Brownies or cookies? We’re fifteen, and it’s the biggest argument we’ve ever had, but it resolves itself in a delicious half-brownie-half-chocolate-chip-cookie. We have to mix together two different recipes just to make it work, and they come out looking half burnt, but it’s the best dessert either of us has ever had. She’s my best friend. My beautiful, brown-eyed girl.
Three years later, it’s November of our freshman year of college. We’re both eighteen years old and still just as close, even though we go to school several states apart. It’s a little after 8 p.m., and I’m leaving Lamont Library with a million things on my mind, namely the math test I just took and the problem set I have yet to finish. She texted me, but I forgot to text her back—I’ll get to that later. Unbeknownst to me, my mom has flown in and is waiting outside on the grass outside of Lamont to tell me that she died by suicide the night before.
I couldn’t tell you much about the weeks that followed.
You might think that my experience is rare. But the unfortunate truth is that suicide is rampant among young adults; it is the second leading cause of death among college students. What’s more, mental health issues at universities overall are reaching record highs. A Boston University study comparing data across numerous campuses revealed a 110% increase in anxiety and a 135% increase in depression among college students between 2013 and 2021.
According to the 2021-2022 National Education Association’s Healthy Minds Survey (HMS), more than 60% of college students meet the clinical criteria for a mental health-related diagnosis; these are the highest rates the survey has ever shown since its 2007 debut. In the same 2022-2023 survey, nearly 60% of college students reported feeling the need for mental or emotional support services during the year. Suffice it to say, we are living in a collegiate mental health crisis.
Even more astonishingly, colleges are responding poorly. In the 2022 College Student Mental Health Report, a national survey, less than half of participating students felt that their universities were providing adequate mental health support to students. Similarly, in a report by the National Council on Disability, nearly half of interviewed college clinicians claimed that insufficient funding directed toward mental health resources puts at-risk students in need of psychological help.
So every May, as the nation celebrates Mental Health Awareness Month, it’s becoming more important than ever that colleges step up to meet the ever-increasing psychiatric needs of their students.
At Harvard, this might look like improving the University Health Services Counseling and Mental Health Services (CAMHS) available to students. Whether that means hiring more clinicians or clearing up administrative red tape, the services are failing to quickly help struggling students. A 2022 article by The Crimson cited a six-week waiting period to see a therapist at CAMHS. This sharply contrasts the national average wait time of 9.2 business days, a figure measured in a 2023 survey published by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors.
The more CAMHS is able to support students with mental health concerns during the academic term, the more medical leaves of absence may be prevented, an issue plaguing many Ivy League Universities. Currently, Ivies have been cited as having poor policies concerning forceful leaves of absence for students with mental illness. For example, a reporter at The Washington Post found that Yale students grappling with suicidal ideation were pushed to take leaves and were later not guaranteed a returning spot, forced to then reapply to the University. Here at Harvard, one student considering taking a medical leave for her worsening mental health reported being barred from returning to school before completing six months of work and counseling treatment.
Moreover, a report by the Ruderman Foundation revealed that the majority of Ivy League Universities have a minimum length of leave time, as opposed to allowing students in need of high levels of mental health care to return when their treatment is completed. The Foundation, in consultation with experts on collegiate mental health, evaluated and graded each Ivy’s psychological health services and leave policies. Harvard received a D–.
Pediatric psychiatrist and founder of the Child Mind Institute Harold Koplewicz captured the current state of youth mental health best: “Our kids are not okay.” And when parents entrust the well-being of their children to colleges, the institutions should provide adequate care. This isn’t to say that Harvard’s CAMHS does not have well-trained clinicians or effective treatment. Rather, there simply isn’t enough of it readily available.
When it comes to psychological health, which can mean the difference between life and death, colleges must step up to meet the needs of their students. The numbers speak for themselves; from the wait times to see a clinician, to the prevalence of students facing mental or emotional challenges, to the amount of students feeling in need of services, it’s clear that many current collegiate mental health services are not keeping up with demand. Ultimately, these programs can destigmatize mental health struggles and provide reliable support such that students feel they can manage psychological distress while staying enrolled in school. And its most important, life-saving job is to help students in times of crisis find hope.
These days, I feel my dear friend almost everywhere. In the breeze, as we loved to lay by the ocean, letting crisp winds blow our hair in every direction. In the scent of burnt Catholic incense, sweet, citrusy myrrh, as I light candles for her in church. At the end of a long day, when I instinctively reach for my phone to call her. Every text I send will appear green now, the sign of a phone number no longer in use. I still write the texts out, though. It’s all my way of saying goodbye, a goodbye I wasn’t ready to say.
My heart hurts knowing she is one of many. The current national average of college students who die by suicide per year is 1,100. That’s 1,100 too many. But I believe every improvement to institutional mental health programs and every communal effort towards destigmatizing psychological pain brings us closer to zero.
Emmie Palfrey ’27 (epalfrey@college.harvard.edu) encourages you to take the online Pledge to Stay, a Born This Way Foundation Initiative, this May, in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s a promise to reach out for help when you need it, to take care of yourself, and to remember that the world is better with you in it. Emmie proudly signed the Pledge with her dad.