Universities have gotten really good at creating distress. This isn’t because they lack good intentions or that students have gotten more fragile. Higher education is mired in systems draining energy from learners, amid constant competition and loss of purpose, while the institution itself loses credibility in a growing climate of uncertainly. It asks learners to commit themselves fully without any assurance that degrees will pay off. Faculty try to furnish inspiration while facing scandals and ideological strife. Administrators live with scarcity and division. The result is less a state of exhaustion than a lingering organizational mood, an existential decline into depression at every level of campus life.
One way to understand this dynamic comes from social theory viewing depression not simply as an individual defect, but rather a collective response to environments that deplete desire. The book Quit Everything by Franco “Bifo” Bernardi frames depression as a cultural condition rather than a personal pathology, a generalized reaction to a climate demanding relentless performance without emotional sustenance, security, or a sense of meaning.[i] In this context depression is more than mere sadness. It’s the failure to believe that one’s efforts will lead to something worthwhile. When environments ask for ever more productivity and resilience while providing less stability and compassion in return, withdrawing is a reasonable reaction.
It’s also why disengagement can’t simply be defined as a lack of motivation or commitment. It also can signal a simple refusal to invest psychic energy. When learning environments are operating more like pressure cookers thancollaborative spaces, withdrawing begins to make sense as a form of self-care. Not that this happens the same way in every student. Learners in the throes of economic precarity, racial injustice, immigration threat, or caregiving obligation can face a state of existential exhaustion Bernardi equates to “breathlessness.”[ii] More than a figure of speech, affective breathlessness is a direct outcome of the lived experience of capitalism today. As time compresses and demands never stop, bodies respond with anxiety and stress. Breathing weakens. Thinking slows. Systems begin to shut down. Learning on empty results. Breathlessness persists as depression spreads throughout populations, even when individuals are alone. Faculty feel it in professional disillusionment. Staff feel it when obliged to do more. Learners feel it as they look to the future. The ensemble is more a condition than a namable event, manifest in a constriction of hope and possibility.
Diagnosis isn’t enough. Naming the depressive university is a good start, but consciousness-raising alone won’t change very much. What follows moves the focus beyond student coping and into domains of policy, programs, and institutional design. How do these various elements create affective climates on college and university campuses? In what ways can “inclusion” become something tangible (rather than performative) at the level of lived experience? What will move universities to see emotional well-being as a universal need rather than a peripheral add-on?
The task ahead is bigger than student resilience. It’s about fostering capacities to sustain the will to learn. The question is how universities can keep desire alive. Creating more supportive environments for both learners and employees does not mean removing challenges. It entails distinctions between when a student is being challenged enough to grow versus simply overwhelmed. It also takes looking seriously at the psychological environment of a campus and acting to ensure that learning feels sustainable. This is not to say depression should be seen as an end-point. It’s a message. And if universities are interested in hearing that message, depression has a vital role to play as a catalyst for positive change.
Bureaucracy rarely announces itself as emotional, yet it is among the most deeply felt forces on campus. While university policy may present itself in a bland language of neutrality, it often generates unintended consequences as students and faculty encounter it. Generic forms, deadlines, warnings, and automated messages send out quiet but powerful signals making students feel welcomed, but also observed. Academic bureaucracies do more than manage administrative details. They shape how college feels to learners over time. This isn’t to say that distress comes from mistreatment or cruelty. It’s more a matter of indifference. Policies are meant to regulate rather than listen. They maintain order rather than trust. When student needs fall outside of norms, systems treat them as disruptions rather than necessities. Learners with the luxury of flexibility experience such frictions as annoying but still manageable. But those living with tenuous finances, immigration vulnerability, or learning differences may find them oppressive. A “registration hold” becomes a cause for panic. A missed deadline a moral failure. As these interactions accumulate over time, they generate latent watchfulness and even fear.
Syllabi are among the worst ways bureaucracy is felt. Faculty generally see them as informational documents about a course. But for learners a syllabus can feel like an assault. Hostile listings of requirements and penalties tell what is expected from day one. Third-person address objectifies in phrasing like “Students will read” or “Students will learn.” All too often, syllabi frame courses though a deficit view, assuming learners will fail if left their own devices. To studentsunsure if they belong in college, the tone of a syllabus can confirm their worst fears.
