Dive Brief:

• LGBTQ students with access to mental health services through their colleges were 84% less likely to attempt suicide in the past year than their counterparts that went without. 
• That’s according to new research from The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on mental health in LGBTQ youth. Around four in 10 LGBTQ students who attended colleges without LGBTQ-specific student services seriously considered suicide in 2021. Among LGBTQ students who could access campus services designed for them, that number dropped to 30%.
• To combat the risk of student suicide, colleges should increase service accessibility by providing LGBTQ-inclusive health services and incorporating LGBTQ-specific resources into their counseling centers, according to the report.

Dive Insight:

In 2021, an overwheling majority of LGBTQ students, 89%, said their college was accepting of LGBTQ people, according to the report. But only 63% of respondents said that their colleges offered LGBTQ-specific services, such as LGBTQ centers or student affinity groups.

Researchers analyzed responses collected as part of The Trevor Project’s annual survey on mental health. The nonprofit recruited students through targeted social media ads.  

Whether a college was considered accepting of LGBTQ students was associated with the availability of services for them. Almost half of the students who lacked access to LGBTQ-specific services said their colleges were unaccepting of LGBTQ people.

Specialized support for LGBTQ students is critical.

Last year, 33% of college students who identified as as LGBTQ seriously considered suicide, according to the report. Among the LGBTQ population, rates of suicidal thoughts were highest among nonbinary students, at 39%, and students of color, at 35%. That’s compared to 26% of LGBTQ cisgender students and 31% of LGBTQ White students.

“While college environments offer a number of positive and protective factors for LGBTQ students, the reality is that suicide risk still very much persists, especially among those who do not have access to affirming spaces and services," Jonah DeChants, research scientist at The Trevor Project, said in a statement.

Even though many students can access specialized campus support, a third said they didn't feel comfortable going. Long waitlists kept 29% of students from using campus resources, with 17% saying the same about privacy concerns.

To address this risk, colleges should provide comprehensive healthcare options, both physical and mental, for LGBTQ students and use gender-affirming language, according to the report. 

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

We’re having a moment in mental health, and we need to use it to challenge, push for sustainable funding, focus on preventative measures and end the stigma of mental illness. 

A recent conversation with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy gave us a glimpse into what’s at stake.

“There’s a crack in the door,” Murthy said recently at the American Council on Education Mental Health in Higher Education Roundtable. “We need to really blow that door open in terms of enabling the kind of conversations to happen about mental health that happen all the time about physical health … We have to find ways to model what it’s like to talk about our mental health, to help people understand that mental health is health. It’s part of our health — no less important than our physical health.”

Murthy said good mental health is not a side issue. It’s foundational to the well-being of our children and, well, all of us. Lumina Foundation has supported studies that reflect the urgency. 

A 2022 Lumina/Gallup State of Higher Education poll found that 71% of associate and bachelor’s degree students considering leaving college indicated that stress was the reason.

Not Covid. Not costs. Stress. 

That’s a more than 30 percentage point increase since the last report in 2020. It’s the No. 1 reason students cite when they are debating whether to stop out. This alone should be motivation enough to act now. This finding also helps us better understand and account for the nearly 1.3 million students who have left college without a degree since the start of the pandemic. 

At Lumina, we want to make sure all people — regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, or financial means — have better futures through education and training after high school. It’s this equity-first mission that guides our thinking on the topic of mental health in higher education.

Anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide are happening at higher rates than ever.

College students are struggling through formative years at a time of political polarization, civil unrest, racial reckoning, mass shootings and climate disasters. Any one of these would be enough to trigger anxiety and depression. Combined, the complexities of trauma have an explosive effect.

“Young people all across America, they tell me when I meet with them and talk to them that they look at the specter of violence and racism,” Murthy said. “They look at the threat of climate change. They look at the vitriol and polarization we have in society right now and legitimately ask the question: ‘Is a future really brighter than the past?’”

The temptation to look back a generation before social media and say young people are more tenderhearted today or are overreacting is shortsighted and deadly. Loneliness, brought on by a lack of meaningful connections, is driving depression on college campuses. No amount of grit and determination can overcome deep-seated trauma.

