I’ve already written a multitude of articles regarding mental health issues among students. I’ve talked about the struggles of recognizing when you have a condition that needs treatment, the trouble of being able to find adequate treatment and the barriers to students when deciding to take time off to receive treatment. These topics have all had their fair share of discussion and, to varying degrees, have been addressed and improved upon by Student Union and the Washington University administration in recent years.

The aspects of mental health I have mentioned thus far all fall under the umbrella idea of the treatment process. You first have to recognize a problem and then go about the necessary steps to treat and deal with your specific needs. For the most part, however, the conversation stops there. Little attention is given to the aftermath in these situations. Like after a hurricane, students who go into treatment for mental health issues and come out the other end successfully are left to pick up the pieces after the damage has been done. The question then comes: What should or can the University do to alleviate the problems that arrive as a result of this process?

My concern in this issue is academic decline as a result of mental illness. If someone is dealing with mental health issues or beginning treatment while remaining enrolled in classes, their grades may suffer as a result. One can argue that the existence of mental health leaves of absence exists as a counterbalance to this exact problem. However, like I have written before, taking a leave of absence wasn’t always a feasible option until the recent change in transcript notation was enacted. But again, even recognizing that one is suffering from a mental health issue can be difficult and someone could go through an entire semester struggling without knowing why or that they need treatment.

To illustrate this, let’s look at a hypothetical scenario. Say a student goes through a semester with ongoing depressive and anxious episodes, resulting in several failed courses. The student then takes the time between semesters to see a psychiatrist at home and begin taking medication. They then return and proceed to receive a 4.0 GPA each semester for the rest of their college career.

The case I described above may show a drastic shift in grades, but it isn’t too far off from what a difference in treatment can make to someone with an untreated mental illness. Depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder all restrict the ability to concentrate and the motivation to work, resulting in a difficulty to be an active and engaged student. And though one’s mental health may fluctuate over the course of their education, once a grade is received, it is permanent on a transcript. How then will that student explain that one semester in the context of the rest of their education to a potential employer or post-graduate institution without divulging their personal health, given the still existing stigma against those suffering from mental illness?

My point in identifying this issue is not to say that students who suffer from mental illness should receive cushions on their grades or be allowed to retake exams to improve scores. That would obviously be unfair. My point is that there is no good answer to how to tackle this issue, inside or outside of college. If you lose a job because of poor performance or erratic behavior as a result of undiagnosed mental health issues, you don’t get a mulligan to try again. You just have to move on and find a new one. This is an issue that should be given attention because it does exist, and it should be handled in a logical way that gives due consideration to the factors of illness and the value of particular grades that create it in the first place.

Current Wash. U. policy does allow for students to retake a class where they have not performed as well as they would like, denoting an “R” on their transcript. This serves as an opportunity for a do-over in these situations. The problem is students can only take a certain number of credits per semester and have to pay for each semester they choose to take before graduating. You could technically retake a whole semester’s worth of classes to improve grades, but it would cost a whole extra semester worth of tuition, healthcare, housing, etc.

I would propose a potential subsidy to be given on an approved case-by-case basis to help students who find themselves in this predicament retake classes under current school policy over the summer. This would help, to a degree, to alleviate the financial barrier of retakes, allowing students of low socioeconomic status to benefit more from this policy. But more generally, I think this problem should be given more attention and brought into the conversation surrounding mental health because it is important. It would be a shame to believe that treatment is the light at the end of the tunnel when, in reality, there are so many other factors that are not given proper consideration.