Students Are Struggling. Institutions Aren’t Seeing It.

The Breakdown

The students who need support most are the least likely to find it. That’s partly a resource problem, but it’s also a visibility and design problem, and some of it is solvable without significant new investment.

Students who report mental health challenges outside the classroom are more likely to struggle with workload anxiety and low motivation inside it. Students aware of more than four institutional support resources are 84% likely to stay enrolled, compared to 67% among those aware of fewer. That 17-point difference doesn’t require building new programs. It requires making existing programs discoverable within the student’s daily learning environment.

Dr. Ford is direct about what the data can and can’t tell us here. The fact that students aren’t using available counseling resources doesn’t automatically mean those resources are sufficient or the right fit. Resources aren’t a monolith, she noted in our conversation. Given an institution’s context, mission and the students it serves, what’s available may need to be curated very differently. The question institutions need to ask honestly is whether students aren’t accessing support because they don’t know about it, because it isn’t right for them or because it genuinely doesn’t exist in a form that meets their needs.

Both Dr. Ford and Dr. Zone note that the C+ grade administrators give their institution’s student data quality, unchanged from 2025, points to a systemic visibility problem. If institutions can’t see who is struggling, they can’t help them. That’s not only a technology question. It’s a student success question.

On the question of AI and mental health, both Dr. Ford and Dr. Zone urge caution. The research on AI-based mental health support is early, and the risks of inappropriate reliance are real. The more productive near-term question is how platforms can help surface the right human support at the right moment, rather than substitute for it.