Episode 48: The Pre-Covid Pandemic Still Plaguing Higher Education with Michael London, CEO at Uwill

There's a real pandemic that's plaguing higher education students, and it's not Covid-19.

According to the American College Health Association in 2018 and 2019, about 60% of respondents felt overwhelming anxiety while 40% experienced depression so severe that they had difficulty functioning. In 2019, a Pennsylvania State University study noted that demand for campus mental health services increased by nearly 40%, all during a period that saw only a 5% increase in enrollment. These statistics on mental health challenges on campus are overwhelming and appalling.

Michael London, founder and CEO of Uwill, has always considered himself to be a social impact entrepreneur, so he wanted to tackle what he felt was the biggest issue within colleges. It's easy to see that students are dealing with a lot of things and there's still a stigma associated with getting help.

Digitizing Traditional Methods

Colleges have traditionally had campus counseling centers. Those centers are excellent in a lot of ways, but they're the traditional way that colleges have been helping students. Typically, a student will have to find the health center on campus, then sign up for some kind of a session and sit in a waiting room, depending upon how it's structured at a particular college. Today, students want (and need) that kind of service, but they also need more than that. How can their concerns be addressed using technology to help drive the solution and make it more convenient? Unfortunately, since most colleges have a very traditional structure, mental health in particular doesn’t get allocated many technical resources.

A lot of people were having problems before the pandemic, and the pandemic has exacerbated many of those problems. Students have needs that can only be addressed with mental health support and, as it stands, more students are dropping out because of mental illness than any other reason. Students don't necessarily want to access these services in a traditional way. When a student is feeling down, their only option is to go to their Behavioral Health Center to see if there's a counselor they can talk to, and it's a big step for them. If this essential resource was marketed aggressively by schools, they couldn't possibly hire enough counselors to meet student needs, assuming that students would choose to come to that center. Like most services these days, students want to be able to go online and receive immediate access to a licensed therapist based on their needs and preferences. If colleges could offer that, it would be a powerful step forward.

There's a certain level of stigma attached to mental health issues, whether they be depression or just general anxiety. As a society, we have to become better at accepting that a mental health problem is a disorder in the same way as diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and so on. Michael's ultimate goal is to help as many students as possible, and that requires flexibility and affordability. If he can help more students in a cost-effective way that's easily accessed by them and complements the work that's being done on campus, then he'll know he's on to something.

Centralized Mental Health Resources

Michael's commitment to the welfare and success of students began with his own experience as a high school student. Just over half of the people he graduated with went off to college, which prompted him to start his first company. What he found was that when you have technology-driven solutions that are on campus, you start to understand the students on a deeper level. Rather than just being a digital health company, he considers Uwill, his current company, to be an education tech company that happens to be in digital health. To him, that's a notable contribution to how he thinks about schools and students to help Uwill be successful. The goal was never to try and get rich, it was to focus on providing resources that help students and understand their needs better. If you care deeply about people and just do things right by them, success inevitably follows.

As much as we want to look at therapy as a treatment for mental health problems, it's also a preparation for adulthood. Relationship issues that students deal with won't magically disappear as an adult. For some, they get even more challenging after they've entered the workforce. Gaining an understanding early on that it is part of the natural order of things to deal with these issues will go a long way. And of course, diagnosing more serious health issues, troubleshooting them, and working toward solving them is also key.

Ideally, in the future there will be a single place students can go to for support. That one place will provide immediate access and a speedy, customized level of assistance. The support could be in the form of tutoring, child care or adult care assistance, financial assistance, mental health assistance, mentoring, and so on. There will eventually be a platform that recognizes that students should be able to go to one place for any issue, because they're all interconnected anyway. It doesn't make sense for a student to go to a bunch of different places for these things, especially if the solutions are technology-driven.

A platform this elaborate will most likely not be something developed internally at a university, but rather through an outside group or a handful of outside groups. Right now, colleges are just dipping their toes in the water. Over time, the data gathered from all of these technological experiences will allow students to best utilize their opportunities and flourish. The platform is key, and the facilitation and ease of use are key. Eventually, schools will put all of these programs and resources together as they make their worth undeniable. The future of convenient mental health is around the corner, and Uwill is taking the first foundational steps to make it happen.

Connect with Michael London: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellondonedu/

Learn more about Uwill at https://www.uwill.com/

Subscribe and listen to our podcast at IlluminateHigherEducation.com

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This episode is brought to you by N2N’s Illuminate App, The iPaaS for Higher Education.

About N2N Services

Founded in 2010, N2N is committed to serving educational institutions and helping them figure out how to serve their students, faculty, and staff using the most innovative technologies and solutions available in the marketplace. Over the last decade, N2N has served over 300 academic institutions and enabled their student success journeys.

N2N Services Inc. is a leader in enterprise application integration and strategic advisory services for higher education, At N2N, we are committed to providing the highest quality solutions and collaboratively building student-centric solutions.

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