Mental Health on Campus

In the past ten years at KU there has been an increase of over 300% of students requesting accommodations for Mental Health diagnoses – a 60% increase in the last two years. These are just the students requesting help with schooling, we know that the numbers of students who don’t request academic accommodations make these numbers even larger than what they appear to be. In Douglas county, suicide is the second highest leading cause of death, half of the residents experiencing a mental health diagnosis do so by the age of 14, almost 4,000 people have visited the emergency room for a mental health related emergency in the past 4 years and over 220 people call the local suicide prevention hotline each month according the Douglas County Behavioral Health website. Students come from across the globe to get an education from the University of Kansas, so it is important to look at the same numbers nationally as well as globally to fully understand the breadth of need. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the leading mental health organization in the United States, 50% of college students experience a mental health crisis, change, or challenge and of those 50% of students, 65% will drop out due to the mental health change according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Reasons for this could be the lack of support for students, the lack of resources for faculty, the stigmas associated on campus, and the lack of community supports and resources available. This website will serve as a catch all page for resources, supports, policy, guides, and information meant to serve all populations at the University of Kansas’s seven campuses – including the loved ones of those experiencing these changes. Any recommendations on expansions or additional resources should be sent to the KU ADA Resource Center for Equity and Accessibility.