This guest post was written by Sean Madden. He is the President of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA), an organization that represents over 145,000 full-time and part-time students. He is also the Vice-President (University Affairs) at the Wilfrid Laurier University Students Union.

When a student is suffering from mental illness, his or her struggle affects all students. Often our friends and classmates don’t turn up to class the next day, don’t hand in an assignment, and/or become absent from our lives.

Over the last several years, students have witnessed that mental health problems are becoming more prevalent on Ontario’s university campuses. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, mental illness affects one in five Canadians; this number is even higher among post-secondary students, where close to one-third of students experience elevated psychological stress. The most recent survey of Ontario universities found that 29 per cent of students reported being unable to function due to depression; 9.4 per cent of students suffered from anxiety disorders; and 6.1 per cent of students seriously considered suicide.

There are a number of reasons why university students experience mental health issues at a higher rate than other demographics, including:

• The typical age of onset of many disorders is 18 to 24, meaning individuals often have their first encounter with mental health issues while in university.
• Many students at university or college are living away from home for the first time in their lives, at a distance from familial networks and social-support programs.
• Universities are demanding, competitive, and high-stress environments, which can trigger anxiety and depression-related illness.
• Many university students are at the age where they are coping with transitional life experiences, including their first experiences with alcohol and drugs, their first romantic relationship, and the first death of a close relative.

Given increasing mental health awareness, it is important for university campuses to have accessible mental health services. OUSA’s recent student survey found that approximately 50 per cent of students use campus mental health services at some point during their studies. Increased demand has strained the existing capacity of counseling services at many of Ontario’s institutions and led to progressively longer wait times for treatment. An inability to promptly access mental health services can lead to an amplification of existing problems, which ultimately has devastating consequences on a personal, academic, and societal level, while driving up system-wide health costs.

Universities and government must work together to tackle this challenge. A positive step, the Ontario government has committed to adding additional mental health workers to college and university campuses through its Open Minds, Healthy Minds youth mental health strategy. Many universities are also instituting fall semester reading weeks, in addition to training professors and other support workers who are in constant contact with students. Additionally, mental health centres typically engage in preventative health promotion and anti-stigma education.

These steps are important, but more must be done system-wide. For example, many students suffering with mental illness reduce their course loads to part-time status. Unfortunately, students must then begin repaying their student loans, adding stress to an otherwise fragile situation. Extending interest relief would be a relatively low-cost initiative that could go a long way.

Mental health issues are often complex, meaning that they require complex solutions. Direct support and intervention must be provided by high-quality services, the student experience must be reformed to reduce undue stress on those who are in difficult situations, and attitudes must change to reduce stigma associated with mental illness. Universities and students are already pursuing these goals; it’s time that the Ontario government equips universities and its students with the tools needed to fight the issue of mental illness more rigorously.