Galvanized by the April tragedy at Virginia Tech, in which Seung Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty members and then committed suicide, colleges and universities around the country are urgently taking stock of the reach and effectiveness of their mental-health services. The goal is not just to avoid another catastrophe caused by a deeply troubled student who fell through the cracks. It's also to face up to the needs of today's students, who increasingly struggle with eating disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. The rate of depression among college students has doubled in just 15 years; last year, some 45% of all students said they've sometimes felt too depressed to function, according to an annual survey by the American College Health Association. 9% of college students seriously considered suicide.

"Some of the key questions that Virginia Tech has brought out are: when do you recognize that a student's having serious problems? What steps do you take, and how do you coordinate care?" says Richard Kadison, director of mental-health services at Harvard University and author of College of the Overwhelmed. Last week, Kadison and other campus psychiatrists from across the country gathered in Washington, D. C., to map out a better way to meet the demand.

Many schools are finding that change will be a significant challenge. About 65% of campus counseling centers still have no relationship with the health center, for example, making it difficult to manage illnesses that require medication. Just 59% have a psychiatrist available.

And the funds necessary to add expertise can be hard to find. Days after the Virginia Tech slayings, Florida public university administrators asked for $3.5 million to hire more psychologists and campus police officers and to set up interdisciplinary teams that would identify troubled students. The Legislature denied the request. The ratio of counselors to students at the University of South Florida is 1 to 3 500; at Cornell, there's a counselor for every 800 students. Experts say that parents should check out the mental-health resources when they send their child to school and make sure that the counseling office is aware of any history. "Continuity of care is really important, so that people don't fall through the cracks and have unnecessary stresses and strains," says Jerald Kay, chair of psychiatry at Wright State University Medical School.

The thrust of the movement at institutions in the lead has been to redouble efforts to identify students in need of help and then make that help available. Some, like Cornell and Wisconsin, are adding counseling offices in dorms and academic buildings so students have ready access; Cornell has two counselors on staff whose sole job is to talk with faculty and staff and pick up the first inklings of trouble. The University of Illinois requires anyone who threatens or attempts suicide to have a four-session mental-health evaluation. And early-warning systems that involve the entire university community are a priority on many campuses. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N. Y. for example, faculty and staff can log concerns about academic problems or behavioral issues on a website, which is monitored by an intervention team of representatives from the dean's office, faculty, housing staff, campus police, and counseling center. The team meets regularly to decide on an appropriate response.