By Francine Conway
Commencement season is supposed to be a triumphal rite of passage. Yet behind the mortarboards, far too many graduates nationwide carry the invisible burdens of loneliness, anxiety and depression.
These are more than just isolated symptoms of collegiate stress: They reflect a failure to cultivate the emotional and civic skills students need most: empathy.
The 2022 Healthy Minds Study found 60% of undergraduates meet the clinical criteria for at least one mental-health condition, a sharp increase over the previous decade. Nearly two-fifths of participants in a 2024 Inside Higher Ed study said mental health issues interfere with their academic success.
These numbers should concern us, but they should also prompt deeper reflection: Have we focused too much on intellect at the expense of developing a student’s capacity to connect?
Psychologists refer to this capacity as mentalization – the ability to understand and reflect on our thoughts and feelings and imagine what others might be experiencing.
In simpler terms, mentalization is the building block of empathy. When students have difficulty mentalizing, they’re more likely to feel isolated, misunderstood or overwhelmed. When they can, they develop connection, resilience and a greater sense of belonging.
Higher education already trains students to solve complex problems. But in a culture that rewards outrage over reflection, many never learn to listen deeply, hold space for disagreement or practice curiosity.
The result? More students are distressed, and toxic and polarized discourse is more likely to occur.
At Rutgers-New Brunswick, we’re working to change that. We’ve shifted from a reactive, clinical model of care to a public-health approach that places empathy at the center of campus life.
Three pillars illustrate what’s possible:
- Access that fosters connection. We embedded therapists inside academic units and expanded evening and virtual appointments, reducing wait times even as demand increased. A state grant now empowers us to connect students with community partners who offer longer-term therapeutic services with no additional cost. Clinicians help students name their emotions and understand others, making every session a chance to strengthen relational skills.
- Resources that reflect institutional empathy. Most campuses require mental health diagnostic assessments before granting accommodations or providing medication, yet 17% provide them in-house, forcing many students to pay up to $2,000 privately. With help from a state grant, we created an on-campus evaluation service priced at $150 and free with student insurance. This provides affordability while ensuring students feel seen and supported.
- A community empowered to lead with empathy. Our inaugural chief wellness officer and the director of our campuswide Scarlet Well initiative to fund grassroots wellness projects, train staff peer supporters and create an interdisciplinary minor in holistic wellness. We host an annual summit that brings together more than 125 community organizations. With donor support, we are building a community behavioral treatment center and retreat for adolescents and young adults.
Faculty and staff reinforce this work across daily life, from writing assignments that require perspective-taking to “listen and reflect” circles in residence halls after difficult events. Empathy becomes a practiced discipline, not a platitude.
If universities want to graduate citizens capable of sustaining a pluralistic democracy, empathy must be taught as deliberately as writing, research or data analysis. And if we want students to thrive – not just academically but emotionally – we must treat empathy as preventive care.
What can other institutions and policymakers do now?
- Invest upstream. Fund counseling centers to intervene early, but support peer networks, empathy-based curricula and community partnerships that prevent isolation before crisis hits.
- Make reflection visible. Embed structured perspective-taking into academic work and grade it with the same seriousness as technical mastery.
- Align incentives. State and federal agencies should tie grant funding to campus-wide wellness strategies emphasizing connection, not just crisis beds.
- Cultivate collective wisdom. Institutions should openly share successes and failures, convene regularly to exchange insights and approach mental health as a shared challenge.
Empathy won’t appear on a transcript, but its absence echoes across campuses and beyond. When we teach students to see themselves in others, they flourish – and so does the society they’ll help shape.
I began my career working with individuals to ease pain and disconnection. As chancellor of New Jersey’s flagship public university, I’ve seen what’s possible when we make empathy a part of the academic experience.
The roadmap is clear. Let’s follow it so every student can thrive and every community can benefit.
Francine Conway, Ph.D., is the chancellor of Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She is also a Distinguished Professor in Rutgers’ Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology and is a nationally recognized clinical psychologist.
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