Tag: Mental

  • College Student Mental Health Remains a Wicked Problem

    College Student Mental Health Remains a Wicked Problem

    Just 27 percent of undergraduates describe their mental health as above average or excellent, according to new data from Inside Higher Ed’s main annual Student Voice survey of more than 5,000 undergraduates at two- and four-year institutions.

    Another 44 percent of students rate their mental health as average on a five-point scale. The remainder, 29 percent, rate it as below average or poor. 

    In last year’s main Student Voice survey, 42 percent of respondents rated their mental health as good or excellent, suggesting a year-over-year decline in students feeling positive about their mental health. This doesn’t translate to more students rating their mental health negatively this year, however, as this share stayed about the same. Rather, more students in this year’s sample rate their mental health as average (2025’s 44 percent versus 29 percent in 2024). 

    About the Survey

    Student Voice is an ongoing survey and reporting series that seeks to elevate the student perspective in institutional student success efforts and in broader conversations about college.

    Look out for future reporting on the main annual survey of our 2025–26 cycle, Student Voice: Amplified. Check out what students have already said about trust, artificial intelligence and academics, cost of attendance, and campus climate.

    Some 5,065 students from 260 two- and four-year institutions, public and private nonprofit, responded to this main annual survey about student success, conducted in August. Explore the data captured by our survey partner Generation Lab here and here. The margin of error is plus or minus one percentage point.

    The story is similar regarding ratings of overall well-being. In 2024, 52 percent of students described their overall well-being as good or excellent. This year, 33 percent say it’s above average or excellent. Yet because last year’s survey included slightly different categories (excellent, good, average, fair and poor, instead of excellent, above average, average, below average and poor), it’s impossible to make direct comparisons. 

    How does this relate to other national data? The 2024-2025 Healthy Minds Study found that students self-reported lower rates of moderate to severe depressive symptoms, anxiety and more for the third year in a row—what one co-investigator described as “a promising counter-narrative to what seems like constant headlines around young people’s struggles with mental health.” However, the same study found that students’ sense of “flourishing,” including self-esteem, purpose and optimism, declined slightly from the previous year. So while fewer students may be experiencing serious mental health problems, others may be moving toward the middle from a space of thriving.

    Inside Higher Ed’s leadership surveys this year—including the forthcoming Survey of College and University Student Success Administrators—also documented a gap between how well leaders think their institutions have responded to what’s been called the student mental health crisis and whether they think undergraduate mental health is actually improving. In Inside Higher Ed’s annual survey of provosts with Hanover Research, for example, 69 percent said their institution has been effective in responding to student mental health concerns, but only 40 percent said undergraduate health on their campus is on the upswing.

    Provosts also ranked mental health as the No. 1 campus threat to student safety and well-being (80 percent said it’s a top risk), followed by personal stress (66 percent), academic stress (51 percent) and food and housing insecurity (42 percent). Those were all far ahead of risks such as physical security threats (2 percent) or alcohol and substance use issues (13 percent).

    Among community college provosts, in particular, food and housing insecurity was the leading concern, with 86 percent naming it a top risk.

    Financial insecurity can impact mental health, and both factors can affect academic success. Among 2025 Student Voice respondents who have ever seriously considered stopping out of college (n=1,204), for instance, 43 percent describe their mental health as below average or poor. Among those who have never considered stopping out (n=3,304), the rate is just 23 percent. And among the smaller group of students who have stopped out for a semester or more but re-enrolled (n=557), 40 percent say their mental health is below average or poor, underscoring that returnees remain an at-risk group for completion.

    Similarly, 43 percent of students who have seriously considered stopping out rate their financial well-being as below average or poor, versus 23 percent among students who’ve never considered stopping out—the same split as the previous finding on mental health.

    The association between students’ confidence in their financial literacy and their risk of dropping out is weaker, supporting the case for tangible basic needs support: Some 25 percent of respondents who have considered stopping out rate their financial literacy as below average or poor, compared to 15 percent of those who have not considered stopping out.

    Angela K. Johnson, vice president for enrollment management at Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio, said her institution continuously seeks feedback from students about how their financial stability and other aspects of well-being intersect.

    “What students are saying by ‘financial’ is very specific around being unhoused, food insecurity,” she said. “And part of the mental health piece is also not having the medical insurance support to cover some of those ongoing services. We do offer some of them in our counseling and psychological services department, but we only offer so many.”

    All this bears on enrollment and persistence, Johnson said, “but it really is a student psychological safety problem, a question of how they’re trying to manage their psychological safety without their basic needs being met.”