“What has happened, I worry, is that we have substituted lower-quality online relationships for higher-quality offline relationships,” Murthy said. “We are built and wired for human connection.”

All this calls for greater understanding. 

Murthy said we must use the moment to knock down barriers such as a lack of insurance and make care available where it’s needed most, including in neighborhood schools and college campuses. And we need to act fast.

He calls for “modeling” conversation about mental health. We must encourage people to talk about their mental health, just as they would discuss their physical health. We must have those conversations at work, on college campuses, and in our homes.

“We don’t have to be experts to do this. We can start by fostering those human connections,” the surgeon general said. “We can start by doing what the Beyond Differences program is doing now in schools across the country: recruiting and engaging young people and helping foster those connections, recognizing that other people are lonely in schools and on college campuses.”

The Beyond Differences program has students going out as ambassadors to try to reduce loneliness in their communities.

While the mental health crisis shows a shockingly steep and steady growth since the onset of COVID-19, the pandemic may also unleash the mountain of resources. 

It has forced us to look at access to care differently. We found new ways — generally through technology — to get physical and mental health checks. We took healthcare to people rather than people coming to healthcare. 

“One of the silver linings of COVID-19 is it forced us to use technology to deliver both physical and mental health care much more readily than we were doing before,” Murthy told university leaders. “But we can’t allow ourselves to regress to where things were back in 2019. We have to continue to use technology to make mental health care and counseling available to people. We’ve got to bring more and more counselors into our schools and universities,” he said.

We know our medical communities are not adequately diverse. Language barriers and cultural differences keep those living in the margins from getting the help they need.

This country tends to fund issues only once it reaches crisis mode, instead of providing sustained funding, Murthy said.

Preventative programs are cost-effective, and they work. But even the ones in place are not used as they should be, Murthy said. They require awareness campaigns, educational efforts, and funding. As we imagine a more inclusive and healthier higher education landscape, the future of our society rests in our ability and willingness to give students everything they need to experience the psychological safety it takes to learn, earn, and lead fulfilling lives.

“So, this is what we’re called to do right now,” Murthy said. “I think it’s eminently achievable because I’ve seen programs in communities all across America that are doing this for young people.”

We agree that today’s urgency of mental health may finally have met its moment. How we seize this opportunity will determine our trajectory as a nation.

Dive Brief:

• Colleges should identify which students are most likely to be caregivers and design policies to help minimize emotional and academic risks they face, according to research published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, a peer-reviewed academic journal.
• Researchers working with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill surveyed over 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students and found that 5.6% identified as caregivers. Specifically, 3.2% cared for someone who was chronically ill or aging, such as a parent or grandparent, and 2.9% cared for a minor, with some overlap between the two groups.
• Caregiving students were disproportionately women, graduate students, financial aid recipients and were enrolled part time. Students who said they cared for someone three to five days a week had lower GPAs on average, and the likelihood they would report anxiety and depressive symptoms rose the more hours per day they spend taking care of others.

Dive Insight:

As the U.S. population ages and the cost of care rises, the number of students who are also responsible for someone else's welfare is likely to increase exponentially, researchers wrote. Chronic health conditions associated with COVID-19 may also increase students’ caregiving responsibilities as time reveals the extent of the symptoms' severity and duration.

But outside of broad social services, North Carolina, the study's focus, does not currently have formal policies to support caregiving students at colleges, according to researchers. The U.S. doesn't formally recognize or support higher ed students who give care, they wrote.

Without systems in place to find and assist caregivers, that population of students can fall through the cracks, they wrote. Researchers held up their work as an example of how colleges could feasibly identify students who are caregivers using large-scale surveys.

"Given the institutional structures in place for tabulating and identifying students who could benefit from services, the addition of a measure of caregiving students to university-wide surveys would be a small first step," they wrote. 

Researchers sent out a campuswide survey in fall 2020, gathering responses from 7,592 undergraduate and graduate students. They then linked the results to verified institutional records, including records covering student demographics and academic performance. The 5.6% of respondents who identified as caregivers represent over 400 students.

