Last year, more than 4,000 N.C. State students went to the University’s Counseling Center to receive help with personal issues. Due to budget cuts, understaffing and high demands for counseling, officials at the center said they are unable to serve students as effectively as they’d like.

According to Monica Osburn, the director of the Counseling Center, the recommended ratio for counselors serving students on campus is one counselor for every 1,000 students. 

Osburn said the Counseling Center employs 18 counselors, but for a student population the size of N.C. State’s, the Counseling Center needs 23 counselors.

“The ratio of counselors to students can range from 1:1000 to 1:1500, so at the very minimum there should be one counselor per 1,500 students,” Osburn said.

To maximize the amount of students that are seen by the Counseling Center, Osburn said each student seen by the center receives a limited amount of personal time spent with a professional.

According to Osburn, not having enough counselors to meet with students has been an obvious problem at the University, and students have commented about their issues with not being able to meet with a counselor as much as they want to.

“The feedback that we receive from students says that students don’t get to see the counselors as often as they would like,” Osburn said. “Counseling is usually every week because of the high demand at N.C. State, but most of our counselors can only see the students every other week.”

Miranda Day, a freshman in the First Year College, said she has experienced problems with the counseling center due to the overbooked schedule. 

“Sometimes I would have an appointment, and I would go and wait 20 minutes before they would see me,” Day said. “If I originally had an hour-long appointment, I would really only get like 40 minutes of counseling time. Occasionally, I would be kicked out earlier than my appointment.”

According to Day, when she wasn’t able to meet with a counselor for the entire appointment time, it made her feel as if she was not a priority. 

“I didn’t feel like they cared about my problems or my needs,” Day said. “It’s part of the reason I ended up just not making more appointments.”

The center is unable to hire an appropriate number of staff members because of budget cuts, according to Osburn.

“The Counseling Center is primarily funded through student fees, and we try to be mindful of how much we ask from student fees,” Osburn said.

Angel Bowers, a professional counselor at the center, said in order to maximize the number of students that the counselors see, the center has increased the number of group programs for students.

“Each counselor is able to see eight to 12 students at once,” Bowers said. “One thing that is important to understand is that group counseling is just as effective as individual counseling, and it is a weekly group meeting.” 

Osburn said sometimes counselors feel overwhelmed with the amount of students they see each day and the number of interactions they have.

“From a counselor’s perspective it is pretty difficult listening to everything that students are struggling with,” Osburn said. “We have interactions with students multiple times a day. When you’re doing it five to six hours a day, it can get emotionally draining.” 

According to Osburn, students attend counseling for three main reasons, anxiety-and stress-related issues, depression and relationship issues.

“Those three have been the top three reasons, not only here at N.C. state, but also nationwide for years,” Osburn said.

If there are students who urgently need to meet with a counselor, Osburn said they are able to walk in and speak with a professional immediately.

“We always have our walk-in times, in case anybody is in crisis or experiencing suicidal thoughts, or experienced a traumatic event,” Osburn said.