Dual enrollment for mental health support

According to the National Center of Education Statistics, there are more than 1,000 suicides on college campuses each year, making it the second-leading cause of death among those in their early to mid-twenties. It’s a staggering statistic, isn’t it? What may shock you more is that an additional one in ten college students have already made a suicide plan, playing into that devastating initial statistic. 

There is a prevalent correlation between these high levels of suicide being associated with the major physiological and psychological changes that accompany college, primarily including elevated stress. This stress comes from various factors, but for college underclassmen, where a large portion of these 1,000 suicides occur, the stress is largely due to students feeling unprepared and misrepresented among entering college. 

Thirty percent of college students drop out in their first year, again, due to the cultural shock of such a pivotal educational change. Even many high-achieving high school students find themselves unable to adapt to the psychological changes that come with college adequately. By preparing these students for such changes earlier, we can combat the difficulty of the initial high school-to-college transition. This is what makes dual enrollment such a powerful tool for not only college readiness but also inclusivity and mental health support. 

Dual/concurrent enrollment (DE)  is a program that allows high school students to take college units along with their current schedule. While the nature of how guided versus hands-off the program is varies among different districts, the concept of the program itself can be a vital solution to improving the mental health of college students. It directly targets the main cause of this stress: lack of readiness. DE can increase the confidence of first-year students, especially while also giving them an edge in terms of accumulated units for their future years of college. 

As a senior at CVHS who has taken DE since freshman year, I contend that while there are improvements that can be made, the DE program here is highly commendable and a satisfactory introduction to college classes.