Finding those caregivers could begin to address the unique challenges they face. Differences could be seen among students depending on the type of care they provided. 

Students tending to someone elderly or ill took more days per week to care for them, but students caring for children did so for more hours per day. Those caring for adults for three to five days per week reported experiencing higher levels of depression and anxiety compared to non-caregivers. Students taking care of a minor were not significantly tied to the same emotional challenges.

The average GPA among all surveyed students was 3.49. But the average GPA dropped to 3.09 and 3.38 for students caring for a minor or someone ill or aging, respectively.

Dive Brief:

• A vast majority of surveyed members of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics want to offer psychiatry services to their college athletes but don't. That's according to a report from Mantra Health, a virtual mental health startup focused on college students. 
• The NAIA represents small collegiate athletics programs across North America. Among respondents, the top five wished-for resources were mental health training for coaches and directors (90%), workshops on developing coping skills and building resilience (88%), mental health training for students (86%), a sports psychologist (70%), and therapist and walk-in hours (57%).
• The survey laid out four mental health focus areas for college athletic departments: staff training, awareness, cross-campus collaboration and dedicated funding.

Dive Insight:

Several college athletes died by suicide this spring, prompting calls for college and athletics leaders to do more to address mental health. The news increased the conversation around the unique mental health challenges the group faces.

These students are juggling multiple sets of expectations that are often more demanding than a full-time job, according to Elizabeth Jodoin, a clinical solutions consultant at Mantra Health.

"You always hear that they're students first. But they're still expected to be at all these practices and games between classes. It's super challenging," she said.

Many college athletes decide to hide emotional issues or deteriorating mental health out of concern their coaches will bench them, Jodoin said. That pressure piles on top of classwork and a general stigma around mental health challenges.

The NAIA survey, released July 11, covered more than 50 of the association's members. About two-thirds of those surveyed worked at private institutions. The NAIA spans 250 colleges with some 77,000 college athletes in total.

Balancing academic and athletic responsibilities was the top factor affecting college athlete mental health, according to athletic staffers who responded to the survey.

Half of respondents said their teams have access to a 24/7 mental health crisis hotline, and 44% said their teams offer telehealth services. 

Increasing flexible services offered outside of traditional working hours is crucial to college athletes, Jodoin said.

"Their schedules are always challenging because they're out of town for games. Often, a campus counseling center's 9-to-5 hours do not work great for them," she said.

If a college athlete does seek help but has a bad experience or is turned away due to limited availability, they may not return, according to the report. Their mental health can worsen as a result.

Having resources readily available to college athletes is crucial for mental health intervention, Jodoin said. She wasn't surprised by the lack of in-house psychiatric services the survey found.

"Sports medicine doctors are commonly the extent of who's on a department's staff, so the student would have to go out of their network to find that kind of help. It's a tough role to fill," she said.

Support from fellow college athletes is also a strong option, according to Jodoin. Only one in four survey respondents said their college offers support groups for their athletes.

"Peer-to-peer has traditionally worked really, really well for college students," she said. "Getting student-athletes involved directly and allowing them to be the ambassadors, would be a great place to start."

Some college athletes have sought out each other beyond their institutions. One college athlete support group run by The Hidden Opponent, an organization dedicated to mental health in sports, has almost 2,000 members.

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Last October, the counseling center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had a waitlist for the first time in 14 years. It would take a week before students could receive support.

The center’s solution was virtual.

"The university really leapt into action and found us a telehealth option to help expand our capacity quickly," said Avery Cook, interim director of counseling and psychological services at UNC-Chapel Hill. The center, which already employed 36 health professionals when fully staffed, saw the wait time disappear almost immediately, according to Cook.

This past June, the university signed its second contract with Uwill, a Massachusetts-based teletherapy company. The first agreement ran from October to the end of May, covering most of the traditional academic year. Some 166 students have used the service through UNC-Chapel Hill since mid-October.

The renewal runs through November, giving students the option of teletherapy during summer break. Students are eligible to access all of the counseling center's services, including its remote mental health services, without enrolling in class and paying the university's summer semester health fee.

More and more, colleges are turning to outsourced telehealth services as a way to offer counseling support to students even when class is out of session.

