Schools look to address mental health impact of rising student debt
By Aleksandra Sagan (May 30, 2016). The Canadian Press/The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/genymoney/post-secondary-schools-look-to-address-mental-health-impact-of-rising-student-debt/article30200722/
Many of this year’s new post-secondary
graduates have left the academic world carrying tens of thousands of
dollars in debt. Meantime, those heading to college and university this
fall will soon contend with steep tuition rates that often result in a
similar burden.
While schools attempt
to lessen the load by offering financial aid, average student debt
appears to be climbing. So some institutions are also responding by
beefing up their mental health services to help students cope with life
in the red.
“We’re worried about one type of debt —
student debt — and we want to know how to pay it off as quickly as
possible,” said Dillon Collet, who is about to enter his final year at
the University of Toronto’s faculty of law and sat on the dean’s
advisory committee on financial aid.
The
committee organized a financial aid workshop that discussed the
psychology of debt. It was well-attended, Collet said, with about 60
students in the room and a lineup outside.
The
committee’s student representatives also pushed to have tuition fees —
and their connection to student stress — to be discussed at the faculty
council’s meeting each year, Collet said.
“A lot of students suffer silently.”
Estimates suggest average student debt in Canada is past the $25,000 mark.
In
2013-14, graduates finished school with an average of $12,480 in
federal loan debt, according to numbers from the Canada Student Loans
Program.
However, that figure doesn’t
include provincial or private loans. An Ontario student graduating from a
four-year university program, for example, shouldered an average of
$22,207 in provincial debt in 2012-2013. That makes for a total debtload
of more than $34,000 if they also borrowed the average sum from the
federal government.
The Canadian
University Survey Consortium surveyed more than 18,000 graduating
university students from 36 Canadian universities for its 2015 annual
report. The average debt-ridden student owed $26,819.
Such
a debt load can have an impact on a student or graduate’s mental
health, though only a small amount of published research exists on the
apparent link.
A 2015 journal paper
analyzed data from a U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics survey of more
than 8,000 youth in the United States — where tuition fees are
significantly higher than in Canada — to determine if debtload and
psychological well-being were connected.
“Students
who took out more student loans were more likely to report poor mental
health in early adulthood,” said one of the paper’s authors, Katrina M.
Walsemann, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina.
Canadian
experts have also noticed a link, even though Canadian students don’t
generally go into as much debt as their American cohorts.
Jillian
Yeung Do, York University’s director of student financial services,
witnessed it while working with a student. While she couldn’t provide
much detail for privacy reasons, she said she became really concerned
about a student.
“After that encounter,
I decided that it would be a good idea to — for myself, personally, and
as well for the entire team — to be trained in having these
conversations with students,” she said.
The
university’s health educator taught the financial services staff how to
identify students in distress, listen to them and provide proper
referrals. York University also plans to launch a new financial literacy
campaign soon, she said.
The
University of Toronto’s faculty of law staff, including its financial
aid workers, will also have training on mental health issues next month,
said Alexis Archbold, the assistant dean of the JD (juris doctor)
program. She’s also the chair of the dean’s advisory committee on mental
health and wellness, formed this past academic year.
Archbold
and the committee spent the year listening to students’ primary
concerns. Unsurprisingly for a professional program, she said, high
tuition and the anxiety of the corresponding debtload emerged as one of
the common themes.
The school’s new
academic, personal and wellness co-ordinator will work with Archbold
this summer to develop a wellness strategy, she said.
The
committee will continue to hear from students on how to improve the
strategy, which seems to fall in line with at least some of what the
students want.
“We want a platform in
which we can engage with the faculty and the administration,” said
Collett, “and we can really talk about the nuts and bolts.”