Meadows Institute Expands Its Innovative Postsecondary Portfolio with Phase 2 of Minding College Minds® 

September 28, 2026 – When the Meadows Institute launched Minding College Minds®, the goal was ambitious: to help colleges and universities move toward a more comprehensive, sustainable approach to student mental health—one that strengthens the systems surrounding students, not just the services available to them. Today, more than 25 Texas colleges and universities are putting that vision into practice.  

And the need has never been greater. The Healthy Minds Study, which has surveyed nearly one million college students since 2007, continues to document the significant mental health challenges facing today’s students. In the most recent survey cycle, 38% of students reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms and 34% reported moderate to severe anxiety.  

But the story of Minding College Minds® is not simply about the size of the challenge. It is about what colleges can do in response. 

Building on the experience and momentum of our 25 partner institutions, and thanks to the generous continued support of the Trellis Foundation, the Greater Texas Foundation, and the Texas Pioneer Foundation, the Meadows Institute is taking Minding College Minds® to the next level through three interconnected initiatives:  

• Building the Evidence Base
• Expanding Impact
• Scaling What Works 

Together, these efforts will deepen our understanding of what makes campus mental health strategies effective, bring more institutions into the learning community, and translate lessons from the field into approaches that can be sustained and replicated. 

The opportunity is significant. Texas has become a proving ground for innovative approaches to student mental health, and the lessons emerging from Minding College Minds® can inform campuses well beyond our state. By building on what we have learned alongside our college and university partners, we can move the conversation from How big is the problem? to What works—and how do we make it possible for more students to benefit? 

Building the Evidence Base
The Meadows Institute is working to show that access to mental health supports leads to student success. With community college funding now tied to outcomes like degree completion under Texas H.B. 8 (88th Legislature, 2023) and college funding mechanisms in dozens of other states, colleges need to show these investments work. To support that need, the Institute has contracted with Far Harbor, an analysis and research firm, to work with four diverse community colleges to draw direct connections between mental health supports and student outcomes, and to build a measurement framework colleges can use to justify sustained investment in mental health. 

Expanding Impact
The Meadows Institute is partnering with the Aspen Institute to incorporate Belonging, Meaning-Making, Wellbeing, and Purpose (BMWP) into the MCM Framework’s Universal Supports. Research links BMWP with results such as increased persistence and graduation rates, stronger relationships, and greater life satisfaction. Through integrating these strategies, the Institute will create a replicable model which leverages national partnerships to transform how community colleges support student wellbeing. 

Scaling What Works
Through MCM learning communities, Texas community colleges have already begun transforming how they support student mental health. Now it’s time to move from pilot to practice and from individual success stories to systematic implementation. To do that, the Meadows Institute is developing the MCM Action Network, an active learning and implementation network extending engagement beyond the learning community, with an ongoing feedback loop among participants, Meadows Institute experts, and the broader field. This community of practice will evolve with institutions’ needs, generating actionable strategies for higher education broadly and accelerating the spread of effective approaches. 

Together, these three initiatives mark a major shift for Minding College Minds® — from proving a concept to proving its value, and from a set of pioneering partners to infrastructure that can support institutions at scale. With more than a third of college students reporting moderate to severe depression or anxiety, mental health support is foundational to whether students persist, complete their degrees, and thrive. As more states tie funding to outcomes, colleges need proof that these investments yield results. The Meadows Institute is committed to generating that proof and putting it into institutions’ hands. 

The next chapter of Minding College Minds® is about turning early success into long-term, national change — one evidence-based, replicable step at a time. To learn more about the MCM Framework and these scaling initiatives, or to learn how your institution can get involved, go to our webpage or contact the team directly at mindingcollegeminds@mmhpi.org.