstairs

the conference where i was supposed to

be was

downstairs but it turns out that by

attending this admissions presentation i

wasn’t playing hooky at all

because it was there that i gained even

more insight into the college student

mental health crisis

than i did at the conference itself and

probably not for reasons the admissions

office would have expected

this admissions officer spent 45 minutes

telling us what made that institution

great

she told us all about the experiences

the students were having that were

great she shared stories of students

doing internships

and pursuing research with faculty she

told us all about the student

organizations the campus activities

the dorms the rec center the food

making quite a compelling case that

being a college student today

is great

but then i remembered the real reason i

was on campus that day

and it occurred to me that although this

admissions officer may have been telling

the truth

she wasn’t telling the whole truth

because

while she was upstairs painting this

idyllic picture of the college

experience

just downstairs were hundreds of faculty

members and administrators

discussing data sets like those from the

american college health association

showing that over the last year 66

percent of students

reported feeling overwhelming anxiety

and 46 percent of students reported

feeling

so depressed they could not function

which collectively was a glaring

reminder

that the portrayals of college that are

being delivered to prospective students

and the actual lived experiences of

students

in college are often vastly different

from one another

and that stark contrast could provide

some insight

into what has been fueling the college

student mental health

crisis one of the ways that

psychologists conceptualize happiness

is with a simple formula happiness

equals

what we have divided by what we want

in other words your happiness as a

college student

is determined not only by all of the

wonderful experiences you will

have during college it’s also affected

by what you

want college to be like and what you

expect

college to be like since 2014

i have been the faculty advisor for

washu’s peer counseling center

and at the end of every year i ask the

undergraduate co-directors of this

organization

what they believe to be the primary

driver

of today’s student mental health crisis

and reliably the one phrase that comes

up

year after year is unrealistic

expectations many students start college

without a realistic sense of what the

experience is

actually going to be like and it makes

sense why

many of these students spent the latter

half of high school

attending admissions presentations and

going on

campus tours each one with loftier

promises than the last

and those messages are compounded by the

cultural myths

that have been propagated in the movies

and on social media

and by society in general all of which

have sensationalized college

as the best four years of your life

and then those students get to college

and they face inevitable difficulties

and they compare their actual

experiences

with those lofty expectations they

developed

and very often they are left with no

other conclusion to draw

than that they are doing college

incorrectly or

even worse that they do not belong there

at

all now i certainly don’t mean to pick

on my friends in admissions

or to suggest that they are doing

anything wrong or that they need to be

doing anything differently

in fact i think it’s important that they

offer these presentations

to get students excited about college

but i also think it’s important for

prospective students

and their families to understand that

there’s more to

the story than just what you see on the

college admissions tour

or in the movies or on social media

and those other parts of the story have

got to be delivered from someone

somewhere so as a psychologist who has

spent the last decade working on a

college campus

this is my message to new students

first of all you absolutely should be

excited about all of the wonderful

experiences

and the classes and the professors and

the relationships and the adventures

that will fill the numerator of that

happiness formula

during your college years but the other

thing you should do

in the interest of your mental health

during college

is to be mindful about some of the other

expectations you are bringing with you

that could be over inflating the

denominator

of that formula because if what you want

is for college to be perfect and if you

visit a campus and you leave

believing that you have found the

perfect place and a destination where

you’re going to be happy all the time

i hate to be the one to have to break

this to you but if those are your

expectations

you very likely are setting yourself up

for disappointment

and at some point you’re going to end up

disillusioned

because if you’re doing college

correctly there are going to be hard

times you’re going to have roommate

conflicts

you’re going to take classes that leave

you feeling disappointed or that you

feel are unfair

you’re going to pursue extracurriculars

or internship experiences

that you have your heart set on that you

still don’t get to be a part of

and that’s the case no matter where you

go you’re going to face adversity

but one of the things i’ve learned from

studying the happiness of college

students over the years

is that the happiest students aren’t

happy all the time

rather the happiest students have

realistic expectations

about the challenges that are in store

for them during

college and they have thought about that

ahead of time

and they come equipped with the

strategies that will allow them to

cope effectively or at very least they

know who to turn to for help

in those moments remember

college is great but

part of what will make college great

will be the ways that you develop the

wherewithal

to overcome setbacks that come your way

so that you can stay on track toward

your dreams and aspirations

not only during college but also

throughout your life when i think back

to that conference i attended a couple

of years ago

about how to solve the college student

mental health crisis

i’m still not sure there’s anyone who

has the definitive solution

but i do think that if we can be more

open and upfront

with students about the kinds of

challenges they can expect to face

during college

along with the behaviors that will

proactively contribute to their

well-being

then maybe one day when we talk about

the mental health of college students

it will be less of a crisis and instead

have more to do with their resilience

their well-being

and their flourishing thank you

[Applause]