On balance, most faculty don’t realize their messaging can do this. Many see it simply as “structure” to keep students in line. Some may be exhausted from constant questions, poor attendance, or late assignments. Others view it as self-protection. But the end result can be a syllabus functioning less as a welcome mat, and more like a legal agreement. Whatever the intent, research shows that when students see such lists of rules and regulations, they read them as lackof concern or care. These negative affects are unevenly distributed. Students familiar with academic cultures know what to expect. First gen students might not. Students needing disability accommodations may think they’ll be seen as burdens. International students feel particularly jittery these days. All of these background feelings are worsened by a harsh syllabus. Seen in these terms, bureaucracy and pedagogy intersect in unpredictable ways. Administrative tone, policy language, and course design all contribute to the emotional environment of learning. When courses resort todeterrents and one-size-fits-all instruction, they generate emptiness rather than engagement. Students react accordingly, answering carefully, complying whenever possible, and generally internalizing the panoptic gaze. But don’t confuse this with apathy. Learners are responding rationally to systems presenting as rigid and intimidating.
Other tiny details can make a big difference. Several years ago, I started sending email reminders of assignment due dates for a large online course. As the term went along, I began to worry I was coddling the students or bugging them too much. But I kept up the reminders anyway, at times up to three a week. When student evaluations arrived at the end of term, I got quite a surprise. Over and over again, learners thanked me, commented how thoughtful they felt the gesture was, and how much I “cared” for them. This made apparent to me just how much small purely functional gestures can influence the affective reception of a course.
Flexibility matters too, especially now. Policies allowing absences, flexible deadlines, or make up assignments are especially helpful for distressed or trauma-affected students.[iii] This can help learners manage if they are struggling to keep up with their lives. When instructors explain why a course element works as it does or where leeway exists, it’s seen by students as support. Gestures like choosing a no-cost or low-cost textbook show awareness of economic need. Such measures don’t mean less rigor. They reflect the simple reality that students do better when they’re less burdened by outside pressures. And yes, some faculty resist these methods for fear they’ll invite chaos or short cutting. But those who exercise tolerance quickly find that treating students as responsible adults pays off in the long run.
Campus communications also carry affective weight. As with syllabi, universities can construct students as bureaucratic objects rather than subjects. As a former college dean, I can attest that this disconnect rarely stems from malicious intent. It often emerges from campus offices overwhelmed by demands and diminishing resources. It’s an open secret that fewer people want to work at universities these days, with the higher ed press filled with reports of leaders fleeing the profession. Structurally positioned as the institutional bearers of bad economic news, college and university administrators have become the public face of a system falling apart. One only needs to scan the contents of industry publications like the Chronicle of Higher Education to witness the scope of professional despair.
And of course, such bad news for higher education seems everywhere. Right now it’s hard to imagine any college demographic not riven with disillusionment. Needed now are ways to rediscover purpose and hope going forward. It’s also worth stating that the foundational purposes of higher education really haven’t changed or gone away. Learners continue to seek an understanding of the world, as well as their role within it. They want meaningful work and a happy life. Most want to build connections with others and give back to their communities. Thousands of students have told me so. And none of this is to deny the idealistic efforts of committed faculty and administrators throughout the field. Nor are these troubles occurring to the same degree on every campus.
It’s time to reinvest in higher education as a utopian project, and in doing so to recognize that flaws do not mean failure. Acknowledging problems can make institutions better. Most professors truly want to help their students, but they often get hamstrung by systems that can’t keep up with changing needs. The biggest issue now facing faculty is the challenge of maintaining programmatic integrity in a climate of declining enrollment and less money. Add to this the coming “demographic cliff’ of the college-age population, which will reduce student numbers by 15 percent over the next decade.[iv] Seen in this light, the fuss about useless degrees may solve itself, since fewer students will mean fewer college graduates. Already the discourse of higher education has shifted from pro-growth to sober plans for streamlining, consolidation, and “rightsizing.” The harsh reality is that colleges and universities face reductions in courses and related staffing, even as some pivot to non-degree programs and more reliance on research money. As fiscal crises challengethe existing internal dynamics of higher education the urgency of transformation grows exponentially.
[i] Franco Bernardi, Quit Everything: Interpreting Depression (London: Repeater 2024).
[ii] Franco Bernardi, Breathing: Chaos and Poetry (South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e) 2018).
[iii] Mays Imad, “Leveraging the Neuroscience of Now,” Inside Higher Ed, June 3, 2020, https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/06/03/seven-recommendations-helping-students-thrive-times-trauma.
[iv] Jon Marcus, ” A looming ‘demographic cliff’: Fewer college students and ultimately fewer graduates” NPR, Jan. 8, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/01/08/nx-s1-5246200/demographic-cliff-fewer-college-students-mean-fewer-graduates.