    A ‘Top-of-Mind Issue’

    Tri-C, as Johnson’s college is called, takes a multipronged approach to student wellness, including via an app called Help Is Here, resource awareness efforts that target even dual-enrollment students and comprehensive basic needs support: Think food pantries situated near dining services, housing transition coordination, childcare referrals, utility assistance, emergency funds and more.

    Faculty training is another focus. “Sometimes you see a student sleeping in your class, but it’s not because the class is boring. They may have been sleeping in their car last night,” Johnson said. “They may not have had a good meal today.”

    Political uncertainty may also be impacting student wellness. The American Council on Education hosted a webinar earlier this year addressing what leaders should be thinking about with respect to “these uncertain times around student well-being,” said Hollie Chessman, a director and principal program officer at ACE. “We talked about identity, different identity-based groups and how the safe spaces and places are not as prevalent on campuses anymore, based on current legislation. So some of that is going to be impacting the mental health and well-being of our students with traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.”

    Previously released results from this year’s Student Voice survey indicate that most students, 73 percent, still believe that most or nearly all of their peers feel welcomed, valued and supported on campus. That’s up slightly from last year’s 67 percent. But 32 percent of students in 2025 report that recent federal actions to limit diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have negatively impacted their experience at college. This increases to 37 percent among Asian American and Pacific Islander and Hispanic students, 40 percent among Black students and 41 percent among students of other races. It decreases among white students, to 26 percent. Some 65 percent of nonbinary students (n=209) report negative impacts. For international students (n=203), the rate is 34 percent.

    The Student Voice survey doesn’t reveal any key differences among students’ self-ratings of mental health by race. Regarding gender, 63 percent of nonbinary students report below average or poor mental health, more than double the overall rate of 29 percent. In last year’s survey, 59 percent of nonbinary students reported fair or poor mental health.

    In a recent ACE pulse survey of senior campus leaders, two in three reported moderate or extreme concern about student mental health and well-being. (Other top concerns were the value of college, long-term financial viability and generative artificial intelligence.)

    “This is a top-of-mind issue, and it has been a top-of-mind issue for college and university presidents” since even before the pandemic, Chessman said. “And student health and well-being is a systemic issue, right? It’s not just addressed by a singular program or a counseling session. It’s a systemic issue that permeates.”

    In Inside Higher Ed’s provosts’ survey, the top actions these leaders reported taking to promote mental health on their campus in the last year are: emphasizing the importance of social connection and/or creating new opportunities for campus involvement (76 percent) and investing in wellness facilities and/or services to promote overall well-being (59 percent).

    Despite the complexity of the issue, Chessman said, many campuses are making strides in supporting student well-being—including by identifying students who aren’t thriving “and then working in interventions to help those students.” Gatekeeper training, or baseline training for faculty and staff to recognize signs of student distress, is another strategy, as is making sure faculty and staff members can connect students to support resources, groups and peers.

    “One of the big things that we have to emphasize is that it is a campuswide issue,” Chessman reiterated.

    More on Health and Wellness

    Other findings on student health and wellness from this newest round of Student Voice results show:

    1. Mental health is just one area of wellness in which many students are struggling.

    Asked to rate various dimensions of their health and wellness at college, students are most likely to rate their academic fit as above average or excellent, at 38 percent. Sense of social belonging (among other areas) is weaker, with 27 percent of students rating theirs above average or excellent. One clear opportunity area for colleges: promoting healthy sleep habits, since 44 percent of students describe their own as below average or poor. (Another recent study linked poor sleep among students to loneliness.)

    1. Many students report using unhealthy strategies to cope with stress, and students at risk of stopping out may be most vulnerable.

    As for how students deal with stress at college, 56 percent report a mix of healthy strategies (such as exercising, talking to family and friends, and prioritizing sleep) and unhealthy ones (such as substance use, avoidance of responsibilities and social withdrawal). But students who have seriously considered stopping out, and those who have stopped out but re-enrolled, are less likely than those who haven’t considered leaving college to rely on mostly healthy and effective strategies.

    1. Most students approve of their institution’s efforts to make key student services available and accessible.

    Despite the persistent wellness challenge, most students rate as good or excellent their institution’s efforts to make health, financial aid, student life and other services accessible and convenient. In good news for community colleges’ efforts, two-year students are a bit more likely than their four-year peers to rate these efforts as good or excellent, at 68 percent versus 62 percent.

