Should Universities Have Mental Health Facilities

[Wahoo Redux]

So you simply made up a scenario that people with emotional and psychological issues will go to the trouble of applying, taking out student loans, signing up for classes, taking work-study, maintaining their GPAs so they are in good standing etc. etc....

...just to get a shot at student health services...

You mean their parents won't?

Mostly, such students will stay. Presumably, many mental health problems develop on account of going to university. We will have a higher share of mental health problems with the student population. If this is what's wanted, please let it be paid for. By whom?

Evidence of this?

[Wahoo Redux]

You know, there used to be smart conservatives-- I didn't agree with them, but they had rational, evidence based arguments, just different values. Sadly, that appears to be a thing of the past now.

I think there were so many arguments about "wiping out liberals" and "taking back our country" that collapse upon examination that it has created a mania among conservatives. 

These folks never got over the turmoil of the '70s and '80s, and as more and more "liberal" ideologies (hair styles, rock music, open premarital sex, acceptance of homosexuality, even racial parity) moved mainstream it has created a kind of conservative panic.

Certainly the conservatives of today are not the conservatives of my father and mother's generation.

[marshwiggle]

You know, there used to be smart conservatives-- I didn't agree with them, but they had rational, evidence based arguments, just different values. Sadly, that appears to be a thing of the past now.

I think there were so many arguments about "wiping out liberals" and "taking back our country" that collapse upon examination that it has created a mania among conservatives. 

These folks never got over the turmoil of the '70s and '80s, and as more and more "liberal" ideologies (hair styles, rock music, open premarital sex, acceptance of homosexuality, even racial parity) moved mainstream it has created a kind of conservative panic.

Certainly the conservatives of today are not the conservatives of my father and mother's generation.

Likewise the liberals today are not the liberals of my father and mother's generation.

[mahagonny]

Quote, Wahoo:   'Evidence of this?'

Mahagonny: I can answer that, Dr. Wahoo. Reposted from this very thread:

There is Medicaid, too, which encompasses mental health, and is the largest health insurance program in the US of A, covering about a fifth of the population. This is for poor people, a group more needful of our attention than college students.

Once again, universities are in a position to require health insurance  by their students. That could pay for anything any university saw fit.

There cannot possibly be a concentrated mental health problem in academia. As I reported upthread, 3% of dropouts suffered from mental health problems, not 60%.

Anything above and beyond requiring health insurance, paid for by students, sounds like special pleading to me.

Apart from the question how many are dropping out or will soon, our school seems to think people are in dreadful shape psychologically. They have scheduled a whole bunch of something called 'healing sessions'. These are pitched as meant to help people get cope with the toxic effects of social aggression visited on them because they are are some variation of BIPOC or LGBTQ etc.*   Growing the fear of depression aggrandizes the DEI department and its offerings which makes the college appear more cutting-edge. Which I suppose is believed to boost enrollment. Or maybe it's just keeping up with the Joneses.

* Naturally, the folks for whom these healing sessions are not intended are presumed to be the ones who've been dishing out the abuse.

Iatrogenic.

So there is evidence, at least in my school, of Dismalists claim

Presumably, many mental health problems develop on account of going to university. We will have a higher share of mental health problems with the student population.

You know, there used to be smart conservatives-- I didn't agree with them, but they had rational, evidence based arguments, just different values. Sadly, that appears to be a thing of the past now.

I think there were so many arguments about "wiping out liberals" and "taking back our country" that collapse upon examination that it has created a mania among conservatives. 

These folks never got over the turmoil of the '70s and '80s, and as more and more "liberal" ideologies (hair styles, rock music, open premarital sex, acceptance of homosexuality, even racial parity) moved mainstream it has created a kind of conservative panic.

Certainly the conservatives of today are not the conservatives of my father and mother's generation.

Try Coleman Hughes (b. 1996) Wilfred Reilly, somewhere in his 40's I would guess. They're too young to be the ones who never got over the turmoil of the 70's and 80's.

[dismalist]

As has already been explained multiple times, student insurance is billed, just like for any provider.

Yes, I got that, and I like it, but have become uneasy with the answer. No need to get bolshie. Googling around, we find that only about 5% of college students have no health insurance. Those with insurance will not always have mental health covered  [State regulations], and if it is covered may well be subject to limitations.

