There is also a strain on the pipeline. Many university PhD programs, which take six or more years to complete, graduate just a handful of school psychologists a year, Espelage said. Boosting numbers more quickly, she said, will require increasing the number of programs that offer master’s-level Ed's degrees, which generally require 2 years of coursework and a yearlong internship.
A variety of efforts are underway to boost the numbers of mental health professionals in schools. Many of those efforts are buoyed by an influx of support from the U.S. Department of Education. In 2023, the department gave $141 million to 103 states and school districts.
In 2021, 42% of high school students and 57% of teen girls said they felt persistently sad or hopeless, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report—the highest rate in 10 years
“We don’t have time to wait for somebody for 5 to 6 years and then only put five [graduates] out, and then only three of them might actually be in schools,” she said. “It’s going to take decades to address this gap.”