College and university centers for mental health care have long been the leaders in higher education in addressing student mental health and well-being needs. Established in the 1930s, counseling centers have shifted from offering individual “guidance” to providing cutting-edge, life-saving treatments and interventions, and campus-wide, public health interventions critical to student academic success. This evolution of counseling centers has also resulted in a significant increase in the intensity and severity of presenting issues, largely related to significant stigma reduction, education and awareness campaigns, and overall greater access to higher education. As demand for services has increased, resources have been outmatched. Greater access to higher education has also resulted in increased student diversity on campus requiring culturally-competent interventions and responses. Given the outpaced resources on campuses, private companies attempt to capitalize on the lucrative aspects of campus mental health care and sell supplemental services to augment, and in some cases, completely replace current resources. These for-profit efforts are sometimes at odds with student and campus needs.
While the increase in focus and attention to mental health is a welcome change, it also means that mental health care, vision, and purpose are increasingly defined by administrators and non-collegiate mental health professionals, often excluding the insight of campus mental health care staff. Directors are middle managers serving the competing needs of administrators and the mental health care staff. Directors strive to meet administrative expectations of providing cost-efficient services with decreasing budgets in the context of increasing mental health severity is challenging. They also serve the staff providing mental health care, who are frustrated, and at times overwhelmed by high demand, high acuity, and diminishing resources, leading to an exodus from the higher education field for settings with higher pay and greater flexibility. Highly experienced directors are also leaving for other opportunities or retiring, resulting in vacuums of institutional and professional knowledge, wisdom, and expertise. Looking forward, it is imperative that college mental health professionals are centered on visioning the future. College mental health professionals must be the leaders in shaping the future of mental health and well-being in higher education and disseminate that vision to administrators, and colleagues entering the field.
This special issue presents an opportunity for college mental health professionals to use their experience, expertise, and insight to discuss the future of college student mental health.
