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Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
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Thursday, April 7, 2022 Vol. 75 No. 25
New funding would allow SIUE to hire more counselors FRANCESCA BOSTON reporter
A state mental health advocacy organization is working to add funding so that universities like SIUE can add mental health support services. National Alliance on Mental Illness Chicago, an advocacy organization with affiliates around the country, is now working to secure funding during this legislative session. The group has been working with Illinois representatives and senators to create a line item in the state’s budget that is dedicated to the act. In August of 2019, the Mental Health Early Action on Campus Act was signed into Illinois law, but little to no funding was secured to support services at public institutions. Rachel Bhagwat, director of policy at NAMI Chicago, has been part of the team working to encourage representatives and senators, including State Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, former SIUE professor, to help ensure that the act is given sufficient funding to support the 58 public institutions in Illinois. She said they have no pushback from government officials who are in support of the bill, but funding can be hard to secure when other topics may take a higher priority. “The issue really becomes that there are so many competing priorities right now, and so many different groups and honestly worthy causes. It’s just making sure that people understand that this is a priority,” Bhagwat said. “It’s not that anyone is against it. It’s just making sure that this rises to the top.” Bhagwat said back in 2019, universities filled out a survey that detailed what they needed funding for and how much they needed. The survey, which turned into an 87-page report, found that the estimated cost to support mental health on college campuses is $19 million. “We have extraordinarily detailed breakdowns of what each school asked
for and what they’d be using it for,” Bhagwat said. Half a million dollars would go to the Illinois Board of Higher Education to create the Technical Assistance Center, a research center that would develop and help universities develop the best practices for implementing mental health resources on campuses. The Illinois legislative session will end on April 8, when the budget is supposed to be approved, which means if the funding passes, it will be available for higher education institutions by July 1, according to Bhagwat. Jessica Ulrich, director of counseling services at SIUE, said that Counseling Services is funded entirely by student fees, which means there is not a consistent funding amount coming in each year. She said dedicated funding would allow Counsel-
ing Services to hire additional counselors and staff, including expanding outreach and peer education programs. “Maybe it’s having three counselors, maybe it’s having one person who is our assessment and triage counselor,” Ulrich said. “Should all the funding come at once, we should be able to increase [the staff] by four people.” Ulrich said that along with hiring more counselors, they are making it a priority to hire counselors from diverse backgrounds. “With the most recent search that we had, we did use an equity advisor for our search. That is something that we’re definitely invested in,” Ulrich said. The Mental Health Early Action on Campus Act calls for one clinical, non-student staff member to 1,250 students. SIUE has approximately 13,000 students,
and only six staff counselors, meaning they need at least 4 more to meet the act’s requirements. Ulrich said she is thrilled about the idea of funding becoming available, as they were supposed to receive more funding prior to COVID, but the funding was allocated to support COVID efforts. “It’s really exciting because all of the things that are required in the bill are definitely things that we’re in favor of and would want to do. But being a completely fee-funded unit, we don’t have a way to find all of those types of things, so we’re definitely thrilled,” Ulrich said. Counseling Services at SIUE are free to students, but many students either do not know about them or are worried about what their peers may think about them for attending therapy, according to junior Hailee O’Dell, an elementary education and psychology major from Glen Carbon. O’Dell said as Student Government president, she encourages students to use the free resources at the university, as their student fees pay for them. “I hear so many students all the time say, ‘I had no idea that we got free counseling here.’ There are these resources, but students don’t know about them,” O’Dell said. Senior Nicole Burbach, a biochemistry major from Edwardsville, is a student government senator. Burbach said she has used the counseling services and went to six or seven sessions. She said that she had a positive experience but felt that it wasn’t quite the support she was looking for. Ulrich said that Counseling Services doors will be opening soon, which means students will now be able to come into the office, rather than just calling, to set up an appointment. The doors have been closed throughout the pandemic because they are located within Health Services. She said if students want to set up an appointment or are needing non-urgent assistance, they can call the office or use Cougar Care to schedule an initial assessment.
