Why I Must Leave Higher Ed
This mental health contagion is too heavy for my pay grade.
David found me in the hallway eight minutes before the last class of the semester. I was surprised to see him, given that I hadn’t seen him in class since the beginning of November.
“Can I talk to you about my grade?”
Most college professors know this story. Since students can easily monitor their grades through the campus portal, their grade going into finals week usually isn’t a surprise.
However, some students will approach their professors a week or two before finals to see if there is a way for them to make up the work they neglected for most of the term. By then, it’s too late to make a difference.
When David came to my office later, he acknowledged he had slipped up…again. It wasn’t like he had an excuse, such as an issue with his family or his health.
Two students approached me at the beginning of the term advising me they were struggling with their fathers’ recent deaths. Another student had to be quarantined for a week because of COVID exposure. No, David didn’t have an excuse.
It’s not like he struggles with deadlines because he interns in broadcast television. He does good work when he decides to do it. I like him as a person.
When he broke down in my office, the thick energy of his shame choked me. I spent the entire hour trying to calm him down. I was no longer his professor. I was his therapist.
After he left, I spent the next three hours in my office alone trying to undo the heavy emotional outpouring. Thank God that Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert post their opening monologues on YouTube. I knew I couldn’t get any actual work done.
My doctoral program didn’t prepare me to be a therapist, but after more than 20 years in higher education, I think I have enough clinical hours to have a master’s degree in counseling.
Struggling every term
It wasn’t always like this. Years ago, students would often talk about being “stressed out,” but they got through it. They were able to contain these stressors for a short while then let them go after the term. When a new semester began, they’d start with a fresh dose of enthusiasm.
Over the years, though, the weight of student anxiety and depression has become heavier on college campuses. From 2007 to 2017, rates of treatment for U.S. college students increased from 22 percent to 36 percent. That’s a shift from 1 out of 5 to 1 out of 3 students. That also doesn’t include students, like David, who struggle with their mental health but don’t receive help.
Nowadays, rather than shrug off their college stress at the end of the term, students carry it with them into the next term. It continues to build, and they never have a chance to truly start a new term with new resolve.
Perhaps they might start the term with fresh hope, but it doesn’t take long for the heaviness to set in.
They struggle each day while their cohorts tend to their studies. They are continually playing catch up because their mental illness won’t let them move ahead.
How can an educational institution prepare a student for life when a student’s mental illness won’t allow for it?
I’ve had several students with severe mental illness negotiate elaborate 504 plans to allow for excessive absences and weeklong extensions for projects. One student’s therapist emailed me the day her patient’s term paper was due (10 days after the due date for the other students) asking for an additional extension.
How can an educational institution prepare a student for life when a student’s mental illness won’t allow for it? Aren’t we just passing them through the system, taking their money, then sending them off unprepared to manage their lives?
Taking time off
When a student’s mental health overwhelms them to the point of immobilization, I’ve suggested for them to take a medical withdrawal. It’s better for them to manage their mental health without the added stress of college exams, projects, and deadlines.
Research shows that the college dropout rate for those struggling with mental illness can range between 43 percent to 86 percent. What we don’t consider is how that affects the economic status of the student. If the student spends two years at a college struggling in classes, perhaps the GPA isn’t very good.
If the student decides to transfer to another institution to finish the degree, the student will have to pay off the tuition owed to the former institution. One of my friends spent many years in debt unable to pay back loans for the one year of college she had. It wouldn’t be until she reached her 30s that she could afford to go back to get her degree.
Refusing available help
Students aren’t taking good care of their mental health. They aren’t asking for the available help. Because they’re pressured by their family or their financial situation, they continue holding their heavy emotional baggage and struggle through their education. For this student, his baggage was his pride for having to repeat my class with his younger cohorts.
After playing counselor to my student, I managed to calm him down enough to advise him to go to the counseling center, which had “drop-in” hours from 1–2. I told him to get something to eat then walk over to the center.
He didn’t go.
Although college campuses provide resources for students struggling with their mental health, students aren’t using them enough. Instead, they turn to people they know — their professors.
Weighing down professors
Although many students struggling mentally and emotionally will leave my office, they leave behind a heavy emotional and mental contagion. I might be the one professor they see, but they’re not the only student I see.
For years, I enjoyed my relationships with students as a mentor. Many would come into my office sharing their joys and victories. I celebrate with them the successes they share on LinkedIn and Facebook.
I’ve tried to compartmentalize the emotional contagion, leaving it at the office. But it sinks deep into my sinews and I have to take it home with me. Last night I spent an hour trying to dig out all the emotional overwhelm.
And I wake up this morning and say this: I’m done.
I don’t have all the answers. I don’t pretend to. I can’t heal these students’ anxiety or depression, but I can heal myself by leaving this career.
Perhaps eventually we will come up with a new model of education — one that is more holistic and addresses emotional and mental health much earlier in a student’s life. This current model of education — one that allows students to barely get by — isn’t working. It’s hurting them, it’s hurting society, but most of all, it’s hurting me.
