College is an institution that elevates us to higher education and allows us to prove a sense of achievement to others, but why are students who are attending college experiencing depression and anxiety more than ever before? College compels students to stay motivated and create an environment that encourages them to stay and be successful, but when a student is hit with depression, they begin to lose focus on themselves and lose the incentive to succeed and stay motivated.

Depression has symptoms that we misinterpret and begin to misjudge individuals as being lazy, unmotivated, or irresponsible due to their inability to stay focused, earn good grades, or sometimes just get out of bed. We fail to understand the implications depression has on an individual and undermine the feelings they may be experiencing.

When college kids are pushed to an environment where the constant stress of succeeding, staying focused, and planning out their future is a persistent concern, they begin to forget to take care of themselves and their mental well-being begins to deteriorate. Although colleges are beginning to see the gradual increase of the number of students who are being affected and are beginning to provide mental health services, many students are uncomfortable finding help or many students are completely unaware of the depression they are facing.

Due to the negative stigmatization that having depression or anxiety is embarrassing, students are living with this illness every day while struggling to succeed in college. A college's inability to seek out and educate the populous about the issue of mental health creates students to fail or have the inability to reach their full potentiate. By college's increasing the outreach of the services they provide and reducing the negative stigma around the topic students would have a healthier mental status.

Mental health is an issue that affects students to a degree where they lack the ability to succeed if they are not given the resources or outreach to help them through this illness. As more students are being diagnosed with depression, it is necessary that colleges address the situation to help the students required to create a healthier environment for them. Mental illness is real, and it is necessary that we begin to focus more of our attention on this illness, so we could allow students to feel healthy in college.