Shasta College is one of 20 California community colleges that launched a 24/7 telehealth option for students this spring. The college had previously offered remote health services with its in-house staff, consisting of a psychological counselor and a nurse. But two people could only do so much and were limited by traditional business hours, according to Sandra Hamilton Slane, the dean of student services at Shasta.

"Let's face it, students don't just stress and have needs during the work hours," Slane said.

For its 24/7 remote mental health services, Shasta contracts with another telehealth firm, the Texas-based TimelyMD. The program was initiated by the Foundation for California Community Colleges. 

Some 37% of California students on TimelyMD used its services outside of regular counseling center hours in 2021, according to the company.

"A lot of institutions are noticing that their students want more access to mental health care and to support in general," said Seli Fakorzi, director of mental health operations at TimelyMD. She joined the company in 2021, after it saw a huge spike in interest in mental health.

Prior to the pandemic, the vast majority of students who used TimelyMD used it for medical assistance for physical ailments, and only 10% of students sought mental health services. Now, 75% of students are looking for counseling services, with 60,000 mental health visits in the last 12 months, according to the company.

"Not every student is in a moment of crisis. Some just need someone to talk to. It's preventative care too," Fakorzi said.

Students’ needs don't go on break

Students' need for counseling services doesn't go away when they leave campus for break, and Shasta students can still use TimelyMD through the college over the summer.

"If they were registered in the spring or they're registered for next fall, they'll be able to access these services," Slane said.

Since the program began, around 170 students have enrolled in the service and 50 have accessed counseling services, at a cost to the college of about $100,000 a year, Slane said. Shasta enrolled just over 8,000 students in 2020, according to federal data.

Slane's office is working to enroll students preemptively, rather than trying to walk them through the process remotely when they urgently need help. Telehealth options are actively promoted to students during class registration and on the college's virtual bulletin board.

“What I try to tell students is the time to get enrolled and register with a network is not when you're in crisis,” Slane said. “It can be overwhelming. You want to have easy access at your fingertips when you need it most.”

For Slane, a big selling point was the large number of counselors from diverse backgrounds available to Shasta students at any given time.

"With only a small staff on campus, we represent just a handful of cultural backgrounds," she said. "This way, students could have choices about meeting with someone whose experience better matches their own, regarding gender identities, racial and ethnic background, things like that."

Counselors can also remotely connect students to basic needs support that can help cover things like food and housing assistance, transit support and bill payments.

The University of Virginia rolled out a similar partnership with TimelyMD in September. Any student who paid the college's mandatory health fee has immediate access to teletherapy regardless of the time of year, in addition to the counseling center's traditional mental health offerings. The university has had some 3,500 mental health visits through the service since the around-the-clock option was launched, according to Fakorzi.

Columbus State Community College, in Ohio, also contracted with Uwill to expand its counseling options and to work to break down the stigma around therapy.

"We're hoping that the use of this platform, with its multiple modalities, will help," said Diana Wisse, senior director of student affairs at Columbus State. "Students don't have to walk into an office space. We're still here to help with that if they want in person, but now there's another option."

Because community colleges often serve nontraditional students, Wisse said that any student who has recently been enrolled at Columbus State can access its telehealth services. If an individual typically takes classes in the spring and summer while taking the fall semester off, they will still be eligible during that time, she said.

Not the answer for everyone

The increased interest in telehealth on campuses has received some pushback from college workers who say it is overshadowing students’ need for more in-person counseling services. Critics have also said that outsourcing mental health services risks funneling students to service providers who don't understand them.

Remote therapy is best when it serves as another tool for educators and students, instead of as a replacement for what's already there, said Amy Powell, director of campus engagement and student affairs at Uwill.

"Teletherapy isn't the answer for everybody," said Powell, who previously served as Duke University's vice dean of students. "It's absolutely a great solution for the majority of students, but it’s an expansion to college campus services."

At UNC-Chapel Hill, teletherapy is meant to be an additional option for students and not the solution for every problem, according to Cook.

"We think of it as a model of therapy that is hyper-focused on an issue that can be treated in a brief period of time," Cook said. 

