The new EAB survey basically confirmed what anyone who's been on a campus in the last three years already knew: students are struggling with money, mental health, and staying on top of coursework, while the offices meant to help them are running on fumes. It's the kind of headline that reads like a warning, but for those of us living it, it's just Tuesday. We've all seen the advising center with a line out the door or waited two weeks for a counseling appointment that was supposed to be urgent. The report says capacity is the issue, and sure, that's true, but it's also a little too clean. It's not just that there aren't enough staff; it's that the support system hasn't caught up to what students actually need right now. And in a weird way, that connects to what Heads Up, Cougs: New Academic Officer Survey Drops was getting at: the people in charge see the cracks, but seeing them and fixing them are different things.
Here's my honest take, and I say this as someone who genuinely likes the university experience: we've gotten too comfortable treating support like a transaction. You pay tuition, you get access to a portal, you book a 30-minute slot, you're good. But that's not how real life works, and it's not how real support works either. The schools that are doing it better, like the community-building stuff we saw in Finding Home & Honors: Building Community at Sac State, get that it's about relationships, not just resources. That's the part that makes me feel a little better, honestly. Because if you can't triple the counseling staff overnight, you can at least build a culture where people check on each other. That's not a replacement for real help, but it's a bridge. And right now, we need a lot of bridges.
What does that mean for us practically? It means we can't just wait for the university to fix this. That sounds harsh, but it's not a dig at administrators; it's just math. The survey says demand is up and budgets are flat. So, we adapt. That looks like sharing your notes without being asked, telling a friend about the free tutoring center even if it feels awkward, and being honest with ourselves about what we can actually handle. It also means paying attention to the bigger picture, like what happens when institutions make policy decisions, which is something we'll have to watch closely. The takeaway I'd tell a friend who asked: don't wait for the system to save you, but don't stop pushing for it to get better either. The specific thing to keep an eye on is whether this survey actually leads to new funding or just another task force. Because we've seen that movie before, and the credits don't always roll the way we want.