    ‘It’s Easy to Feel Isolated’

    The Jed Foundation, which promotes emotional health and suicide prevention among teens and young adults, advocates a comprehensive approach to well-being based on seven domains:

    • Foster life skills
    • Promote connectedness and positive culture
    • Recognize and respond to distress
    • Reduce barriers to help-seeking
    • Ensure access to effective mental health care
    • Establish systems of crisis management
    • Reduce access to lethal means

    At JED’s annual policy summit in Washington, D.C., this month, advocates focused on sustaining the progress that has been made on mental health, as well as on the growing influence of artificial intelligence and the role of local, state and federal legislation on mental health in the digital age. Rohan Satija, a 17-year-old first-year student at the University of Texas at Austin who spoke at the event, told Inside Higher Ed in an interview that his mental health journey began in elementary school, when his family emigrated from New Zealand to Texas.

    “Just being in a completely new environment and being surrounded by a completely new group of people, I struggled with my mental health, and because of bullying and isolation at school, I struggled with anxiety and panic attacks,” he said.

    Satija found comfort in books and storytelling filled with “characters whom I could relate to. I read about them winning in their stories, and it showed me that I could win in my own story.”

    Satija eventually realized these stories were teaching lessons about resilience, courage and empathy—lessons he put into action when he founded a nonprofit to address book deserts in low-income and otherwise marginalized communities in Texas. Later, he founded the Vibrant Voices Project for incarcerated youth, “helping them convert their mental health struggles into powerful monologues they can perform for each other.”

    Currently a youth advocacy coalition fellow at JED, Satija said that college so far presents a challenge to student mental health in its “constant pressure to perform in all facets, including academically and socially and personally. I’ve seen many of my peers that have entered college with me, and a lot of us expect freedom and growth but get quickly bogged down with how overwhelming it can be to balance coursework, jobs, living away from your family and still achieving.”

    Students speak on a panel and the annual JED policy summit.

    Rohan Satija, center, speaks at JED’s annual policy summit in Washington earlier this month.

    He added, “This competitive environment can make small setbacks feel like failures, and I’d say perfectionism can often become kind of like a silent standard.”

    Another major challenge? Loneliness and disconnection. “Even though campuses are full of people, it’s easy to feel isolated, especially as a new student, and even further, especially as a first-generation student, an immigrant or anyone far from home.”

    While many students are of course excited for the transition to adulthood and “finally being free for the first time,” he explained, “it comes with a lot of invisible losses, including losing the comfort of your family and a stable routine … So I think without intentional efforts to build connection in your new college campus, a lot of students feel that their sense of belonging can erode pretty quickly.”

    In this light, Satija praised UT Austin’s club culture, noting that some of the extracurricular groups he’s joined assign a “big,” or student mentor, to each new student, or “little,” driving connection and institutional knowledge-sharing. Faculty members are also good at sharing information about mental health resources, he said, including through the learning management system.

    And in terms of proactive approaches to overall wellness, the campus’s Longhorn Wellness Center is effective in that it “doesn’t promote itself as this big, like, crisis response space: ‘Oh, we’re here to improve your mental health. We’re here to make your best self,’ or anything like that,” he said. “It literally just promotes itself as a chill space for student wellness. They’re always talking about their massage chairs.”

    “That gets students in the door, yeah?” Satija said.

    This independent editorial project is produced with the Generation Lab and supported by the Gates Foundation.

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  • Mental health university | Warwick Careers Blog

    Mental health university | Warwick Careers Blog

    If you have experienced any of the symptoms commonly associated with mental health issues, you are certainly not alone. 1 in 4 of us may experience this during our lifetime and it can be particularly acute for students, living independently for the first time without the emotional support of family and friends. 

    What is mental health?

    The World Health Organisation describe mental health as a ‘state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.’ For many of us, daily life is a struggle and for many students there is what probably feels like incredible pressure to succeed, defined by your degree classification and ultimately the status of your career. You do not have to accept that disrupted sleep, anxiety, periods of depression and stress are the price you must reluctantly pay to survive at university. There is advice and support available to help you address these issues. 

