Victor and Mary Ojakian didn't know the extent of the depression afflicting their son Adam until the 21-year-old UC Davis senior took his own life at school in 2004.
The grieving parents spent the next nine months trying to understand what had gone wrong in their son's life, then appealed to University of California leaders to examine UC's mental health policies and programs and try to do more to prevent student suicides.
A new report, scheduled to be discussed by the UC Board of Regents today, indicates that the family was right to be concerned.
The study, requested by UC President Robert C. Dynes in response to the Ojakians' plea, paints a grim picture of a student mental health system starved for funding and staff, even as UC campuses and others across the nation are witnessing a dramatic rise in both the numbers and severity of mental health problems among students.
The report said that many more UC students than in previous years were coming to campus already coping with complex mental health issues -- a finding consistent with national trends. About one in four students seeking counseling on UC campuses was already taking tranquilizers or other psychotropic medications, it said.
Nonetheless, the number of psychologists or psychiatrists per student is below the recommended levels at nearly all UC campuses, the result, in part, of several years of cutbacks in students services, the report said.
UC counselors often must struggle to balance the increased demand for crisis interventions with the needs of students dealing with the more traditional college issues of homesickness, academic troubles or relationship problems. Students who do not identify their situation as a crisis often wait three to six weeks to see a counselor and "may fall through the cracks," the study said.
The report listed recommendations ranging from increasing staffing and raising salaries for mental health professionals to developing targeted intervention programs for vulnerable groups. Such groups, it said, include graduate students, international students and gay and lesbian students.
The issue of student mental health has been the subject of growing national attention in recent years, with many college campuses reporting rising numbers of students in psychological distress. A 2004 study by the American College Health Assn. said that nearly 15% of about 47,000 students surveyed that year had been diagnosed with depression, a figure that had increased nearly 5% since 2000.