spective homebuyers. The article states that the inflation caused by the pandemic has caused home prices to rise by 20 percent between 2020 and 2021. Harvey said the increases he’s seen have made getting into the housing market particularly difficult, sometimes almost impossible. “People with means are [investing in properties] and people with limited means can’t really afford to get into the market at all, so it just dries up the front end,” Harvey said. With prospective buyers in mind, particularly college students, Harvey said he believes this is going to be a difficult time to find affordable housing. “I think that we are in for a really rough period where people are gonna be highly stressed and I don’t really know what people are going to do. I think it’s actually way worse on the coast than it is here, but it is getting bad here,” Harvey said. Junior mass communications major Jenna Robinson of Springfield, Illinois, said the increase in housing prices have made her concerned about her future. “The price of apartments and plac-
es to live right now is pretty concerning to me because [of] what people are paid with minimum wage and the price of rent, you basically have to have at least one roommate — or two, depending on where you’re living [and] if it’s in the city or rural,” Robinson said. “It makes me nervous.” Due to the nature of the field of mass communications, Robinson said that it also concerns her about getting a job where the work is, which is usually in the cities. “Thinking about rent and paying my phone bill and electricity and all that, [the cost of living] seems so high,” Robinson said. Another student, freshman criminal justice major Heaven Watkins of Chicago, said she is also concerned about the rising prices. “I feel like the prices are unreasonable [and] I feel like it should be lower, especially for us college students,” Watkins said. “Most people can’t even pay it, but we need somewhere to lay our head.” Watkins said the other bills that have to be paid also concerns her due to how high all of it can get once combined.
“On top of that we have bills like [the] phone bill, cable, light bill [and] gas on top of that,” Watkins said. To help mend the problem, Harvey said he believes people will continue to do what they’re always done: work more and more jobs to live in places like Edwardsville. “People will do what they’ve always done. They’ll have a couple jobs, if they can’t afford to live in Edwardsville, they’ll live somewhere nearby, they’ll commute [and] they’ll try to keep a car running,” Harvey said. Harvey said this problem is hard to solve because it’s difficult to understand by those who haven’t gone through it. “All the costs and all the difficulties are sort of born by the people who are trying to make ends meet,” Harvey said. “What I’ve found with talking to people who [are] economically solid and do not have these worries is that they cannot conceptualize what it’s like to know that you will not be able to afford to buy a house like your parents did [and] that there is less housing of any kind that you can afford available and the situation continues to get worse.”
CAMPUS MENTAL HEALTH STATISTICS
COVID-ERA STATISTICS
One third of all college students have been diagnosed with a mental health condition – a 14% increase in the last decade – yet only 25% of college students receive treatment despite serious implications.
In a recent American Council on Education survey, 62% of institutions reported that student mental health is “worse” now than in previous years.
Students who struggle with mental health are twice as likely to drop out of college. Research shows that graduation rates are lower for students with mental health conditions, especially for Black, Latinx, and low-income students and dropout rates are 2.5x higher. In 2019, it was estimated that close to 30% of 18-25 year olds struggled with mental health, the highest prevalence in any age group.
A June 2020 CDC report on the impacts of COVID-19 shows that one in four 18-24 year olds considered suicide in the previous 30 days. Additionally, 89% of college students reported stress or anxiety due to COVID-19 in the NAMI Chicago
| Kirsten O’Loughlin / The Alestle
Student and community concerns rise, as do housing prices BRANDON WELLS sports editor
With an ending to the pandemic slowly becoming visible, many, including college students, are still concerned about the rising prices of housing and rent across the U.S. With states across the country reporting increases in home prices, rent is also becoming an issue — according to an article from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Illinois has seen a rent increase of between 10 to 14 percent, or an average of $142. John Harvey with the Edwardsville Community Housing Alliance said he has a lot of concerns about the increasing trend of housing prices due to how these trends impact lower-income households. “People can end up staying in substandard housing that isn’t well repaired or that has definite health and safety risks because they can [only] sort of afford it and the landlord holds them hostage,” Harvey said. “That’s hidden, people don’t see it.” An article from Econofact supports the fact that lower-income households as are suffering more due to this, as are pro-
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