While there's no limit on the number of sessions a student can participate in, telehealth is meant to treat situational challenges, rather than chronic issues, she said.

"We have referral coordinators that help folks connect with open-ended therapy, be it in-person or via telehealth," Cook said. "Our goal is to make sure we get whatever mental health needs students have taken care of."

At Columbus State, teletherapy is part of what Wisse called a holistic approach to student health.

The college created the Department of Student Wellbeing during the pandemic and, beginning this summer, the department will offer well-being coaching. The program will expand in the fall, when peer-to-peer coaching will launch.

"It's a proactive way of reaching out to students to work on an issue," Wisse said.

UNC-Chapel Hill, Shasta and Columbus State all indicated an interest in maintaining the 24/7 telehealth services after the point when the pandemic is no longer considered a national health emergency.

"We want to meet our students where they are," Wisse said. "Many are parents, caregivers. They work full-time jobs or even multiple jobs. We want to be able to provide services and hours that are good for them."

Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Department of Education in May urged colleges to use federal coronavirus relief money to help remedy student and employee mental health challenges, which it said have been exacerbated by the pandemic.  
• The department published guidance outlining potential ways to use federal aid to address these issues, such as starting up crisis hotlines or suicide prevention programs. 
• Institutions can also invest the funding into support for basic needs, such as food and housing. A lack of basic needs heavily contributes to poor mental health, the agency said. 

Dive Insight:

Congress earmarked about $76 billion in coronavirus relief for colleges across three spending packages. The most recent piece of legislation was President Joe Biden’s hallmark American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021, which set aside about $40 billion for colleges.

While colleges could use some of this funding to defray institutional costs related to the pandemic, they needed to apply a portion to directly help students.

The Education Department has touted wide-ranging potential uses for the money. In January, it also said it would send an extra $198 million in American Rescue Plan funding to community colleges and institutions in rural areas with high numbers of low-income students. 

How colleges spent the money has been the subject of keen interest — the federal government requires them to report this information quarterly and annually. 

The announcement highlights opportunities for spending the funding that colleges may not have considered. 

It drew attention to mental health-related programs colleges have stood up with the federal aid. 

University of California, Riverside, added “24/7 crisis support” for staff who remained on campus during the pandemic. 

Sinclair Community College, in Ohio, hired a new social worker who worked with more than 380 students in fall 2021. 

And University of Texas at San Antonio expanded telehealth significantly, ensuring all-day online counseling for in-need students.  

“If there is one thing I’ve heard while speaking with college students throughout the nation, it’s been the need for greater mental health supports on campus,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “We must make sure our colleges and universities have the tools and resources to help students, faculty, and staff heal from the grief, trauma, and anxiety they endured amid the pandemic."

A few years ago, Butler University launched a wellness initiative called BU Be Well, which focuses on several pillars, including finding one's meaning and purpose, engaging in lifelong learning and finding harmony in relationships. 

The roughly 5,500-student private nonprofit university in Indianapolis is in good company. Universities nationwide — from George Mason University in Virginia to the University of California, Los Angeles — have launched efforts to increase student and employee well-being. 

The efforts take many forms. Some are simple, such as having napping pods on campus and hosting yoga classes to encourage physical activity. Others are more involved, like centralizing or bolstering an institution's mental health services. 

More recently, Butler has set its sights on ramping up these types of services by launching the Institute for Well-Being. 

The BU Be Well initiative paved the way for the institute's creation, said Josh Downing, the institute's co-executive director. 

"It started to gain national recognition," Downing said. "We started to get contacted by a number of universities asking, 'How are you doing this? Can you explain this? Can you help us?'"

The institute will have four services: helping colleges and businesses conduct surveys to assess their initiatives, offering an online credential for well-being practitioners, consulting with institutions to implement well-being efforts, and engaging with community organizations.

The institute is starting with the first service by launching the Student Well-being Institutional Support Survey, or SWISS. It's designed to capture students' thoughts about how well they think their institutions support their well-being. Roughly 20 colleges have administered the survey so far. 

