Psychological counselors at colleges across America are getting busier as more students grapple with more serious mental health problems according to an article published in the New York Times on December 19 and a study released by the Center for the Study of Collegiate Mental Health (cscmh).

“It is widely believed that the prevalence and severity of college student mental health concerns has been on the rise since the establishment of college and university counseling centers in the 1940s,” wrote the cscmh. “This increase has been particularly noteworthy in the last 10-20 years, and there is active debate about a range of potential reasons for this increase.”

The American College Health Association also recently published a report that found that 46 percent of college students said they felt “things were hopeless” within the past 12 months. Fifty-eight percent felt lonely in the same time period and 31 percent “felt so depressed that it was difficult to function.”

“It’s so different from how people might stereotype the concept of college counseling, or back in the ’70s students coming in with existential crises: Who am I?” director of counseling at Stony Brook University in New York, Dr. Jenny Hwang, told the New York Times. “Now they’re bringing in life stories involving extensive trauma, a history of serious mental illness, eating disorders, self-injury, alcohol and other drug use.”

The Times reports that nearly half of those who visit student counseling centers are suffering from a serious mental illness—double the rate of 10 years ago.

Why are campus counseling staff being overwhelmed with depressed students?

Doubtless, the factors the Times identifies play a role. New pills have enabled doctors to get youths to college who, in previously years, would have not been able to cope. Doctors today have a broader definition of exactly what is a mental disease, and what needs treatment.

But none of these explanations get to the fundamental cause of why so many young people are depressed.

These shocking statistics show that something basic and vital is missing from today’s modern education.

That missing fundamental ingredient is hope. In an article titled “Education Filled With Hope,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote that this world’s education “leaves young people without hope.” He quoted 1 Corinthians 15:19: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”

“This verse reveals the fundamental flaw in education today,” he wrote. “Whether it is religious or secular education, young people are only taught a hope that causes misery. Educators are giving our youth hope only in this life, and our young people are miserable!”

How obvious that is, when nearly half said they “felt things were hopeless” and nearly a third felt horribly depressed.

Man’s education brings hopelessness. But there is an alternative. For more information on how to become educated and grow in hope, read our free booklet Education With Vision.