WALTHAM, Mass. (AP) — A growing number of U.S. colleges are trying to ease students’ anxieties around failure and teach them to cope with it. On many campuses, it’s meant to combat climbing rates of stress, depression and other problems that have been blamed on reduced resilience or grit among younger generations. Across the country, campus mental health officials report today’s students appear to have a harder time bouncing back from adversity. Counseling centers have seen surging demand, often from students overwhelmed by everyday stresses. Professors have raised concerns about students’ fragility when it comes to receiving bad grades.

Colleges have responded with an array of programs meant to boost resilience and help students catch up on life skills. When it comes to grades, Cornell College in Iowa is warning professors that they shouldn’t soften their scoring for the sake of students’ emotions. A directive on the issue notes that “a grade of a C or below is not the end of the world.” “Normalize failure. It’s part of life. It’s one way we learn,” the message says. “Sometimes students need to fail, and not be given an undeserved grade by a sympathetic faculty member.”

Others are highlighting the failures of successful people. Harvard University has a website sharing rejection letters received by faculty, staff and alumni. Experts propose a variety of theories to explain why today’s students might be struggling. Some say the pressure to succeed is stronger than ever, making even small failures seem disastrous. Some say social media floods students with images of perfection that make them feel bad about their own lives. Others blame parents who tightly manage their children’s lives and shield them from failure — a tendency taken to the extreme in the college admissions bribery scandal , in which dozens of parents were charged last month with paying bribes to help their children get into top schools.
Whatever the cause, mental health issues appear to be on the rise on college campuses.

A 2018 survey by the American College Health Association found that 22% of college students were diagnosed with anxiety or treated for it over the past year, up from 10% a decade before. The rate for depression rose from 10% to 17% in the same span, the survey found. Efforts to tackle campus mental health have sometimes been met by sneers. On social media, some observers mock a generation of fragile “snowflakes” who need “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings.” But mental health advocates counter that today’s students are grappling with a host of pressures that past generations didn’t, from social media to the threat of school violence.