JBAmerican Governments California State University: Sacramento sent out a survey in 2017 to look at their students’ experiences and to assess student knowledge of the campus’ health and counseling services. The survey revealed that about 60% of their students had experienced overwhelming anxiety or depression within the previous 12 months. The CSUS survey also showed that students were either not aware of the services available to them or not utilizing them if they were aware of the services. To help bridge the gap between their students and available services, CSUS has put in time to bulk up their services and focus on outreach and student engagement. Being aware and an active part of CSUS’ Student Health and Counseling Services, viewing theseresults caused me to wonder what other California universities are doing to ensure their students have access to adequate mental and physical health services, food assistance, and substance use education. Upon looking into this, I found that the national prevalence of college students’ anxiety is 41.6% and prevalence is 36.4% for depression (American Psychological Association, 2013). I began to wonder how many universities offered a specified amount of student services and what the quality of those services looks and feels like to those who access them. When beginning my research, I found that public universities are required to provide a specified amount of services to their students living with disabilities, but there is little expectation and almost nothing written as a concrete requirement for the kind of services I feel are vital to student success. I have had the unique opportunity to service the California Youth Crisis Line and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Through this work, I have heard from many students who are experiencing extreme stress and anxiety over their grades and overall school life and the expectations that follow. Here in California, we have a housing crisis, and this is something I hear about from many of the students with whom I speak. I began to wonder, is this too being addressed by our schools?
I chose to look at three Northern California public universities to compare services. Looking at Sacramento State, San Jose State, and UC Davis, I found that all three of these health centers are accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, the highest accreditation available for health care centers. I found that all three universities offer wellness education, immunizations, STI screening, CalFresh on campus, pharmacy services, some kind of emergency funding, physical therapy, career counseling, individual counseling, group sessions, alcohol and substance use education and resource referral, case management, safe rides, and some sort of food pantry. Each of these campuses also have instated a smoke or tobacco free policy. However, when looking further into these services, I found that the amount of assistance provided within each of these sections of care varied greatly at each university. For instance, CSUS offers 14 groups and SJSU offers 13, but UCD only offers three. In another instance, all three universities provide emergency funding, but UCD’s is an emergency loan that must be paid back within 30 days, SJSU’s is $500 and cannot be used for housing--a disheartening fact considering that San Jose is now the most expensive city to live in in the United States, and CSUS’ emergency fund amounts to $1500, can be used on housing, and does not have to be paid back. I also found that CSUS is the only campus of the three that offers emergency housing on site and UCD is the only campus that offers laboratory work in their primary care. In the coming weeks, I plan to connect with students about their experiences at UC and CSU campuses and complete the compilation of the remaining research to be done on the rest of these campus’services. I am happy to see that many of these services are offered and these all look great on paper, but am curious to learn the actual experiences of these students. What are the waiting times, how were they treated once obtaining services, what would they change if given the opportunity? From there, it is my goal to advocate for student services to have a minimum standard, frequent feedback from their students, and to take the voices of their students to heart and make the necessary changes. Throughout many of the recent elections and in our political conversations, universities and higher education have been a topic of interest. However, most of these conversations surround the cost of higher education without discussing the quality of the universities or student experiences once they have entered these universities. I agree that something needs to be doneabout the astronomical cost of being a student in today’s world and the crippling debt thatfollows these students once they move their tassel from the right to the left, but I am concerned with the helpfulness of change agents currently on these campuses. Again, going back to the cost of attendance, student health fees are included at these universities and it is time to ensure students are getting what they are paying for and receiving the necessary help along the way.
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AuthorUndergraduate student generated content. Blog posting and updating done by Kristina Flores Victor, Assistant Professor of Political Science at CSUS Archives
March 2020
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