4 out of 5 people between the ages of 18 and 21 know someone who has experienced a mental health problem, while nearly 2 in 5 know someone who has attempted suicide. A quarter of all people in the same age group are worried about the mental health of someone their age.

And, according to the NUS, among students, it’s an even more critical issue. 63% of university counselling services have reported an increase in psychological distress among students.

Which is why, even if you can’t imagine it ever being you, it’s good to find a university with solid support structures. These can often include any or all of the following:

• a university-run counselling service, often with specialist advisers on debt, mental health, legal issues, housing, relationship and personal problems and so on
• a students’ union-run counselling service (as well as or instead of one run by the university), often staffed by sabbaticals or permanent staff or both. Usually has the ability to help in similar situations as above, as well as academic or other disputes with the university itself
• ‘moral’ or personal tutors: academics, sometimes with special training, sometimes without, who’re supposed to take a special interest in their students’ state of mind
• chaplains: obviously for those seeking support with a more religious flavour
• mentors: students in their second or final years, assigned pastoral duties of a sort of older brother/sister kind
• psychiatric services – rarely available full-time or with being referred
• regular health services, including GPs, nurses, psychotherapists, etc.

More about some of these below. However, the range of difference in the amount and standard of these services is wide as Leslie Ash swallowing a banana sideways. Some universities have all of the above and they’re run with an efficiency that would have put certain fascist states to shame. Others have some lecturer whose been told they’re in charge of welfare and whose attitude is that nothing can’t be solved with a stiff upper lip and some English resolve.

There’s lots of information about mental and emotional health issues on the Royal College of Psychiatrists' website.

However, many will also be assigned a Personal Tutor who can be visited at any point during an academic career. The usefulness of this tutor depends on who you get. Some have no training and some have even less interest. The system tends to work better in collegiate universities, which are more of a close-knit community in the first place.

Many universities try to pair up second and third years with freshers, like an older brother or sister to show them the ropes. Most of these schemes are voluntary on the part of the ‘older’ students and, if they’re not, they’re virtually useless. Even the non-voluntary systems rely heavily on untrained students who may have a whole family of younger siblings to look after.

It’s a nice idea and occasionally it works brilliantly, especially in the first few weeks.

Sometimes students are allowed to live in for longer than they would otherwise be able or on better terms and conditions so long as they’re willing to take on certain responsibilities. It’s not dissimilar to the mentoring system, except that senior students tend to live in student halls, flats or houses among first years. They’re responsible partly for making sure they don’t go feral and trash the place, but also for looking out for them and being a friendly ear or shoulder.

Most senior students do it for one or more of the following reasons: (a) they want to live in for another year; (b) they want the cheaper or better room that comes with the job; (c) they think they ought to do something to get CV points while they’re at university; (d) having failed to score with anyone in their own year, they think this is a good way to get first pick of the freshers.

For those who like their welfare support to come with a religious tinge, most universities have a number of chaplains of different denominations.

To be fair, though, most chaplains are just good listeners who keep their religious agenda for those who want to listen. Still, spiritual guidance isn’t the answer to every student’s prayers and is more suited to long dark nights of the soul than handling black hole bank balances and exorcising evil landlords.

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