by Mitch Scuzzarella

Rachel Mathison, a junior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, says her struggle with mental illness began during her sophomore year of college. She had experienced anxiety in high school, but stress and adjustment issues in college took a toll on her mental health. After weeks of feeling the pressure to succeed, find internships and gain experience Mathison finally snapped.

“I wasn’t sleeping, I felt overloaded and I felt hopeless,” the art history and IT double-major said. “I was drowning in my own work and I needed to be grounded. I needed to have someone put me in a better place.”

Mathison is one of hundreds of college students across the country that struggle with mental health issues. Recent surveys from the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors show that 95 percent of center directors have a growing concern with the number of students reporting psychological problems. According to the survey, counselor directors believe more students are reporting increased levels of stress, depression and anxiety than compared to those in prior decades. Many students, like Mathison, find that the stress of college life can reach levels that finally drive them to seek professional help.

Mathison was able to access the services provided by UMass’s Center for Counseling and Psychological Health (CCPH), which sees patients five days a week and accommodates a campus with over 20,000 students. During her second year of college she was diagnosed with ADD and generalized anxiety disorder. Mathison says the free services provided by the school counseling center saved her college career.

 “I would have dropped out by now,” she says.

According to Mathison, a few of her friends already have.

A 2012 study from the National Alliance for Mental Illness says the majority of young adults who leave college, a full 64 percent, do so for mental health reasons. Even more worrisome, suicide is currently the second largest cause of death on the college campus. A study from the American College Health Association revealed that 7.4 percent of students have seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months.

Why do so many more students in recent years report psychological issues in college?

According to Dr. Doris Iarovici of Duke University Counseling and Psychological Services and author of Mental Health Issues and the University Student, stress factors such as complicated family dynamics, identity issues and the pressure to succeed can all create mental health problems in university students.

Millennials especially face unique issues. Often called “Generation Me,” they have been characterized by Neil Howe and William Strause of Millennials Rising and Millennials Go to College as confident and goal oriented, with higher rates of self-esteem and narcissism. New college students can struggle to adapt to the unstructured status of college life, a far cry from the supervised world of their adolescence.

The increased role of technology and more diverse student populations can also create stress factors for modern college students. While technology opens up new opportunities for students, it also creates distractions through popular social media applications like Twitter and Facebook. Likewise, increasingly diverse student populations leave students with broader worldviews but also, according to Dr. Iarovici, with new challenges as they encounter unfamiliar identities amongst peers.

Dr. Iarovici, however, claims that much of this reasoning remains speculation, and there may be other considerable factors to blame.

“There are many new stressors for college students,” says Dr. Iarovici. “But, there have always been stressors.”

She explains that the increasing number of students attending college in recent years might explain some of the numbers. As well, more students today with pre-existing psychological problems attend college due to improved treatment options and medications.

“More treatment options are available for children and adolescents earlier in life,” said Dr. Iarovici. “Some of these young adults might not have been able to [go to college] before, and now they can, but may need more support or continued treatment while there.”

At UMass, mental health providers have found new ways to deal with the influx of students, changing their programs to work around patients with new and pre-existing conditions. Melissa Rotkiewicz, assistant director for psychological assessment at UMass’s CCPH says that since last year, she estimates a full 15 percent more clients are seeking out their services.

UMass now offers a combination of online and self-help resources along with their general services to address student need. New programs and resources attract students and help dispel the stigma of mental health issues. Examples such as UMatter at UMass and student groups like Active Minds are being used to increase campus connectivity and awareness of mental health problems as well as assisting more students in finding help. According to Rotkiewicz, the University seeks to normalize mental health issues.

 “We are trying to do what we can and show that it’s okay to talk about,” says Rotkiewicz.

Dr. Iarovici believes students need more regular access to mental health services both on and off campus, but not every school currently can handle the influx of students seeking treatment. Some universities may be understaffed or offer limited access to treatment, she says.

Rotkiewicz, at UMass’s campus psychological health center, says she does not see a problem with college culture and does not seek to change it, but instead wishes to see schools change how they treat and handle students.

“It’s not a problem, it’s a shift,” Rotkiewicz says. “The infrastructure needs to change to meet it.”

More students like Mathison arrive on campuses every year. When Mathison sat down to speak, she explained that she was dealing with one of the most stressful weeks of her semester. However, a support network gave her the strength to continue on.

“Sometimes, it’s just hard,” Mathinson said. “But seeking help is okay. Other people have these problems too.”

Mitch Scuzzarella can be contacted at [email protected]