    Well-being is becoming increasingly important 

    Employers and the world of business have recognised how important well-being is in terms of developing and maintaining the health, job satisfaction and productivity of their staff. Employers across a variety of industries, both public and private now offer ’employee assistance programmes’ that offer confidential support services. If you are concerned how a period of depression for example, may impact on future job applications you may be pleasantly surprised how understanding and sensitive an employer may be. It is your decision whether or not to tell an employer you have experienced a mental health issue

    Empathy and understanding

    Society’s reluctance to recognise or even discuss mental health is changing. There is an increasing acceptance that mental health issues should be treated with the same sympathy and understanding as a physical illness. Admitting that you have a problem that you may not be able to resolve on your own may feel extremely uncomfortable and challenging. But this should not be seen as a weakness or that you have failed in some way. All of us are susceptible to mental health issues and talking is an important first step to helping you move forward. It may be that speaking to a friend or family member initially may help to provide a different perspective and help you to understand what you are experiencing.

    Recognising the signs

    How do you know if you are experiencing mental health issues? It is an extremely complex condition and generalisations are unhelpful. But there may be an indication of an underlying issue if you are, for example, suffering from:

    • Disturbed sleep patterns
    • Anxiety to the extent that it prevents you functioning as you normally would
    • Rapid weight gain or loss
    • Feeling low, demotivated and sad for a prolonged period of time

    What should you do?

    Talk to someone. At The University of Warwick there are a variety of counselling and psychotherapy services available, including a drop-in service . Where appropriate they may make referrals where a medical diagnosis or counselling, for example may be relevant. You could speak also your GP

    How counselling could help

    Counselling can help you to adopt a different perspective, to re-frame your thinking and perhaps challenge that negative inner voice that can be so damaging. There are a variety of approaches, all of which will develop a non-judgemental relationship between counsellor and client, founded on trust and empathy.

    As difficult as it may feel to talk about or even acknowledge the feelings you are experiencing, remember that mental health issues are extremely common. They can affect any of us at any point in our lives so however challenging it feels, take that first step to seek help. You could start to feel so much better.

    Originally written by Ray Ryan, published by Student Opportunity in October 2025

     

     

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  • Supporting the Supporters: Promoting Educators’ Mental Health – Faculty Focus

    Supporting the Supporters: Promoting Educators’ Mental Health – Faculty Focus

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  • Supporting the Supporters: Promoting Educators’ Mental Health – Faculty Focus

    Supporting the Supporters: Promoting Educators’ Mental Health – Faculty Focus

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  • Week In Review: Mental health grants return and FCC rolls back E-rate expansion

    Week In Review: Mental health grants return and FCC rolls back E-rate expansion

    We’re rounding up last week’s news, from the government shutdown’s impact on schools to differentiated teacher compensation.

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  • One-third of U.S. public schools screen students for mental health

    One-third of U.S. public schools screen students for mental health

    This press release originally appeared on the RAND site.

    Key points:

    Nearly one-third of the nation’s K-12 U.S. public schools mandate mental health screening for students, with most offering in-person treatment or referral to a community mental health professional if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, according to a new study.

    About 40 percent of principals surveyed said it was very hard or somewhat hard to ensure that students receive appropriate care, while 38 percent said it was easy or very easy to find adequate care for students. The findings are published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

    “Our results suggest that there are multiple barriers to mental health screening in schools, including a lack of resources and knowledge of screening mechanics, as well as concerns about increased workload of identifying students,” said Jonathan Cantor, the study’s lead author and a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

    In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General declared a youth mental health emergency. Researchers say that public schools are strategic resources for screening, treatment, and referral for mental health services for young people who face barriers in other settings.

    Researchers wanted to understand screening for mental health at U.S. public schools, given increased concerns about youth mental health following the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In October 2024, the RAND study surveyed 1,019 principals who participate in the RAND American School Leader panel, a nationally representative sample of K–12 public school principals.

    They were asked whether their school mandated screening for mental health issues, what steps are taken if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, and how easy or difficult it is to ensure that such students received adequate services.

    Researchers found that 30.5 percent of responding principals said their school required screening of students with mental health problems, with nearly 80 percent reporting that parents typically are notified if students screen positive for depression or anxiety.

    More than 70 percent of principals reported that their school offers in-person treatment for students who screen positive, while 53 percent of principals said they may refer a student to a community mental health care professional.

    The study found higher rates of mental health screenings in schools with 450 or more students and in districts with mostly racial and ethnic minority groups as the student populations.

    “Policies that promote federal and state funding for school mental health, reimbursement for school-based mental health screening, and adequate school mental health staff ratios may increase screening rates and increase the likelihood of successfully connecting the student to treatment,” Cantor said.

    Support for the study was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health.

    Other authors of the study are Ryan K. McBain, Aaron Kofner, Joshua Breslau, and Bradley D. Stein, all of RAND; Jacquelin Rankine of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Fang Zhang, Hao Yu, and Alyssa Burnett, all of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute; and Ateev Mehrotra of the Brown University School of Public Health.

