UIS Students Deserve Better Mental Health Support on Campus

 There was a night I won’t forget, not because something major happened, but because I sat in my car after a long day of work, classes, and parenting, and felt completely emotionally drained. I stared at my phone wondering if I should reach out for help, but I didn’t. Not because I didn’t need it, but because the last time I tried, I hit roadblocks, waitlists, automated replies, and silence.

That quiet moment of exhaustion isn't just mine. It’s a reality for many students at the University of Illinois Springfield. We are expected to juggle academics, jobs, families, and personal lives, but when it comes to support, especially mental health, too many of us are left to carry the load alone.

We know that mental health struggles on college campuses are rising. The Healthy Minds Study (Lipson et al., 2023) reports that over 60% of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health concern. But this isn’t just a number. It’s the classmate who stopped showing up. It’s the group member who never replied. It’s you. It’s me.

What we currently have on campus is not enough. Students talk about long waits to see a counselor, a lack of diverse support options, and feeling like mental health is an afterthought. When help isn’t accessible, the message we hear is: “Your struggles aren’t urgent enough.” That is not okay.

If a student broke a leg, we wouldn’t ask them to limp for weeks while waiting to be seen. Yet emotional wounds often go untreated until they become crisis. That’s a failure of compassion. And regardless of your political beliefs, compassion and responsibility are values we all share. Conservatives often emphasize personal responsibility, well, how can students be responsible for their success when their mental health is neglected? Liberals stress equity, how is it fair that some students have to drop out or suffer silently because support isn’t available?

We deserve a campus culture that prioritizes mental well-being. Not just in words or awareness events, but in staffing more counselors, offering after-hours services, and making mental health support as normal and accessible as academic advising.

Here’s what I’m asking you to do:
Email your student representatives. Attend SGA meetings. Share your experiences. Demand that UIS invest in better mental health resources. Even just telling your story can help change the narrative and show decision-makers that this isn’t a side issue, it’s central to our success.

Mental health isn't a luxury. It's a necessity. And it’s time UIS treats it that way.

References
Lipson, S. K., Zhou, S., Abelson, S., Heinze, J., Jirsa, M., Morigney, J., Patterson, A., Singh, M., & Eisenberg, D. (2023). The Healthy Minds Study: 2022-2023 Data Report. Healthy Minds Network. https://healthymindsnetwork.org/research/data-reports/