College
Campus Suicide Epidemic
Introduction
Going off to college is one of the
most exciting and scary experiences a young adult can endure. Parents who have
sent their child to a university have their concerns of partying, alcohol, and
drugs, but they don’t ever think that the “college life” can end in suicide.
Suicide amongst young adults aged between 18-25 years is the second leading
cause of death. With these numbers rising every year, colleges and universities
need to be producing effective programs to help prevent these suicide epidemics
amongst their students, because no parent wants to receive that heartbreaking
call.
History
The most common factors of suicide
is depression, hopelessness, substance abuse, loneliness, and lack of a support
system (Chesin and Jeglic 30). The rate of college students taking their own
lives has tripled since the 1950’s (Lucier 1). “Childhood physical and sexual
abuse significantly correlate with attempted suicide years later” (Bridgeland 63). Once children leave the “nest”
they begin to recall moments and events that happened in his childhood, during
grade school, or in his past living situation, causing him to develop a mild
case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Chesin and Jeglic 30). As young adults
they most likely experienced, or still experience sexual abuse, bullying,
losing someone close to them, and have lived with the constant feeling of not
meeting expectations set by others. Most students want to go off to
universities to get fresh starts. They think that being placed in a new
environment will help them start over and forget about where they came from or
what happened in their past.
The stress of college is another
huge contributor to rate of suicide throughout college campuses. Eight out of
ten students suffer from stress emotionally and physically (Applebury 1). The
biggest concern of stress amongst these students is the risk of suicidal
thoughts and attempts (1). Universities and colleges are high stress
environments due to classes, studying, grades, finances, and social activities.
Large amounts of stress has been proven to intensify pre-existing mental health
issues, leading to “95 percent of student suicides to be caused by anxiety and
depression due to stress” (1).
Examples
Students who are considered
“perfectionists” are the ones who are most risk for suicide when placed on a
college campus (Caval 1). Recently graduated high school students who ended
with a perfect or almost perfect GPA usually go to a university where other
students were similarly successful. Students there was in the top of their
class in high school making the campus extremely competitive. This can lead to
extreme amounts of stress to stay on top. Madison Holleran experienced this
amount of stress that led to her death on January 17, 2014 (1). Holleran was a
freshman at Pennsylvania State University and ran for its track and field team
(1). She was the perfect example of young adult who seemed to have it all
together (1). She was beautiful, smart, athletic, and popular on campus (1).
What everyone did not know was that she was strugglingimmensely with trying to keep up with her high school
“reputation” (1). Her father saw
dramatic changes in his daughter a couple of weeks before her death and
stated, “I believe stress is the cause of my daughter’s death” (1). Madison
Holleran felt that she could not live up to her parents and her own
expectations for herself. From personal experience this is a very common
feeling for a college freshman and can lead to thoughts of not being good
enough or that there is no way that you can ever come out successful.
Going into a new environment in
hopes of having a fresh start does not always happen for a person. The hopes of
being able to start over and get away from whatever happened to a student
before he moved onto a college campus can either end in them getting their
hopes up or it can be the best decision he could have ever made for himself. A
second chance was the reason Alex Jacome went to Tarleton State University
right out of high school. He had hoped to get away from his homelife of where
he was so used to hearing, “you will never amount to anything” from his mother
on a regular basis. He hoped that Tarleton would give him the opportunity to
make something of himself and to get into the movie producing industry after
graduation. My friend, Alex Jacome passed away in his dorm room March 2, 2017
from a sleeping pill overdose. We had no warning of what was about to happen.
Days later the information that he was failing his classes came to the surface.
He felt that he had failed himself and had proven that his mother was right
about him all along. Alex also knew that he was going to have to move back into
that house after the semester was over, because he was going to lose his
scholarship. Hemade the decision that he would rather not be a part of this
life than go back into that home and situation again. The fear of going right
back where he had come from, and the feeling of hopelessness, is what killed
Alex Jacome.
Solutions
Over the last five to ten years,
universities have been trying to develop suicide prevention programs to help
with this epidemic, but are they effective? For many universities there is an
on campus counselor or therapist that is included in the student’s tuition. Sounds
good, right? The downside of this
prevention program is that the tuition only covers the cost of a certain number
of sessions. Tarleton State University only allows five sessions by their on
campus counselor with no extra charge. After the five sessions are over they
refer you to an off campus therapist or counselor. The university then is not
liable to follow up on the student to see if they are continuing treatment or
not due to FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) (The JED
Foundation 21). If a student is recommended to the counseling center by a third
party such as a peer or a professor, the counseling center does not have the
right to make an appointment for the student; it has to be done on his/her own
time (21). FERPA is a way for students to be able to go to school and have a
sense of privacy from faculty and from their families, but if a student is in
danger of a mental illness the school should be allowed to contact their
families to make sure the correct actions are taken. Alex Jacome is an example
of what happens when schools only allow a limited number of counseling sessions
and do not contact families with concerns. Alex took advantage of the five free
sessions and then when they were used up he could not afford togo see an off campus professional. If he was allowed more
than 5 sessions then maybe he would have been able to overcome his struggles.
When first year or transfer students
are admitted into a university, the faculty and staff should hold suicide
prevention training. The training should include recognizing signs from other
students and in themselves, and they should be trained on where to go for help.
There are a handfuls of schools, like Ohio State University, are doing these
trainings during orientation for incoming freshman and transfer students.
Before the school started these trainings, only 12.6% of students agreed that
they were educated on suicide prevention in 2007 (Wallace 1). After the school
made the training mandatory for all students the numbers rose to 51.8% in 2014
(1). "We're listening
because there's so much student distress out there and we know from the
research ... two-thirds of the
students, when they're really struggling, they don't go to campus mental health
professionals or faculty or even their parents. They go to each other” (1).
Students being trained on this topic will help them be able to help each other,
which is hopefully the outcome of these trainings. By looking at the numbers,
all universities and colleges should have mandatory trainings nationwide to
help decrease the number of on campus student suicides.
Absurdity
Albert
Camus is a famous and well known absurd fiction author. His stories mainly
focus on one question, “Is life really worth living?” (Sineokov 1). It is
probably the same question that struggling college students ask themselves.
Camus believes that suicide is the one truly serious philosophical problem (1).
He wants his readers to see the question of suicide as a natural response to
the absurd world (1). College campuses are a world of their own; they give
students the idea of the real world
without officially entering the real world. Some would say that universities
are full of absurdity. Camus believes that living day by day with a schedule
and just getting by everyday is not living (1). Camus would agree that a
college student’s life is not worth living, because it is not truly living.
Conclusion
Going
to a university to further your education is great when it comes to achieving
life goals. As a society we need to educate ourselves on preventing suicide
especially with students. College is stressful and can be overwhelming, but it
should not be overwhelming to the point that it is not worth it. With the right
stress and time management, and increased on campus counseling, students could
go to school to succeed and not worry about surviving this time in their lives.
With suicide prevention training and students helping other students we could
help control this increasing epidemic.
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