    RAND Health Care promotes healthier societies by improving health care systems in the United States and other countries.

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  • Half of college students say their mental health is ‘fair’ to ‘terrible,’ survey finds

    Half of college students say their mental health is ‘fair’ to ‘terrible,’ survey finds

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    Half of college students rate their mental health as fair, poor, or terrible, according to a recent survey from The Steve Fund, a nonprofit that focused on the mental health of young people of color.

    The survey also found about 40% of students were “very or extremely stressed about maintaining their mental health” while in college. About 1 in 5 students said the same about connecting with other students and finding their niche in college.

    Moreover, about one-third or more of students experienced a range of challenges such as changes in sleeping habits and difficulty concentrating and learning.

    Students struggling with mental health in college isn’t a new phenomena, but “the severity and pervasiveness have clearly worsened,” Annelle Primm, The Steve Fund’s senior medical director, said in an email.

    “We’re not just seeing higher levels of stress — we’re seeing a rising sense of disconnection,” said Primm. “The need for campuses to respond thoughtfully and urgently is more pressing than ever.”

    The mental health issues students face may also impact their graduation trajectory. About half of students considered reducing their classload, 40% considered transferring, and 30% considered dropping out of college altogether due to “negative experiences on campus,” the report stated.

    Steve Fund researchers surveyed about 2,050 college students between ages 18 and 24 who were attending four-year institutions and largely taking in-person classes.The survey was conducted last year between February and April.

    There isn’t a single cause behind the mental health challenges that students are facing, but “several powerful stressors are converging,” said Primm. That includes discrimination on campus, encounters with campus security or a lack of belonging, according to the report.

    Many college students also grew into adulthood during the COVID-19 pandemic, a uniquely disruptive period that had significant impacts on emotional development and social connection, Primm said. Some of those students struggled with isolation caused by remote learning, while others had limited opportunities to meaningfully interact with their peers during their formative years, she said.

    “Layered on top of this are longstanding financial pressures like student loan debt, and broader societal stressors — from political divisiveness to global conflict,” said Primm. 

    Racial differences

    Negative experiences on campus — which were more prevalent among students of color — impacted mental health, the report found.

    About half of Black and Indigenous students reported having a negative experience with cyberbullying on campus, the highest of any racial groups, the report stated. And a higher percentage of students of color reported threats of physical violence on campus and being stopped by campus police and security than their White peers.

    About 60% of Black and Asian students and nearly half of Hispanic students reported negative racial comments on campus, and similar shares said the same about facing different forms of discrimination, the report stated. That’s higher than the 43% of White students who experienced discrimination and 29% who experienced racial comments.

    Among all students, two-thirds pointed to other students as their source of their negative experiences on campus, while 20% identified faculty, the report stated. 

    More than 4 in 5 students also said their institution “helps students from various racial and ethnic backgrounds feel welcome.”

    But Black, Hispanic, and Asian students reported their campus climate as inclusive at lower rates than White students. And about half of Black and Indigenous students said they experienced difficulty being themselves in college.

    Encouraging progress

    Colleges may be making strides in providing better mental health resources to students, the survey suggested.

    Student access to and awareness of college mental health services improved significantly since 2017, when the Steve Fund last surveyed college students about their mental health. That survey drew responses from 1,056 college students between ages 17 and 27 attending both two- and four-year colleges.

    Primm said the two surveys can be considered comparable, as the majority of students who completed the 2017 survey were also attending four-year colleges.

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  • Mental health screeners help ID hidden needs, research finds

    Mental health screeners help ID hidden needs, research finds

    Key points:

    A new DESSA screener to be released for the Fall ‘25 school year–designed to be paired with a strength-based student self-report assessment–accurately predicted well-being levels in 70 percent of students, a study finds.  

    According to findings from Riverside Insights, creator of research-backed assessments, researchers found that even students with strong social-emotional skills often struggle with significant mental health concerns, challenging the assumption that resilience alone indicates student well-being. The study, which examined outcomes in 254 middle school students across the United States, suggests that combining risk and resilience screening can enable identification of students who would otherwise be missed by traditional approaches. 

    “This research validates what school mental health professionals have been telling us for years–that traditional screening approaches miss too many students,” said Dr. Evelyn Johnson, VP of Research & Development at Riverside Insights. “When educators and counselors can utilize a dual approach to identify risk factors, they can pinpoint concerns and engage earlier, in and in a targeted way, before concerns become major crises.”

