By providing students with the resources to develop skills such as distress tolerance, reflexive thinking and a sense of community, higher ed leaders, staff and educators can help prevent the distress that leads students to seek counseling services.
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According to the 2023–24 data report from the Healthy Minds Study, a concerning 26 percent of college students reported engaging in nonsuicidal self-injury in the past year alone, and 38 percent reported moderate to severe depression symptoms. Furthermore, 36 percent of college students sought counseling for their mental health struggles during this time period.
This marks a significant shift from nearly a decade ago, when nonsuicidal self-injury rates were at 18 percent, depression rates were 20 percent and counseling engagement was 22 percent. Though the COVID-19 pandemic is often to blame, mental health trends in the years leading up to 2020 show that these statistics were already on the rise, with little deviation from the 2023–24 data.
When we think of the campus resources designed to address student mental health, counseling services are often the first that come to mind. However, there are numerous other support structures in place, including emergency on-call support, multidisciplinary care teams and wellness checks conducted by public safety, residential life staff and the dean of students’ office. Faculty and academic support services also play a critical role in identifying mental health concerns and referring students to appropriate campus resources. But despite the wide range of available resources, two critical questions are:
- What proactive efforts are in place to help students not just cope but thrive?
- And how timely are these efforts as students transition to campus life?
These questions raise the issue of who is responsible for preparing students’ mental health before they arrive at college.
Is it the high school personnel who have established long-term relationships with students and have the best opportunity to help them navigate the unique challenges of college life? Is it parents who have witnessed their children’s successes and struggles and are in a position to ensure their mental and emotional readiness? Or is it higher education, which, through greater transparency and proactive support, can better equip students for the academic and social challenges they may face?
Without a clear answer, responsibility becomes diluted, and as a result, students may miss the opportunity to adequately prepare their mental health for the demands of college.
Moving From Reactive to Proactive
As the need for counseling sessions continues to rise, it’s important that we move beyond referring to student mental health issues as “crises.” In the counseling field, crises are acute and time-sensitive, not recurring challenges that continue year after year. Labeling student mental health struggles as a “crisis” shifts the conversation to a reactive stance rather than a proactive one. If mental health challenges are an ongoing reality, we must pause to reflect on the common themes underlying this suffering, considering what students need from us and how we can provide that support.
Counselors across the country would agree that most of the pressing issues facing students include feelings of loneliness and isolation, depression, anxiety, and interpersonal struggles. At the core of these challenges lies a need for distress tolerance, reflexive thinking, communication skills, healthy boundaries and a sense of community.
Given that so many students are grappling with the same issues, it becomes intuitive that we should focus not just on intervention, but also prevention. By providing students with the resources to develop these skills early, we can prevent much of the distress that leads them to seek counseling services.
Skill Building, Precollege and During College
As the author of Thrive Year One: The Essential Mental Health Workbook for First-Year College Students (2024), my goal is to help students build a strong foundation for their mental health before they even step foot on campus. Fundamental to this book is the reminder to students that prioritizing wellness is not a one-time choice made upon entering college—it’s an ongoing, evolving process that shifts in response to changing environments and demands. Students are also reminded that they have significant control over their well-being, a concept that can often become blurred in the high-pressure environment of academia.
The book reinforces this idea through practical exercises, such as helping students create a sustainable wellness plan that extends beyond crisis management. This holistic plan emphasizes the multiple factors that contribute to a strong foundation of wellness, all of which need to be balanced. With fears of failure often looming in the transition to college, the workbook also includes exercises to help students navigate those fears now, preventing them from becoming overwhelming during peak moments in their academic journey.
By providing students with an opportunity to prepare their mental health for college, we realize how fundamental wellness is in contributing to the success of students and their campus communities.
For higher education professionals, this approach offers a concrete action: Administrators, faculty and staff can incorporate wellness planning as early as orientation and throughout students’ time along their college journey. Challenging students to think ahead when it comes to wellness will not only prepare them for academic success but also prepare them even better for their future careers and a lifetime of resilience.