This means one can't just build mental health facilities and have them paid for through existing insurance. Much additional insurance has to be bought to finance the additional facilities.

Promoters of additional facilities and services envision a reduction of the drop-out rate as a consequence, and hence, additional tuition. It is from that additional tuition that the additional facility and services are to be financed.  This is a Pandora's Box. Under such circumstances, as has been pointed out upthread, on-campus health counselors will come under pressure to retain students who should not be there, and my nightmare of ill students voluntarily remaining in school becomes more likely. And, it's bundling, as with sports.

Whether this method of financing is arithmetically even likely is an open question. Again upthread, the number 60% of dropouts with mental health problems was mentioned. I found 3%. Colleges should not get their hopes up about this way of making money.

This is very different from requiring insurance that meets certain standards, which protects students and which puts  the provider at arms length to the university.

I smelled a rat as soon as I read the article because financing was not mentioned explicitly.

[Wahoo Redux]

You know, there used to be smart conservatives-- I didn't agree with them, but they had rational, evidence based arguments, just different values. Sadly, that appears to be a thing of the past now.

I think there were so many arguments about "wiping out liberals" and "taking back our country" that collapse upon examination that it has created a mania among conservatives. 

These folks never got over the turmoil of the '70s and '80s, and as more and more "liberal" ideologies (hair styles, rock music, open premarital sex, acceptance of homosexuality, even racial parity) moved mainstream it has created a kind of conservative panic.

Certainly the conservatives of today are not the conservatives of my father and mother's generation.

Likewise the liberals today are not the liberals of my father and mother's generation.

That's good in some ways, and bad in some ways.

The liberals of my adolescence were mindlessly radical, much like the conservatives of today are.

At the same time, we would not have Rock'n'Roll, and many of the cultural freedoms and artistic expressions, that we have today without the self-destructive extremism of the old school liberals.

Anyone seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLsrQ-kjMEU

[mahagonny]

At the same time, we would not have Rock'n'Roll, and many of the cultural freedoms and artistic expressions, that we have today without the self-destructive extremism of the old school liberals.

Lyrics to Three Five Zero Zero from the musical Hair (1967)   https://www.songlyrics.com/various-artists/three-five-zero-zero-lyrics/

To me, liberals in the 60's are a lot like they are today. They're morally preening, self important & think they're smarter than everyone. Today's liberals would have canceled Hair. And maybe Allen Ginsberg too.  I have no idea what the mainstreaming of liberal ideas set in motion by the Beatles, et al, and continued over decades by exalted entertainment figures, mostly much dumber and less astute than the fabulous four, has accomplished with respect to how the white person sees himself or regulates his behavior.

In 1967-1975 you could say 'the n-word.' It was probably heard as creepy but it wouldn't get you fired. We had blacksploitation films, stupid jokes about race aimed at Nipsey Russell, Sammy Davis at the Dean Martin roasts, which they took with humor, etc. We thought race relations needed improving, but were getting a lot better and white people had some faith in humanity and basically liked ourselves. Rowan and Martin's 'Laugh-In' 'Smothers Brothers' poked fun at racial stereotypes and we all got it. Interracial romance and families were becoming accepted.

2022: Saying 'the n-word' for the purpose of examining literary work, psychology or such gets you fired from a tenured faculty position. https://www.thecollegefix.com/fired-duquesne-u-prof-can-get-his-job-back-if-he-undergoes-re-education-etc/
Amy Coney Barrett adopted two black babies in order to colonize them and hide her racism, according to the originator of the liberal masses' favorite word, 'anti-racism,' Ibram X. Kendi, the darling of the New Yorker and Atlantic Magazines and National Public Radio News (partly funded by grants from the Department of Commerce and Education). He then lied about having made the charge, which you can easily look up, and the liberal media are silent. We had a black president for two terms, we think race relations are worse than ever and white people hate themselves.

[newprofwife]

With all the mass shootings in schools/colleges, students need more access to mental health services whether these facilities are on-campus or off-campus.  If you aren't going to have a clinic on campus, then support staff need to at least know how to connect students to mental health services in the community.  We already had several suicides since 2020. We also have students who are sexual assault survivors. We have students who lost loved ones during the pandemic. I vote for expanding on-campus services especially since our institution is located in a rural area and students would need to travel a distance to obtain medical care.