Since the death of Elizabeth Shin at MIT in 2000, colleges have taken extra steps to make sure the record number of undergraduates with mental-health problems are getting the care they need. Liability is also a concern: after Ferrum College freshman Michael Frentzel hanged himself in 2000, his family alleged in a federal lawsuit that the Virginia school had ignored signs that he was likely to inflict self-harm. In an undisclosed financial settlement this summer, the school admitted “shared responsibility” for Frentzel’s death–the first time a college had ever done so. The wider academic community is awaiting the outcome of the Shin family suit against MIT, which alleges the school, overly concerned with Elizabeth’s privacy, wrongly neglected to involve them in her care. Despite the unusual timing of the deaths at NYU, suicide among college students is half as frequent as it is among nonstudents of the same age.
