Understanding how Texas community college campuses are supporting student mental health

Rising rates of individuals with mental illness in the United States have policymakers, education officials, and medical professionals worried about the need for additional support for struggling college students—and the ability of higher education institutions to provide it. Many colleges have designed and implemented a variety of interventions to ensure that mental health issues do not interfere with students' abilities to persist and succeed in college. In many cases, colleges have begun to integrate mental health supports into wider efforts to proactively connect students with relevant supports to help them address academic and nonacademic challenges. However, some colleges—particularly community colleges—continue to face challenges, such as insufficient resources and capacity to treat mental illness, that prevent them from adequately addressing students' mental health needs. The authors of this report present findings from a descriptive study of ten community colleges in Texas that are working to address student mental health at their institutions. They document the strategies and supports that those colleges have implemented to support student mental health, how the colleges are working to integrate these approaches into the organizational fabric of the colleges, and key challenges to supporting student mental health in a community college setting. They offer a set of recommendations for decisionmakers who are interested in addressing student mental health on community college campuses.