This article covers the topic of suicide. If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please reach out to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
The tragic passing of a Princeton University student, who was nearing the end of his junior year, has sparked discussions on the way Ivy League institutions address mental health emergencies among their student body.
Lauren Blackburn, aged 23, pursued a major in English and a minor in creative writing and hailed from Indiana. He was reported missing for several days until he was discovered deceased in a lake. The authorities have not disclosed the cause of death or if any suspicious circumstances were identified.
Blackburn was the third Princeton undergraduate student to die in two years and the eighth since 2021. Six of those deaths were determined to be suicides, as The Princetonian first reported.
Princeton Professor Yiyun Li, who directs the university’s creative writing program, lost both of her sons to suicide, one of whom, James Li, was a Princeton student when he died in 2024.
Students who may have been “big fish in a small pond” in high school may find that’s not the case at a prestigious institution, “and there is some angst around comparison,” she explained.
Ellis suggested more colleges and universities should offer “early intervention” resources, targeting mental health concerns before they develop into self-harm or suicidal ideation.
Students who may have been “big fish in a small pond” in high school may find that’s not the case at a prestigious institution, “and there is some angst around comparison,” Victoria Grinman explained. (iStock)
“If the universities could help facilitate these dialogues and make it less of a taboo to have mental health struggles, and then even maybe some systems in place for screening so that they’re able to help these students earlier on so it doesn’t get so intense that the students are just failing out of school or even engaging in really harmful behaviors,” she said.
The eight Ivy League schools received a total of $6.4 billion in federal funding in 2024. Financial statements from Columbia University show that it received $1.3 billion in federal funding; the University of Pennsylvania received $1.8 billion and Yale University received $898.7 million during 2024.
Not far behind were Cornell University, receiving $825.5 million in fiscal year 2024, and Harvard University, which received $686.5 million. Princeton University took in $455 million, Brown University reported “more than $254 million” and, according to USA Spending, Dartmouth received $141.9 million in 2024.
Harvard University received $686.5 million in federal funding in 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
The funds that universities receive from the federal government are often in the form of grants and used for research and development, facility and administrative costs and student aid. The Trump administration has frozen billions in federal funding to colleges and universities that do not comply with the president’s executive orders to protect Jewish students from hate and dismantle DEI policies.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Each of the eight total Ivy League schools have mental health resources ranging from counseling hotlines and centers to student-run support groups.
Suicide continues to be a leading cause of death within the United States, with 49,000 people dying by suicide in 2023, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Suicide rates increased 37% between 2000-2018 and decreased 5% between 2018-2020 before returning to their peak in 2022, according to the agency.
“I think one of the most important things is thinking about going back to the basics of, hey, if you know that Billy down the hall lives alone in an individual room and you haven’t seen him in a day or two, he hasn’t attended Psych 101 with you … knock on his door, ask, how are you? Can I get you something? Just going back to the basics of loving your neighbor,” Grinman said.
Fox News Digital’s Rachel del Guidice and Jacqliene Mangini contributed to this report.