    The study, which offered evidence of, for example, social skills deficits among students with no identifiable or emotional behavioral concerns, provides the first empirical evidence that consideration of both risk and resilience can enhance the predictive benefits of screening, when compared to  strengths-based screening alone.

    In the years following COVID, many educators noted a feeling that something was “off” with students, despite DESSA assessments indicating that things were fine.

    “We heard this feedback from lots of different customers, and it really got our team thinking–we’re clearly missing something, even though the assessment of social-emotional skills is critically important and there’s evidence to show the links to better academic outcomes and better emotional well-being outcomes,” Johnson said. “And yet, we’re not tapping something that needs to be tapped.”

    For a long time, if a person displayed no outward or obvious mental health struggles, they were thought to be mentally healthy. In investigating the various theories and frameworks guiding mental health issues, Riverside Insight’s team dug into Dr. Shannon Suldo‘s work, which centers around the dual factor model.

    “What the dual factor approach really suggests is that the absence of problems is not necessarily equivalent to good mental health–there really are these two factors, dual factors, we talk about them in terms of risk and resilience–that really give you a much more complete picture of how a student is doing,” Johnson said.

    “The efficacy associated with this dual-factor approach is encouraging, and has big implications for practitioners struggling to identify risk with limited resources,” said Jim Bowler, general manager of the Classroom Division at Riverside Insights. “Schools told us they needed a way to identify students who might be struggling beneath the surface. The DESSA SEIR ensures no student falls through the cracks by providing the complete picture educators need for truly preventive mental health support.”

    The launch comes as mental health concerns among students reach crisis levels. More than 1 in 5 students considered attempting suicide in 2023, while 60 percent of youth with major depression receive no mental health treatment. With school psychologist-to-student ratios at 1:1065 (recommended 1:500) and counselor ratios at 1:376 (recommended 1:250), schools need preventive solutions that work within existing resources.

    The DESSA SEIR will be available for the 2025-2026 school year.

    This press release originally appeared online.

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  • Autistic College Students Face Dramatically Higher Rates of Mental Health Challenges, New Research Shows

    Autistic College Students Face Dramatically Higher Rates of Mental Health Challenges, New Research Shows

    Autistic college students are experiencing anxiety and depression at significantly higher rates than their non-autistic peers, according to new research from Binghamton University that analyzed data from nearly 150,000 undergraduate students across 342 institutions nationwide.

    The study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, represents one of the most comprehensive examinations to date of mental health challenges facing autistic students in higher education—a population that researchers say has been historically underrepresented in academic research despite growing enrollment numbers.

    “What we found is really staggering—autistic individuals endorse much higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to their non-autistic peers,” said Diego Aragon-Guevara, the study’s lead author and a PhD student in psychology at Binghamton University.

    The research team analyzed data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which in 2021 became the first year that autism was included as an endorsable category in the survey. This milestone allowed researchers to conduct the first large-scale comparison of mental health outcomes between autistic and non-autistic college students.

    “We were really excited to see what the data would tell us. It was a big opportunity to be able to do this,” said Dr. Jennifer Gillis Mattson, professor of psychology and co-director of the Institute for Child Development at Binghamton University, who co-authored the study.

    The findings come at a critical time for higher education institutions as autism diagnoses continue to rise nationwide and more autistic students pursue college degrees. The research highlights a significant gap in support services that could impact student success and retention.

    “We know the number of autistic college students continues to increase every single year,” Gillis-Mattson noted. “We really do have an obligation to support these students, and to know how best to support these students, we need to look beyond just autism.”

    The study reveals that campus support systems may be inadvertently overlooking mental health needs while focusing primarily on autism-specific accommodations. Aragon-Guevara, whose research focuses on improving quality of life for autistic adults, said this represents a critical oversight in student services.

    “Support personnel might address an individual’s autism and, in the process, overlook their mental health issues,” he explained. “More care needs to be put into addressing that nuance.”

    The research underscores the need for institutions to develop more comprehensive support frameworks that address both autism-related needs and concurrent mental health challenges. The findings suggest that traditional disability services approaches may need significant enhancement to serve this population effectively.

    “We want to provide the best support for them and to make sure that they have a college experience where they get a lot out of it, but also feel comfortable,” Aragon-Guevara said.

    Dr. Hyejung Kim, an assistant professor in Binghamton’s Department of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership, noted that the complexity of factors affecting autistic students requires deeper investigation. 

