Illustration by Alexa Perez-Cuahtepitzi
You are lying in your bed awake before your alarm has gone off. As you open your eyes to the bright sun streaming through the blinds, you feel strange. You turn your head and see the bustle of college life outside your dorm, and something is different. You cannot pinpoint it, but something is changing within you.
It’s your first day of senior year. Your last first day. You begin to think about all the choices you’ve made in the past four years of your college career. After a myriad of stressful classes, navigating registration portals, all-night study sessions and tuition payments, you’re almost there.
You’re almost at the point of holding that degree that you worked so hard for. You’re ready to finally start your life — the rest of your life, with your own job, your own place. You are ready for freedom at last. At least, that’s what everyone expects life after college to be.
Yet, you have made a deep realization that you are standing between two completely different versions of your life. You’re not a kid anymore, but you’re not fully settled into adulthood either. You realize it’s more than freedom. It’s about your livelihood. You must now think about groceries, rent and insurance. You are now learning how to take care of yourself without the safety nets you’ve had — one of which is student healthcare.
Many students don’t realize just how much the campus health center defines their healthcare experience. Campus health centers are accessible and easy to navigate. Students can make appointments online, by phone or simply walk in between classes.
Appointments are often available quickly, and many services are low-cost or already included in tuition. For many female students, the campus health center becomes their primary source of reproductive healthcare during college.
It is often the first place where they schedule gynecological appointments on their own. These services being located directly on campus, makes the process feel normal and low-stress.
Universities across the United States have expanded reproductive health services available on campus. Many universities now provide various services pertaining to sexual health directly through campus health centers. The American College Health Association reports that colleges and universities provide sexual health education, contraception, STI testing, counseling and other reproductive health services through campus health programs.
Reproductive health is a crucial part of overall health and cannot be ignored. Reproductive health includes a wide variety of tests, preventative screenings, vaccinations and contraceptive use. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 60.7% of women between the ages of 18 and 49 have an ongoing or potential need for contraceptive services, showing that reproductive healthcare is an enduring necessity for many women.
The problem often arises after graduation. Once students leave the university, they also leave the campus health center system. The ten-minute walk to the health center is gone. Now, healthcare depends on insurance plans, provider networks and appointment availability.
Female students who once scheduled birth control refills or annual exams through the campus health center now have to find gynecologists and learn about insurance coverage, within an entirely different healthcare system.
For many young adults, this transition is difficult. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, many students leave college still covered under their parents’ insurance plans, but this ends when they turn 26, forcing them to purchase their own.
This transition becomes especially important for women because reproductive healthcare requires ongoing access to services such as birth control, annual gynecological exams, STI testing and preventative screenings.
Unfortunately, many graduates delay these services not because they are unavailable, but because they are unsure how to access them outside of the university system.
To ameliorate the transition from student to independent life, universities could offer workshops on life after college, specifically focusing on healthcare navigation. These workshops could teach students what deductibles and copays are, as well as how to find in-network doctors.
Universities could also partner with organizations such as Planned Parenthood and other community health organizations to help students transition from campus to community healthcare. Universities could even provide a graduation healthcare guide that explains what comes after students lose access to the campus health center.
University is not just a place where students earn degrees. It is a place where you learn from your experiences in order to become an adult. Part of adulthood is managing your health so your livelihood can extend far beyond your degree.
Campus health centers are extremely useful and helpful, but they function as training wheels. Graduation should not be the moment when students lose their healthcare safety net. Graduation should be the moment when students understand how to find healthcare on their own.
The issue is not access, but instead access without knowledge: knowing how to take care of your health independently. When you walk across that stage with your diploma, the question should not only be whether you are ready for your career. The question should also be whether you are ready for adulthood— including taking care of your health.
