In the archives, I came across a few documents from the SCU Counseling Center in the later 90s that briefly discussed mental health issues in college students. I was curious to find out how mental health care has changed over the past 20 years and if mental health disorder rates have increased. While my archival research mostly focused on mental health rates from the past, I found this statistical image that shows how they have changed.

Source: psychologytoday.com

I knew that mental illness rates had to be pretty high nowadays in college students, but this somewhat shocked me. 1 in 3 students reported prolonged periods of depression. That is an extremely high number. Not only that, but 30% reported problems with school work due to mental health issues. A document I found in the archives reported that “in 2002 11.6% of college students reported of a mental illness affecting their academics”. This goes to show how mental issues have gotten much worse in recent years. I figured they had, but I had no idea that it more than doubled.

So, why are the number of college students with a mental illness increasing? Is college getting too difficult? Is it society that’s causing this? Too college students have too much pressure on them?

I think that all of these could be true. College has gotten much more competitive and academically it is getting much harder. On top of that, society puts so much pressure on young people to try to be perfect. Social media has created this false belief that we have to show everyone that we are having the time of our life even when it may be the complete opposite.

I am not saying that this is the reason why students are struggling with mental illnesses, but it could be one reason why. I am looking forward to researching more so that I can find out exactly why our generation is struggling so much with this. Mental illness is a difficult subject to talk about but I am going to take on the challenge and try to answer this question I am so curious about.