Higher Ed Dive spoke to Downing and Bridget Yuhas, the institute's other co-executive director, to learn more about SWISS and well-being trends on campus. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

HIGHER ED DIVE: Can you tell me about the work of the institute? 

JOSH DOWNING: We've been working on this for a couple years now, and really where it stems from is thinking about health. In higher education as a whole, there's the need to commit and focus on well-being from a holistic perspective for campuses. Back in 2018, NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators came together and released a commitment statement, basically saying that very thing: that if we, universities, commit to a holistic well-being, it will lead to student success. 

Why did the university launch a survey to assess the effectiveness of well-being initiatives?

BRIDGET YUHAS: We had this great well-being initiative, BU Be Well, and we needed to learn a little bit more about its influence on students and even just if students knew what it was and understood well-being. In the interest of finding that out, we did a number of smaller surveys. 

In order to get the most actionable information for folks working with students and building resources, we realized we needed to find out from students how well we were doing. We needed to ask students if we were supporting them in the ways they needed. 

What were some of the things you found out when you used that survey on your own students? Did it result in changes to your well-being initiatives? 

YUHAS: We were able to get more folks to tailor their work to the data. For example, we found out that students, when you look at the average, felt like we didn't do a great job of supporting them if they wanted to find out about better nutrition. But I happen to know the nutritionist on campus, and she's awesome, so I was really surprised by that finding. 

We broke it out by a bunch of student characteristics and found out that first-year students definitely feel supported in learning about better nutrition and seeking out those resources. But as students moved on through their years of Butler, that fell off completely. Our nutritionist was able to take that information and tailor her outreach to get to some of the older students, the fraternities and sororities, and off-campus housing, to make sure that they also knew that she was available to help them. In that way, it really helped her to be a little bit more targeted and efficient with her work. 

You also piloted the survey at other institutions. What were some of the results from that phase? Did participating institutions end up tweaking their own well-being initiatives or are they still parsing through that data? 

YUHAS: They're in different spots. One institution took the information and broke it out by commuter students versus residential students because they really were interested in focusing on how they can better support students living off campus. A university system that administered the survey is looking at well-being and how it differs by campus location, what students are saying they need at the various campuses, and how as a system they can look at where resources are allocated to meet those needs. We've had other institutions that were really surprised by the basic needs information that came out, so we're working to address those in various ways. 

Being able to break out the findings by race or ethnicity has been really helpful for institutions. When I send my reports back to the schools, I include overall frequencies and percentages, as well as a breakout by students' self-identified race and ethnicity. 

The schools don't even have to make that effort. They have that information right there, which I think is really important in terms of making sure that we're really disaggregating the data. The average can hide a lot.

Do you anticipate that the institute will be a major revenue producer for the university a few years down the road? 

YUHAS: That's definitely not our focus. We're not going to be an auxiliary or look to be a profit-generating part of the organization. We are charging for our costs. 

What will the fees be for colleges that want to administer the survey? 

YUHAS: It'll be $2,500 total — a $500 registration fee and then $2,000 for administration. That's for any campus, it doesn't matter the size or how many students they're surveying. It's a flat rate. 

What lies ahead for the institute? What are some of your top goals for 2022? 

DOWNING: Much like we piloted SWISS, we are going to highlight the consulting services aspect here the first year. As these institutions get results back from SWISS — whether they're on their way with a well-being initiative on their campus or they're looking just to get started — we know we should follow that up with the consulting services. That will be something that we want to pilot so we can help those institutions take the data to action.

Dive Brief:

• Students most frequently cited mental health as an aspect of their lives that has been negatively impacted by the pandemic, according to a survey by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State University.
• This was true for all but one of the 38 demographics the researchers tracked, even though only a third of students were seeking counseling for pandemic-related reasons. 
• LGBTQ and nonbinary students, along with students of color, reported higher rates of disruption from the pandemic than their peers.

Dive Insight:

The data was gathered from more than 47,000 students entering treatment at one of 143 college counseling centers in fall 2020, offering a snapshot of how the pandemic is affecting campus communities broadly. 

Students were asked whether the pandemic is negatively impacting 12 areas of their lives, including academics, mental health and relationships. That information was broken down across nine demographic characteristics, including gender identity and sexual orientation as well as whether the student was first-generation or had a disability.

