This 87-page study presents data from 20 North American colleges and universities about their mental health services. The benchmarking study helps its readers to answer questions such as: what are overall budgets for college mental health services and are they rising or falling? What has been the impact of the pandemic on college mental health services? Has their overall staffing increased or decreased over the past year and if so by how much? What new positions have been added or eliminated?
How effective are triage techniques in dealing with students seeking help? What are the most commonly perceived mental health problems? How much has the pandemic impacted bipolar disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, and sexual abuse, and general depression and anxiety in the student population? What online techniques and services are colleges deploying to deliver mental health services to students studying from home?
The report details the many ways that college mental health services are coping with student issues online and how they are marketing their services and monitoring students in trouble.
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
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Mean budgets for college mental health services fell 10.55% in 20-21
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60% saw increasing alcohol abuse in the student population as a result of the pandemic.
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International students, students from poorer families and single parents were thought to suffer the worst impact on mental health.
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20% of colleges participants had a crisis mental health phone line for students.
Data is broken out by college type or Carnegie class, enrollment, size, tuition level, and for public and private institutions. In a broad range of open ended questions, survey participants comment on how they have handled the pandemic and what their plans are for the near future.