    “This population often skews male, and interactions between personal factors and conditions such as anxiety and depression may shape overall well-being in college,” she said.

    Kim also pointed to additional considerations that institutions should examine. 

    “Autistic students are also more likely to pursue STEM fields, and many report different experiences with faculty and staff across institutional settings,” she said. “We still have much to learn about how these and other contextual factors relate to mental well-being.”

    The Binghamton team views this study as foundational research that confirms the scope of mental health challenges among autistic college students. Their next phase will investigate specific contributing factors, including social dynamics, faculty support, campus accessibility, and other environmental elements that influence student well-being.

    “There are so many elements that go into being comfortable in the new environment that is college,” Aragon-Guevara explained. “We want to look into that and see if there are any deficits in those areas that autistic college students are experiencing, so that we know where we can help support them, or create institutional things to help improve quality of life as a whole.”

    The research is part of a broader effort at Binghamton to better understand and support autistic students in higher education, with plans to collaborate with campus partners to develop targeted interventions based on their findings.

     

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  • Data Shows Uptake of Statewide Digital Mental Health Support

    Data Shows Uptake of Statewide Digital Mental Health Support

    In 2023, New Jersey’s Office of the Secretary of Higher Education signed a first-of-its-kind agreement with a digital mental health provider, Uwill, to provide free access to virtual mental health services to college students across the state.

    Over the past two years, 18,000-plus students across 45 participating colleges and universities have registered with the service, representing about 6 percent of the eligible postsecondary population. The state considers the partnership a success and hopes to codify the offering to ensure its sustainability beyond the current governor’s term.

    The details: New Jersey’s partnership with Uwill was spurred by a 2021 survey of 15,500 undergraduate and graduate students from 60 institutions in the state, which found that 70 percent of respondents rated their stress and anxiety as higher in fall 2021 than in fall 2020. Forty percent indicated they were concerned about their mental health in light of the pandemic.

    Under the agreement, students can use Uwill’s teletherapy, crisis connection and wellness programming at any time. Like others in the teletherapy space, Uwill offers an array of diverse licensed mental health providers, giving students access to therapists who share their backgrounds or language, or who reside in their state. Over half (55 percent) of the counselors Uwill hires in New Jersey are Black, Indigenous or people of color; among them, they speak 11 languages.

    What makes Uwill distinct from its competitors is that therapy services are on-demand, meaning students are matched with a counselor within minutes of logging on to the platform. Students can request to see the same counselor in the future, but the nearly immediate access ensures they are not caught in long wait or intake times, especially compared to in-person counseling services.

    Under New Jersey’s agreement, colleges and students do not pay for Uwill services, but colleges must receive state aid to be eligible.

    The research: The need for additional counseling capacity on college campuses has grown over the past decade, as an increasing number of students enter higher education with pre-existing mental health conditions. The most recent survey of counseling center staff by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD) found that while demand for services is on the decline compared to recent years, a larger number of students have more serious conditions.

    Over half of four-year institutions and about one-third of community colleges nationwide provide teletherapy to students via third-party vendors, according to AUCCCD data. The average number of students who engaged with services in 2024 was 453, across institution size.

    Online therapy providers tout the benefits of having a service that supplements on-campus, in-person therapists’ services to provide more comprehensive care, including racially and ethnically diverse staff, after-hours support and on-demand resources for students.

    Eric Wood, director of counseling and mental health at Texas Christian University, told Inside Higher Ed that an ideal teletherapy vendor is one that increases capacity for on-campus services, expanding availability for on-campus staff and ensuring that students do not fall through the cracks.

    A 2024 analysis of digital mental health tools from the Hope Center at Temple University—which did not include Uwill—found they can improve student mental health, but there is little direct evidence regarding marginalized student populations’ use of or benefits from them. Instead, the greatest benefit appears to be for students who would not otherwise engage in traditional counseling or who simply seek preventative resources.

    One study featured in the Hope Center’s report noted the average student only used their campus’s wellness app or teletherapy service once; the report calls for more transparency around usage data prior to institutional investment.

    The data: Uwill reported that from April 2023 to May 2025, 18,207 New Jersey students engaged in their services at the 45 participating institutions, which include Princeton, Rutgers, Montclair State and Seton Hall Universities, as well as the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Stevens Institute of Technology. Engaged students were defined as any students who logged in to the app and created an account.

    New Jersey’s total college enrollment in 2022 was 378,819, according to state data. An Inside Higher Ed analysis of publicly available data found total enrollment (including undergraduate and graduate students) among the 45 participating colleges to be 327,353. Uwill participants in New Jersey, therefore, totaled around 4 percent of the state’s postsecondary students or 6 percent of eligible students.

