The Campus Suicide Crisis

Your email has been sent.

Thanks for recommending The Daily Beast!

X Close

Tuesday's tragic death at NYU was the latest in a rash of student suicides. Kathleen Kingsbury on why it's so hard for colleges to prevent their kids from killing themselves.

By all accounts, few would have predicted that New York University junior Andrew Williamson-Noble would have apparently ended his life by leaping from a 10th floor balcony at the main campus library in the early hours of November 3. Friends and classmates described the 20-year-old Irvington, New York, native as happy and cheerful. Professors spoke of a talented student.

In the wake of the tragedy, students and faculty expressed incredulity over how anyone with such a bright future could be so troubled. “The impulse for self-harm—particularly among young men and women with so much talent and so much to live for—is incomprehensible to me,” wrote school president John Sexton in an email to the NYU community.

“Many students who may not have even gone to college five to ten years ago are able to attend because they can control their mental illness with counseling and medication.”

Suicides on college campuses have been declining now for three decades, but a new array of factors unique to today’s college campuses could be exacerbating efforts to combat such deaths. Student suicides still total some 1,100 a year nationwide, making suicide the second leading cause of death among college students after motor-vehicle accidents. The Jed Foundation, a New York City-based college suicide-prevention program, estimates that one in ten college students has considered taking his or her own life. So it would be no surprise if, in the wake of Williamson-Noble’s death, administrators at NYU and across the country are asking themselves: Are we doing enough?

Such fears may also be heightened by the fact that many campuses have seen a recent surge in students seeking mental health services. The 2009 National Survey of Counseling Directors, conducted by the University of Pittsburgh, found that 94 percent of directors reported an increase in students with severe psychological conditions, including depression, eating disorders, and drug and alcohol addictions. In addition, 91 percent believe a greater number of students are arriving on campus already taking psychiatric medications.

The increasing use of such drugs means that more students with psychological problems are now able to keep themselves functional enough to make their way onto college campuses. “Many students who may not have even gone to college five to ten years ago are able to attend because they can control their mental illness with counseling and medication,” says Anna Scheyett, a clinical professor of social work at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who researches campus mental health crises interventions. Though it should be noted that while this causes additional worries for school administrators, being at school may offer students a certain protection as well, as young adults not attending college are nearly twice as likely to commit suicide than those enrolled.

But schools have long been forced to walk a fine line when it comes to how best to help such students. Some, worried about liability suits, have, in the past, overreacted, sending potentially suicidal students home and even banning them from campus.

On the other hand, moving too quickly can infringe on federal disability laws. New York City’s Hunter College, for instance, agreed in 2006 to pay $65,000 to settle such a case. Plus, the U.S. Department of Education has warned at least a handful of schools that they might be in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which also protects people with mental illness. Add in privacy rights that limit when mental health professionals can notify parents about red flags, and many in academia often feel that their hands are tied beyond simply urging struggling students to visit campus counseling centers.

View as Single Page