National rankings, such as the U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges List, are often used to shape opinions during the college selection process. Not surprisingly, there are rankings specific to mental health and student support services. For example, The Princeton Review, in partnership with the Ruderman Family Foundation, released a 2024 report that includes an Honor Roll list of schools based on mental health services on campus. As outlined in a 2024 report by Forbes.com, it’s important for students and their families to specifically vet the types of support services available while selecting a college to attend.
However, as discussed in a 2024 report by College Parents of America, it’s also important to look beyond rankings and view the best college as the school in which a specific student will thrive. Likewise, there are general concerns about the methodology, the lack of standardization, and philosophy of national rankings. To explore these concerns regarding rankings for campus mental health services, several members of the executive board for the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD) were asked to share their insights. In disclosure, I’m also an executive board member of the AUCCCD. In addition, I serve as the counseling director at Texas Christian University, which has been ranked in the Top 25 for Best Student Support and Counseling Services for the past 4 years by The Princeton Review.
Methodology
A general concern about national rankings is the implication that all schools are being systematically compared to one another. According to a 2023 report by Best Colleges, there are nearly 6,000 colleges and universities in America. Most rankings do not conduct a comprehensive review of these 6,000 schools and implement a cross analysis of them all. Dr. Marcus Hotaling, Past President of the AUCCCD and counseling director at Union College, stated, “I think it is impossible to compare offices across the country in this manner. If you look at AUCCCD data, you will see that there are significant differences in utilization, staffing (numbers and who staffs), and funding. How can you compare all of these? You cannot.”
Thus, it’s important to know how the information used in the ranking was collected. For example, some rankings might only include information from schools who responded to a survey. Furthermore, there may be a need for disclosures if members of the review committee work at institutions listed in the rankings.
Lack of Standardization
Dr. Chetan Joshi, the counseling director at the University of Maryland, College Park, argued that rankings of campus mental health services do not include widely acceptable standards, and miss the point that most counseling centers are designed to the fit the unique context of a specific institution. He stated, “A counseling center that might be a great fit for its community and serving its community very well within a particular institution may not fare well in these rankings because it does not fit some arbitrarily agreed upon ideas of what a good counseling center is.”
Thus, students and families should consider how the outcomes used in rankings of mental health services are selected. For example, if a ranking system placed a high value on wellness education and peer support programs, then counseling centers which emphasized clinical services might not score as high.
Philosophy
Dr. Gary Glass, retired director from Oxford College of Emory University argued that there is an ironic nature to national rankings. He stated, “Among the common sources of stress for our students is the increasing weight on quantified measures of worth, from GPA to their proximity to the top 5% of their class to the rankings of the institutions they attend. While such measures are rarely, if ever, validated through some standardization or clarification of what these numbers represent, they can have profound impact on students’ mental health. The rankings published on the best schools for mental health offers a particularly ironic example of how our social trends to the worship of the quantified can seem helpful when, in fact, they are likely to prompt a lot of stress…”
Dr. Glass also argued that national rankings can distract from conversations about campus culture. For example, if a counseling center becomes top-rated for meeting a high demand for services, according to Dr. Glass, “Then, the availability of resources eclipses necessary discussion about what characteristics of the campus are contributing to such high demand for those resources.”
Dr. Serena Butler-Johnson, the counseling director at the University of the District of Columbia also shared concerns about the philosophy behind ranking campus mental health services. She commented, “It is important to consider that all healing and therapeutic interventions do not necessarily occur within the four walls of a therapy room. Given that social support and a sense of belonging can be vital for student mental health, it is important to consider whether a university has accessible student clubs, organizations, extracurricular, activities mentoring programs, and other resources that are meaningful and relevant to the students’ interests and values.”
According to a 2023 report by Inside Higher Ed, 30% of students ranked mental health support as the top priority among wellness services offered by their institution. Though mental health support is a top ranked service, and many ranked counseling centers boasts about their rankings, students and families should understand that there are elite campus counseling centers that have never been mentioned by national rankings.
