Focus Topic: A Mental Health Crisis in Higher Education

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Most psychological disorders happen on average between the ages of 18 and 24, which is also the age range in which most students attend college. Many college students today are finding themselves in psychological turmoil, which is problematic for the very internal growth and development that higher education is meant to offer for developing minds. These disorders hinder the ability for the mind to learn, adapt, and function in society. I will examine the possible factors that may be leading to such mental despair—academic pressure, financial burden, etc.—and attempt to relate them to the aftermath of the privatization of higher education and its effects on the human psyche. Privatization has lead to a paradigm in which students are “consumers” and degrees are “products,” and this market-driven nature contributes to lower academic performance and mental health. This epidemic is surely raising eyebrows, but the exact causes of stress and mental disorders are controversial and difficult to pinpoint. After all, these disorders can surely exist without privatization. In order to establish a relationship between the two, I will first attempt to explain the inner workings of the human mind through the psychology of learning, behavior, motives, and wellbeing. I will then discuss how privatization has created a college environment that is characterized by consumerism and automaticity. After, I will demonstrate how such an environment affects learning and internal development by encouraging faulty motives that are detrimental to wellbeing and productive behavior. It is this type of environment that feeds the formation of psychological disorders. The environment that privatization creates in higher education, specifically through consumerism and automacity, is contributing to a mental health crisis that is reducing wellbeing, ingenuity, and the ability for students to be aware and responsive to a rapidly changing environment.