With More Veterans on Campus, More Support is Needed
Posted by Emily in 
Via newgibill.org
Disheartening reports of suicide rates among the military community have been surfacing as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month approaches in September. One of the more troubling statistics comes from a study of Veterans enrolled in higher education. Sara Lipka at the Chronicle for Higher Education reports:
Almost half of military veterans who are enrolled in college have contemplated suicide at some point, and 20 percent have planned to kill themselves, according to a study presented here on Thursday at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.
Sharan Jayson from USA Today offers further perspective from the study, which examines the rates of suicidal ideology among veteran students versus non-veteran students:
College students who served in the military have a suicide attempt rate six times higher than the average college student, suggests research presented today at a meeting of the American Psychological Association. It found students who are veterans also report thinking about suicide or planning their death at significantly higher rates.
Researchers with the National Center for Veterans’ Studies at the University of Utah surveyed 525 veterans, average age 26. Almost all (98%) had been deployed in either Iraq or Afghanistan and 58% to 60% reported experiencing combat.
Nearly half (46%) of the 415 men and 110 women studied reported having had suicidal thinking sometime in their lives; 20% had suicidal thoughts with a plan. That compares to 2010 data from the American College Health Association, which showed 6% of college students reported seriously considering suicide.
M Davd Rudd, a psychologist at the Utah center and one of the presenters of the study, and psychologist Barbara Van Dahlen weighed in on some reasons for this trend as well as it’s significance, considering the average age of the veteran population returning from Afghanistan and Iraq:
“Many of these men and women who serve our country are barely out of adolescence,” says clinical psychologist Barbara Van Dahlen of Washington, who founded Give an Hour, a non-profit that provides free mental health care to returning troops and their families. “There are a lot of reasons for concern about these very young men and women who have been put in harm’s way.”
Rudd says it’s unclear how many veterans go to school after their military service. But he says estimates suggest almost 1 million have left the military since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Estimates over the course of the next decade suggest we’ll see more than a million veterans on campus, but no one has looked specifically at this yet,” he says.
The Chronicle of Higher Education offers further analysis of the problem:
Colleges are largely unprepared to meet the needs of student veterans, whose numbers will reach the hundreds of thousands in the next decade, M. David Rudd, a professor of psychology and scientific director of the center, said at the meeting [...]
Nearly half of student veterans show significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a third suffer from severe anxiety, and a quarter experience severe depression, according to the study.
The transition from military service to a college campus can exacerbate those issues, Mr. Rudd said, as student veterans often feel socially isolated and struggle to relate to others [...]
Meaningful intervention is a challenge if campus counselors lack special training to treat veterans, said Mr. Rudd.
Better coordination between colleges and the Department of Veterans Affairs may help, he said, noting recent grants to explore opening VA facilities on campuses.
One such facility, part of a pilot program to increase specified support on campuses with large veteran populations, opened Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at Arizona State University, the alma mater of Pat Tillman, former NFL star and Army Ranger who was killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire in 2004. The new campus vet center bears his name at the behest of the university and Arizona Veterans Foundation President David Lucier, and the funding has come from the VA. Garin Groff of the East Valley Tribune reports:
MBA student and veteran Chris Ohanian said it can be difficult for veterans to start college. He served five years in the Army, including a tour in Afghanistan. Some vets won’t talk to family or friends about some of their experiences. Ohanian said they only feel comfortable talking through issues with other veterans, and the Tillman center should help with that by creating a gathering place.
The Pat Tillman Veterans Center fills 3,300 feet of basement space in the Memorial Union of the Tempe campus. A staff of 15 can help students with their GI Bill benefits, academic guidance and readjustment counseling, said Christian Rauschenbach, the veteran services program manager.
As more and more young veterans return from service and enter higher education, programs like these will be essential to ensuring their success and matriculation, which is incredibly important considering the rapidly increasing rates of unemployment. Just like benefits and health care, access to education and the support to succeed is crucial to the future of our veterans.
Suicide Attempts Higher for Veterans on Campus – Sharan Jayson, USA Today: Your Life
Tillman Veterans Center Opens at ASU – Garin Groff, East Valley Tribune
