Right now, over 2,000 USC students are actively thinking about killing themselves.
That’s nearly enough to sell out Dedeaux Field for a baseball game or fill every seat in Bovard Auditorium -- twice.
It’s a grim thought, but it’s neither exaggerated nor is it alarmist. Varun Soni, dean of the USC Office of Religious Life (ORL), says the university counseling service staff believes at least 5 percent of its 40,000 students have serious suicidal thoughts. That estimate may be conservative, though, as a 2016 survey by the American College Health Association found that just under 10 percent of college students contemplated suicide within the year prior to taking the survey.
“It’s a terrifying thought,” Soni said.
The conversation surrounding mental health has become paramount at colleges across the country, but perhaps none more so than USC in recent months. Last November, a student committed suicide in his fraternity house. Weeks later, a graduate student fatally stabbed professor Bosco Tjan in his own office.
These tragedies have elevated the issue of mental health to the forefront of campus discourse, but Soni said he has noticed a disturbing trend developing for years.
“My first few years here students would come to me because they wanted to live an extraordinary life,” he said. “Now the students come to me because they’re in crisis. The conversation is more about, ‘Why should I live?’”
“That trajectory from meaning to meaninglessness has been difficult for me to see.”
Soni’s office offers counseling services for students from over 50 chaplains representing every faith tradition in the world. The chaplains have the same confidentiality privileges as psychiatrists and are trained in detecting red flags in mental stability. Soni sees the ORL as more of a spiritual wellness center than a religious organization and says students do not need any ties to religion to take advantage of the services.
Such ease of access to alternative counseling options is key on a campus featuring a student health center that is desperately understaffed. Students report a months-long waiting list just to get an appointment for an initial on-campus therapy session. With the counseling office overwhelmed by inquiries, it will often simply refer students to psychiatric offices downtown that are covered by USC health insurance.
Soni claims his office receives hundreds of referrals every year from the Engemann Student Health Center, but USC alumnus Adam Gootnick said he was never informed about counseling through the ORL as an option when he sought therapy.
Shortly before he graduated last spring, Gootnick said he was suffering through serious depression and anxiety and decided to ask the health center for help. He said he was immediately told he would not be able to get an appointment on campus and was instead given a list of phone numbers to call to set up a session with a private practice located downtown.
“Reaching out to a therapist on your own is hard enough, but when they deny you care and just give you a list of more people to call, you’re just like, ‘f--- this is even more of an effort I have to make,’” Gootnick said. “Do I even want to do this?”
As is the case with many students, Gootnick did not find going to therapy downtown to be a viable option in a schedule already packed with the many responsibilities of a college student. He eventually joined a group therapy session on campus, which he said helped him cope with his problems to a certain extent, but he lamented not having the opportunity to see a counselor on campus.
“It would have been a stronger sense of community around me,” he said. “You know, it’s nice to hear you’re not alone.”
For those who find a way into the counseling schedule at the health center, USC only allows students eight therapy appointments before being cut off and referred to an outside practice. Brittany Fleck, now a senior, received counseling when she reached out to the health center as a freshman. She used all eight of her allotted appointments but did not report a positive experience.
She said the counselor heard about her case and told Fleck that she “pulled some strings” to fit her into the schedule, effectively prioritizing her over other students already on the waiting list.
Like Gootnick, Fleck was never told about therapy through the ORL and declined to continue her sessions with a therapist downtown, claiming she had no interest in making that sort of commitment to someone she was unsure could understand her unique set of difficulties.
Max Holm, now a senior, had a similar experience when he walked into the health center during his sophomore year after suffering through weeks of severe anxiety. He told the receptionist he was worried about his mental state and needed to talk to someone as soon as possible. After waiting over an hour before seeing a doctor, he was finally told what he already knew: he was likely suffering from depression and should start seeing a therapist immediately. The only problem was the six-week waiting list.
“That’s when I really learned that USC has absolutely no resources and absolutely no competency when it comes to mental health,” Holm said. “I ended up just trying to deal with it myself.”
Holm’s story, as well as Gootnick’s and Fleck’s, reinforces the idea that this is a self-perpetuating issue for USC and many other universities lacking the resources to fully care for students facing the emotional turmoil of the college experience. The problem only seems to worsen when students feel forced to work through their obstacles alone, unable to utilize the basic services needed to maintain a healthy mind.
“I’ve had four friends call Engemann in the last year saying they’re extremely suicidal and need to talk to someone immediately,” Fleck said. “All [the health center] says is they’re at full capacity, they can call 911 if needed or just put them in touch with other [therapists].”
The university’s inability to respond to suicidal students is alarming, and it begs the question of why it is not dedicating as many resources as possible to mental health services in order to care for students. The health center could not be reached for comment, but the need for increased access to therapists appears to be of the utmost importance to the future of the school.
Soni outlined an integrative model he envisions for USC where the health center and the ORL can work together to create a system that not only provides enough counselors for students but creates a more open dialogue surrounding mental health on campus. That, he says, would be an ideal start to tackling the epidemic head-on.
For now though, the student outlook appears bleak. Holm was blunt in what he thinks speaks for a lot of students at USC.
“I’m relieved to be leaving this school so I can actually take care of myself.”