#student-mental-health

#student-mental-health

Being thrown into a group of new strangers each and every year, as is typical in so many American public school systems, is deeply evolutionarily unnatural. Under ancestral conditions, humans did not encounter strangers with nearly the same frequency that we experience now. And guess what? Humans have an entirely different way of interacting with strangers (including appropriate levels of hesitation and skepticism) than we have when interacting with others whom we know well.

The South Orange & Maplewood community in New Jersey has been through some very tough times. Schools superintendent Jason Bing says at least five young people enrolled at the public Columbia High School (CHS) have attempted to die by suicide this year. In December, one CHS student died in an accident; another young person, enrolled at a private school but known to many CHS students, died by suicide the same month.

When I shared the reasoning behind this decision on Instagram, my DMs exploded with messages from thousands of parents quietly navigating the same issues. Watching their capable, intelligent children crumble and wondering if they're the only ones considering alternatives. Many of them told me they feel like failures for even thinking about stepping outside the system. But we're not failing ― the system is.

As her father, Steven Meyer, put it in the show interview, "Katie, being Katie, was defending a teammate on campus over an incident and the repercussions of her defending that teammate [possibly led to the disciplinary action]." The family subsequently filed a wrongful death claim against Stanford in November 2022, and now, over three years later, that is getting settled out of court.

Stanford has settled a lawsuit with the family of Katie Meyer, a star soccer player who died by suicide in her dorm after receiving a discipline letter from the university. As part of the settlement announced today (Jan. 26), Stanford has agreed to provide more support for students going through the discipline process and to launch an initiative focused on student mental health at its Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

Jack Hamner, the president of the East Side Teachers Association, said 70% of the district's students are English language learners, homeless, foster youth or low income and can't afford to lose access to counselors, social workers and advisors. Those are some severely needy kids. They need their support systems more than ever, Hamner said. The positions they're cutting, these are the mental health and wellness services that our kids desperately need.

I crossed the street near where I was living in Milan on the verge of tears. I had had enough of feeling sad, lonely, and hopeless. That surely wasn't how I expected to feel in my first year of university. The previous spring, I had thought about which undergraduate degree I wanted to pursue for months, reading about courses, tuition, and life in a new place. Since I loved writing and dreamed of becoming a journalist, studying communication seemed like the best bet.

In a report conducted by the Guardian, the proposal of a four-day week for schools was met with an overwhelmingly positive response. Parents cited everything from their children's mental health to not worrying so much about absences as reasons for the four-day week to work. Teachers even loved the idea, noting that if the fifth day of the week were simply a teacher workday, it would free up their weekends from school and teaching tasks, allowing them to actually get a much-needed (and deserved) break.

In a city where stress levels run high and phone screens rarely go dim, New York college students are getting an unlikely new therapist this week: cats. From October 8-10, Purina Cat Chow is parking a roving "Therapod" around Manhattan campuses to mark World Mental Health Day-and give students a reason to put down their phones and pick up a purring feline instead.

Before they head off to college, families have likely played a central role in students' lives. If there are mental health issues of any type, the family may have been even more involved. It can be difficult for anyone to switch roles. And as students begin college, the responsibility for both their education and their mental health care shifts to them.

The Healthy Minds Survey was conducted at Harvard in spring 2025. With a response rate of 25 percent, more than 5,900 students across undergraduate and graduate Schools completed the 25-minute survey. Healthy Minds, a national initiative launched in 2007 by the University of Michigan, administered the survey, which is designed to gather information about mental health on college campuses. Since its inception, more than 850,000 students at 600 colleges and universities have participated, including Stanford University, MIT, Tufts University, and Boston University.

When newcomers or a family rising out of poverty, or maybe just a middle-class family that has squirrelled away the money for a college education, push a child to study hard, that child can feel the heavy burden of family hopes. In many countries around the world, these expectations are driving an epidemic of suicide and self-harming behaviors among emerging adults.

The class of 2029 is on edge. Today's 18-year-olds spent middle school locked down in a pandemic. They've grown up more online and socially isolated than past generations, and in the Healthy Minds Study, a survey conducted by a consortium of universities, more than 30% of students report feeling depressed and/or anxious. The campuses they've just arrived at are entrenched in a culture war, as the Trump administration has cut research budgets or pulled funding to enforce restrictions on student protests and free speech.

I spent my daughter's senior year in what felt like survival mode. It was a year of constant decisions and deadlines, culminating in four years of planning. There were dozens of essays for college and scholarship applications, SATs, an artistic portfolio, supplemental applications, and departmental interviews. We had to complete all of this while managing an extremely rigorous senior year with AP classes, dual enrollment courses, and a calendar full of extracurriculars.

Jamel Bishop is seeing a big change in his classrooms as he begins his senior year at Doss High School in Louisville, Kentucky, where cellphones are now banned during instructional time. In previous years, students often weren't paying attention and wasted class time by repeating questions, the teenager said. Now, teachers can provide "more one-on-one time for the students who actually need it." Kentucky is one of 17 states and the District of Columbia starting this school year with new restrictions, bringing the total to 35 states with laws or rules limiting phones and other electronic devices in school. This change has come remarkably quickly: Florida became the first state to pass such a law in 2023.

Summer breaks are essential for students to recharge from the pressures of academic life, reducing educational stress and providing opportunities for creative summer fun.