Students are not being given the tools they need in order to succeed on the Hayward campus at California State University East Bay. As reported by Forbes.com, there are 15,855 students on East Bay’s campus.

According to East Bay’s mental health counseling staff page on csueastbay.edu, there are only eight mental health counselors on the Hayward Campus available to students.

This means that there is only one counselor to every 1,982 students on campus. If these tools are necessary for students to accomplish their goals academically and mentally, there needs to be more counseling on campus.

Students dealing with crises absolutely need to be a priority. In the last ten years, permanent counseling positions have been reduced by 50 percent. CSUEB has resorted to group counseling and counseling workshops, for example, The “Anxiety Tool Box”, and “Calm and Clear,” to make up for their lack of counseling staff on campus. When students attempt to navigate the counseling section of the CSUEB website, four options are shown: Individual Counseling, Couples Counseling, Group Counseling, and Crisis Counseling.

There are even posters displayed throughout the campus saying, “1 counselor to every 2,500 students. Not okay!” Students are extremely fed up with the lack of consideration towards this very large issue.

Several students voiced their opinions on how they feel it is unfair that there are not enough counselors for the amount of students that are attending East Bay.

First year transfer student Rachel Sue said, “With the amount of students on our campus, there should really be more counseling. It kinda seems like students don’t really have much of an option for people to turn to if they need help dealing with certain things.”

Another student, Paige Sabin said, “College is super stressful and counselors are sometimes necessary to alleviate that stress. I feel like we definitely need more counselors and I feel like we could do much more with the resources that we have.”

The Student Health and Counseling Department was contacted on multiple occasions, but due to the fact that they are extremely busy with their workload, there was no response.

It is exceedingly clear that more counselors are in desperate need on campus. It is well known that school funds can be limited, but if bigger priority was made for counseling, funds could be redirected to support the hiring of additional counselors.

Students absolutely need to be able to have access to mental health counseling for their needs to be met in order to better their college career. Part of the college experience, outside of the academia, is learning to manage life in conjunction with college, and walking that tightrope can come with a large dose of stress and anxiety.

For students to be successful in the institution that educates them, they need to be supported in all realms of the process which includes mental health and stability.