Student mental health is more important than ever, and college presidents are beginning to take notice.

Here’s what college presidents are saying about student mental health and well-being


Student mental health is a daily headline, and higher-ed leaders know it needs to be a campus priority

College student mental health—and how campuses are responding—is increasingly in the national spotlight. Headlines in newspapers across the country are reporting that a mental health crisis exists at U.S. colleges and universities, and that it is worsening. Campuses and their counseling centers are seeing increased, unmet demand from students.

National assessment data show rising levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidality—suicidal ideation (serious thoughts about taking one’s own life), suicide plans, and suicide attempts—among the college population. In fact, suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students.

Related content: 4 student mental health apps

As with a host of other complex and urgent issues facing higher education institutions in 2019, institutional leadership on student mental health and well-being matters greatly. To better understand how college and university presidents are navigating this challenge, ACE conducted its third Pulse Point survey at the end of April. Over 400 presidents responded.

Here’s what we found.

Attention to student mental health has increased

According to national data from the Healthy Minds Study, student mental health concerns have escalated over the last 10 years. We wanted to know how presidents were responding to this increase. To assess short-term changes, we asked presidents to reflect on the last three years on their campus and whether they have observed an increase, decrease, or no change in how they prioritize mental health.

Eight out of 10 presidents indicated that student mental health has become more of a priority on their campus than it was three years ago. As one president wrote, “Mental health has become a major issue for retention and the general well-being of our students . . . This is in my top three areas of improvement for my college.”

Presidents at public four-year institutions (87 percent) were more likely to indicate it had become more of a priority than presidents at other types of colleges and universities.

As concern about student mental health has grown over the last three years, roughly seven out of 10 presidents (72 percent) reported they had reallocated or identified additional funding to address the issue. Presidents at four-year institutions were more likely to have identified or reallocated funding than presidents at public two-year colleges. One president reported raising $15 million to build a “comprehensive student well-being building.”

[Editor’s note: This is an excerpt of a much more detailed blog post on the research, reposted here with permission. This post originally appeared on Higher Education Today, a blog by the American Council on Education. The original post can be found here in its entirety.]

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