    The state paid $4 million for the first year of the Uwill contract, as reported by Higher Ed Dive, pulling dollars from a $10 million federal grant to support pandemic relief and a $16 million budget allocation for higher education partnerships. That totals about $89,000 per institution for the first year alone, or $12 per eligible student, according to an Inside Higher Ed estimate.

    In a 2020 interview with Inside Higher Ed, Uwill CEO Michael London said the minimum cost to a college for one year of services is about $25,000, or $10 to $20 per student per year.

    New Jersey students met with counselors in more than 78,000 therapy sessions, or about six sessions per student between 2023 and 2025, according to Uwill data. Students also engaged in 548 chat sessions with therapists, sent 6,593 messages and requested 1,216 crisis connections during the first two years of service.

    User engagement has slowly ticked up since the partnership launched. In January 2024, the state said more than 7,600 students registered on the platform, scheduling nearly 20,000 sessions. By September 2024, Uwill reported more than 13,000 registered students on the platform, scheduling more than 49,000 sessions. The most recent data, published June 6, identified 18,000 students engaging in 78,000 sessions.

    Over 1,200 of Montclair State’s 22,000 students have registered with Uwill since June 2023, Jaclyn Friedman-Lombardo, Montclair State’s director of counseling and psychological services, said at a press conference, or approximately 6 percent of the total campus population.

    The state does not require institutions to track student usage data to compare usage to campus counseling center services, but some institutions choose to, according to a spokesperson for both the office of the secretary and Uwill. The secretary’s office can view de-identified campus-level data and institutions can engage with more detailed data, as well.

    Creating access: One of the goals of implementing digital mental health interventions is to expand access beyond traditional counseling centers, such as after hours, on weekends or over academic breaks.

    Roughly 30 percent of participants in the Uwill partnership completed a session between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. on a weeknight or on the weekends. Over the 2024–25 winter break, students engaged in 3,073 therapy sessions. More than 90 of those took place outside New Jersey. Students also used Uwill services over summer vacation this past year (9,235 sessions from May 20 to Aug. 26, of which 10 percent took place outside New Jersey).

    A majority of users were traditional-aged college students (17 to 24 years old), and 32 percent were white, 25 percent Hispanic and 17 percent Black. The report did not compare participating students’ race to those using on-campus services or general campus populations.

    About 85 percent of New Jersey users were looking for a BIPOC therapist, and 9 percent requested therapists who speak languages other than English, including Hindi and Mandarin.

    Postsession assessment completed by students who do schedule an appointment has returned positive responses, with a feedback score of 9.5 out of 10 in New Jersey, compared to Uwill’s 9.2 rating nationally.

    Unanswered questions: Wood indicated the data leaves some questions left unanswered, such as whether students were also clients at the on-campus counseling center, or if the service had improved students’ mental health over time from a clinical perspective.

    “Just because a student had four sessions with a telehealth provider, if they came right back to the counseling center, did it really make an impact on the center’s capacity to see students?” Wood said.

    The high cost of the service should also give counseling center directors pause, Wood said, because those dollars could be used for a variety of other interventions to create capacity.

    The data indicated some benefits to counseling center capacity, including diverse staff and after-hours support. But to create a true return on investment, counseling centers should calculate how much capacity the tele–mental health service created and its direct impact on student wellness, not just participation in services.

    “It would be ideal to compare the number of students receiving services (not just creating an account) through the platform to the number of students who would likely benefit from receiving treatment, as identified by clinically validated mental health screens on population surveys,” said Sara Abelson, assistant professor at the Hope Center and the report’s lead author.

    What’s next: New Jersey renewed its contract with Uwill first in January 2024 and then again in May, extending through spring 2026. State leaders said the ongoing services are still supported by pandemic relief funds.

    On May 2, New Jersey assemblywoman Andrea Katz from the Eighth District introduced a bill, the Mental Health Early Access on Campus Act, which would require colleges to implement mental health first aid training among campus stakeholders, peer support programs, mental health orientation education and teletherapy services to ensure counseling ratios are one to every 1,250 students per campus. The International Accreditation of Counseling Services recommends universities maintain a ratio of at least one full-time equivalency for every 1,000 to 1,500 students.

    “We know that mental health services that our kids need are not going to end when we change governors,” Katz said at a press conference. “We need to make sure that all of this is codified into law.”

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