The findings highlight which student groups are most adversely affected by the pandemic.

Transgender men and nonbinary individuals were significantly more likely than their peers to say the pandemic has negatively affected them across a range of factors, including mental health, academics, motivation or focus, and loneliness or isolation.

Students surveyed who are bisexual, questioning, pansexual, lesbian or queer reported negative impacts on factors including their mental health, motivation or focus, loneliness and academics at higher rates than those who are heterosexual/straight. 

And students who are Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and American Indian or Alaskan Native, were most likely to report harm to their mental health. Students in these two groups, along with those who are African American/Black, reported the highest rates of grief or loss. COVID-19 is killing people who are Black, Hispanic or Latino, or from Indigenous communities at the highest rates.

The prevalence of mental health concerns across demographics meant colleges should be "actively preparing" to support these needs in the coming year, the researchers wrote. In particular, they note, colleges should consider how to help students with minority identities when developing support services, as the data shows that they are most negatively impacted by the pandemic.

At least initially, the pandemic made accessing healthcare more difficult for many students. Counseling centers have tried to make their services available virtually. But challenges remain for students, including poor internet access and a lack of privacy to attend sessions. 

Centers were struggling with capacity issues before the pandemic began, when CCMH notes demand for their services was growing.

The coronavirus is taking a toll on students' mental health, and colleges are turning to virtual services to help learners cope during the pandemic. 

Experts say students may be struggling with feelings of isolation and heightened anxiety from economic hardship and unknowns about the virus. In turn, already-strained counseling centers are seeing or expecting increased demand.

But colleges should carefully evaluate virtual services and consider their limitations, according to one guide.

The pandemic is taxing Americans' mental health, including that of college students. In a survey of more than 45,000 students attending public research universities, roughly one-third screened positive for major depressive disorder and 39% screened positive for generalized anxiety disorder. 

These disorders were higher among women, students of color, and low-income and LGBT students, as well as student caregivers and those who didn't adapt well to remote instruction, according to the survey, which was conducted between May and July of 2020. 

Moreover, around 60% of students in a separate survey said the pandemic has made it harder to access mental healthcare. That survey covered nearly 19,000 students and was conducted between March and May of 2020. A higher share of students also reported their mental health harmed their academic performance during the spring of 2020 than the fall of 2019. 

Students may be struggling with feelings of isolation while on campus, experts said. "It's not what they signed up for," said Stephen Wonderlich, vice president for research at Sanford Health-Fargo. "A lot of time, their socializing is limited, their eating locations are limited (and) their classrooms are limited."

With the coronavirus hindering in-person services, colleges are turning to virtual offerings to help students with their mental health. Several colleges, for example, are providing students with apps to access mental health services or contracting with teletherapy providers. 

And some schools are looking to help students struggling with their finances. Low-income students were dropping out of college at a higher rate than usual during fall 2020, The Washington Post reported. 

InsideTrack, a student services nonprofit, used $500,000 in grants to launch an emergency coaching network for up to 5,000 college students who are experiencing pandemic-related challenges, such as mental health issues or financial hardship.

Large increases in the use of InsideTrack's crisis support services prompted the nonprofit to develop the new offering. "Prior to COVID, a large portion of the college-going population was affected by basic needs issues," said Dave Jarrat, InsideTrack's senior vice president of strategic engagement and growth. "(The pandemic) has deepened that problem for folks who were already experiencing it, and it has widened the problem."

Up to 10 colleges will also receive staff training from InsideTrack on coaching students through challenging situations. 

Meanwhile, the College of Charleston is teaming up with the nearby Medical University of South Carolina to bolster its mental health services

During the initiative's first year, College of Charleston students will have access to the university's 24/7 urgent care platform, as well as telepsychiatry and in-person psychiatry services. The university will also assess the college's healthcare services and recommend ways it can improve.

Other schools are spearheading mental health initiatives they hope will benefit their surrounding communities. The University of North Dakota, for instance, teamed up with Sanford Health to create a series of free online education modules to help people cope with common mental health issues tied to the pandemic.