More students bring troubles to college

Directors of college counseling centers have felt for years that many students are coming to college burdened by a more complicated array of psychological challenges. Now those counselors' hunches have been validated by a scientific study.

A team of five researchers at Kansas State University, led by psychologist Sherry Benton, studied 13 years of archival data on students coming to a Midwestern university's counseling center. The researchers were looking for trends in the nature and severity of students' problems over time, as revealed by the therapists report at the end of therapy.

In all, they looked at reports on 13,257 student-clients who sought personal counseling. Using an index of symptoms established and used by center counselors since 1988, the researchers were able to track what problems the student population presented. Examples of the problems included relationship issues, depression, physical problems and personality disorders. Up until 1994, the researchers noted, relationship issues were the number one reported problem. After that year, stress/anxiety problems moved into first place as the reason for students seeking help, and it has stayed there ever since.

Of greater concern to counselors, however, is the growth in complexity of the problems students present: thoughts of suicide, the effect of sexual assault, personality disorders. The number of students suffering from depression doubled during the period studied; suicidal students tripled and victims of sexual assault quadrupled. Other problems, such as substance abuse, eating disorders, legal problems and chronic mental illness, presented themselves at stable levels over the course of the period.

At the same time that students' problems have grown more complex, the context for providing counseling services has changed. The cost-conscious effects of managed care led to a change in policy, the researchers note, from "little attention to the number of sessions each client received during the early years of the study to focusing on brief therapy, particularly from 1993 to 1995 and continuing through the latter years." Another change was in the use of medication to treat problems.

These shifts hold implications for college and university counseling centers as well as the campus community, say the researchers. First, counselors must be trained to face more complicated situations. They also need to be oriented to call upon resources outside the therapist-client relationship and beyond the counseling center. Finally, counselors need more training in crisis intervention and in dealing with trauma.

The study is Changes in Counseling Center Client Problems Across 13 Years, with Sherry A. Benton serving as principal author. It appears in the February issue of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, published by the American Psychological Association (www.apa.org).

Public college students face cost shift

Students who have the misfortune of coming to college now, as states reel from one of the worst economic pictures in decades, face a triple whammy of financial obstacles. State support of public higher education has dropped sharply, tuition and fees are soaring and, in many states, financial aid is being cut as much or more than the percentage increase in tuition.

A report, College Affordability in Jeopardy, released in February by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education shows what has happened state by state to public tuition and fees, state appropriations for higher education, state student financial aid and personal income for fiscal years 2002 and 2003. The national trend is a cost shift. "The states are responding to the budget crisis by passing major cuts on to colleges and universities--and colleges and universities are responding to these reductions by passing on the cost to students and families," says Patrick M. Callan, president of NCPPHE.

As AFT On Campus went to press, for example, at public four-year colleges and universities, 16 states have increased tuition and fees by more than 10 percent. Massachusetts had the largest increase--24 percent, followed by Missouri, Iowa and Texas at 20 percent and North Carolina at 19 percent. The picture only worsens, as states like New York consider a tuition hike of 35 percent.

At public two-year colleges, 10 states have increased tuition and fees by more than 10 percent.

At the same time, many states have been disinvesting in student aid. The worst case is Massachusetts, where the 24 percent tuition increase is framed against a 24 percent decrease in student financial aid. In Illinois, public four-year college tuition went up 9 percent, while the state cut financial aid by 10 percent. All told, only 14 states increased their financial aid spending by more than 10 percent, while 17 have decreased it.

"The cumulative effect is a major assault on college affordability," says Callan. "This comes at a time when unemployment is high, personal income is basically flat, and college-level education and training is a requirement for most well-paying jobs."

The report can be downloaded at www.highereducation.org.