A Call for Change, ETEducation
By Meghna Sethi & Dr Pragya Jayaswal
In India’s higher education system today, mental health has finally entered the conversation, but not yet the culture. Universities proudly announce wellness centres, helplines, and counsellor-on-call services. Brochures display pastel-coloured “wellness corners” with potted plants and soft sofas. Yet, if you walk through most campuses, the silence remains heavy. Students continue to struggle alone, and counselling rooms often remain empty.
The problem, it turns out, isn’t the absence of help. It’s the absence of trust.
The mental health access paradox
Over the past decade, India’s colleges and universities have invested heavily in mental health infrastructure. Counselling centres, helplines, wellness rooms, and full-time psychologists are now listed proudly in brochures and orientation decks. On paper, students have more access to emotional support than ever. Yet, on most campuses, counselling rooms remain under-used. The services exist, but students stay away. The data reinforces this concern. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows student suicides now make up 7.6% of all suicides in India, a 65% increase in ten years, rising faster than the national average. Despite increased services, student suicide rates continue to climb, proving that access is not translating into safety. The question, then, is no longer whether support exists, but whether students feel secure using it. Students acknowledge that help exists, but many fear what seeking it might reveal. Many worry that counselling is not truly confidential, as faculty, parents, or even placement offices might eventually become aware. The fear of being “found out” still outweighs the desire to seek help.
A second, subtler issue is perception. Campus counsellors are often seen as extensions of administration, rather than as independent professionals. Students worry their vulnerability might be used to “manage” them rather than support them. The missing link on campus, therefore, is not in availability but anonymity. Without anonymity, trust does not form, and without trust, support remains unused.
Beyond access: Why student choice matters (and must be funded)
If anonymity cannot be guaranteed within campus systems, students must have the right to seek support beyond them. If universities truly believe in supporting mental health, they must go beyond providing counsellors to funding care choices. Students should have the right to access therapy in a safe environment, even outside campus. This principle is already embedded in several global university mental-health models. University College London provides therapeutic support on campus through its Student Support and Well-being Services, and also allows students to choose off-campus therapists if they prefer, indicating that privacy takes precedence over institutional control. The University of Southampton (UK) has taken it a step further by partnering with Spectrum.Life, to give students access to qualified online counsellors outside normal office hours, including weekends and holidays, and in more than 35 languages.
Indian institutions are also beginning to move in this direction. Ashoka University offers free and confidential counselling not just for students, but also for faculty and staff, setting an institutional standard for psychological safety. IIT Delhi supplements its campus counselling service with YourDOST, a digital emotional well-being partner that allows students to seek support anonymously online. Together, these models signal a significant shift: mental-health support is no longer viewed as a campus-bound service, but as a student’s right to be exercised wherever trust feels strongest.
However, choice means little without funding. Global institutions have begun investing not just in wellness infrastructure, but in the financial ability of students to seek help where they feel safe. Just as research grants and merit scholarships empower academic freedom, these funds would empower emotional freedom. Butler University established an endowed Mental Health Fund through the support of alumni, ensuring that counselling and well-being programs are funded annually. Stanford University goes one step further: alongside its in-house counselling services, it maintains formal pathways for students to work with private clinicians outside the university system, backed by donor-funded endowments earmarked for student well-being.
Across these examples, one principle emerges that when mental health is funded as a right rather than a campus amenity, budgets expand to support autonomy, not just buildings. The next step, therefore, is to equip the campus community, especially faculty and peers, to make that access genuinely usable.
What institutions can practically do
1. Training faculty to redesign institutional mindset
One of the most practical steps Indian universities can take is to prepare faculty to recognize, respond to, and appropriately refer to student distress. Across campuses worldwide, this is increasingly seen as a core academic responsibility. At the University of Cambridge, staff-wellbeing training includes a formal Well-being Advocate programme, which equips faculty and departmental staff to recognise student distress and respond appropriately. In India, this need is even more urgent. Students interact with faculty every day, often long before they meet a counsellor, which means early signs of distress usually appear in classrooms, labs, and studios. Yet most faculties have never been trained to handle such moments. Even small shifts, such as a sensitive check-in, asking about well-being alongside academic work, or avoiding dismissive language, can influence whether a student seeks help or retreats.
2. Redesigning campus culture for everyday psychological safety
Wellness cannot be outsourced to counsellors alone. It requires a cultural redesign, including faculty sensitization, peer networks, flexible academic policies, and clear communication. Creating everyday psychological safety also means redesigning campus spaces and rituals so that care feels natural, not clinical. At the University of Manitoba, the Student Wellness Centre offers an inviting walk-in space with low-barrier activities like pet therapy and speed-friending, showing how simple micro-environments can normalise help-seeking. The University of Newcastle turns its libraries into well-being hubs during high-stress periods, hosting chill-out zones and drop-in activities that make emotional support feel informal and approachable. Indian campuses can adopt similar practices at a minimal cost and with a high impact. Campuses can also introduce low-pressure rituals, such as campus mental-health days, storytelling booths, or student-led conversation circles, that help students feel connected and seen.
3. Take counselling beyond the clinic
For counselling to be effective, campuses must bring support to where students already are. This begins by taking counsellors out of isolated offices and integrating them into every student space. Indian campuses can adapt similar ideas. Counsellors or well-being teams can host short, relaxed check-ins in student centres or lounges, take part in informal Q&A booths during campus fests, or organize small pop-up conversations in hostel common rooms. These low-barrier encounters normalize help-seeking by placing it in familiar environments, rather than distinct clinical settings. Featuring counsellors in newsletters, social-media reels, or weekly well-being reminders helps students attach a face, voice, and personality to a support system, lowering the psychological threshold for reaching out later. The goal is to make counsellors visible, approachable, and part of the community.
Beyond access, towards autonomy
India’s higher education landscape is expanding rapidly. Every new campus, every new course, and every new policy emphasizes skills, employability, and innovation. But none of these can thrive without emotional bandwidth. The next step in campus mental health isn’t more counsellors, but it’s more confidence. Students must feel they own their care, that help is not surveillance, and that healing can happen in spaces of their choosing.
When therapy becomes a choice, not a risk, we will finally begin to see universities where mental health is not managed but respected.
Meghna Sethi, PhD Candidate, IIT Delhi; Lecturer, OB/HR Area, JGBS, OP Jindal Global University. Dr Pragya Jayaswal, PhD, IIT Delhi; Assistant Professor, Marketing Area, IMT Ghaziabad.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETEDUCATION does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETEDUCATION will not be responsible for any damage caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly.
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