Michigan's No-Grades Pilot Is a Kind Gesture, Not Mental Health Care

I came to college already in the throes of serious mental illness, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Within two days of Welcome Week, I was acutely suicidal. Luckily, an RA had the presence of mind to connect me with the Health Center, and within weeks I was referred to the therapist I still see today. 

That was 18 years ago. I am now a licensed social worker with nearly a decade of expertise. So when I saw University of Michigan’s new proposed program to remove final grades for first-semester freshman students as an effort to, in their words, “curb the mental health crisis” faced by kids transitioning into college, I loved the intention behind it – but hated what it was missing. And what’s missing is the difference between someone like me having a great first few months of school or having an experience like I did, or worse.

What Michigan is changing, and what it isn’t

First of all, I applaud the intent of this idea. Going off to college is often the biggest change a teenager has faced in their life so far, and the sudden loss of their previous social systems, like family and friends, and routines at home and in high school can be extremely stressful and destabilizing for even the most grounded teen. Having to adapt to making new friends, living alone or with roommates, and adjusting to the more rigorous academic schedule and requirements can lead to new mental health struggles a student has never faced before.

In fact, a July 2026 study in the Journal of American College Health found that 60% of more than 300 students seeking help had symptoms of adjustment disorder, a condition describing the clinical inability to adjust to change.

So, in order to relieve some of those struggles, University of Michigan is rolling out a pilot program in the fall of 2027 to remove final letter grades for first-semester freshmen from one of University of Michigan’s 19 colleges. The idea is to lift the extreme academic pressure that incoming students feel so that they’re not battling the transition to college and the expectation to succeed in their classes simultaneously.

A few caveats to note: Some media have been reporting on this policy as though it applies to the whole freshman student body. Not so. It will affect approximately 3,500 students entering the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. It’s also not a total abolition of grades. While final grades will be posted as either “pass” or “no credit,” students will still receive letter grades throughout the semester, and final grades will still be kept internally.

Why I believe this is one-dimensional

Here’s where my gripe comes in – I think we’re focusing on the wrong thing. If anything, the academic pressure of college is arguably what we prepare high school students for the most. Between AP classes, standardized tests, and midterm and final exams, the focus is on the skills they need to study effectively, manage their time as they complete assignments, and balance schoolwork with other activities. Yes, college professors might expect more from their students than high school teachers did, but the foundation is there.

What high school seniors are rarely prepared for is how drastically everything else in their life is going to shift when they go to college. This is one of the things that disrupted me and my mental health so completely. Suddenly I was alone, in a new place, with absolutely no existing friendships and already feeling the betrayal of a roommate who was supposed to be my friend but who immediately found a different social circle that didn’t include me. Who knows how many college freshmen are facing a similar scenario, if not the exact same one?

What we really need

No grades might seem nice at first glance (especially to a nervous college freshman), but maybe it’s not the answer we’re looking for. Maybe this same concept of depressurization and allowance for new stressors should be applied to the social and cognitive aspects of college rather than – or in addition to – the academic ones.

I know that this is the idea of a “welcome week,” where there are constant activities aimed at introducing you to new people; but personally, I found that these activities were very much reliant on me making the first move. Choosing what to attend and, once I was there, relying on my own self-esteem and bravery to introduce myself and insert myself into the cliques that were already forming within the first few days was intolerable.

Why not focus on developing systems that ease the social transition to college? Why not prioritize programs that connect students to others with similar interests before they arrive at school, so that they’re not all alone on their first day? Why not create programs that detect and treat underlying mental health conditions or mental health concerns that might be rearing their ugly heads for the first time in a student’s life? Why not promote a campaign against the stigma of seeking care for your mental health?

Plans like these could tackle these issues upstream rather than downstream; that is, getting in on the ground floor and screening for potential challenges instead of waiting for more serious symptoms and struggles to appear.

Mental health care in schools? Parents say yes please

This actually relates to a different news story this week, out of Georgia. About 1000 parents of children ages 6 to 17 were polled and were found to be overwhelmingly in support of more mental health care in schools.

It’s been proven that early intervention in mental health leads to much better outcomes for kids. Here’s where “upstream” versus “downstream” comes into play again. Rather than waiting for a child to exhibit symptoms of a mental health condition, implementing guardrails where children are more closely monitored in school and introduced to mental health interventions (like mood tracking and mindfulness) early and without stigma could actually help prevent mental health issues that would otherwise pop up further down the line.

While it’s all well and good to support more mental health care in schools – in fact, it’s great to support it – the issue here is resources. We all know that schools these days are stretched to their absolute limits, both in budget and responsibility. Teachers are expected to do more and more while being paid less and less, and there are multiple levels of bureaucracy a school administrator needs to wade through before being able to even propose a new program or intervention. Hiring more school counselors or bringing in an outside mental health provider or company to run an early intervention program is often simply not possible.

So clearly, the question isn’t “do students need mental health support?” The question is “How?”

Mental health adjacent, not mental health treatment

This brings us back to the University of Michigan. Abolishing final grades is being referred to as a mental health intervention, but it seems to me that it’s mental health adjacent rather than an actual treatment for mental health concerns. The school is hoping that this new program improves freshman mental health, but what’s not being discussed or advertised is setting up or allocating any other resources to providing students with real mental health services, such as easier or increased access to therapists or groups focused on life transitions – despite the fact that the Dean, Rosario Ceballo, has mentioned that this new pilot program is also meant to address levels of depression and anxiety in the freshman class. (Ceballo is also a professor of psychology, by the way.)

How much time and money was spent deciding to get rid of final grades when the University of Michigan could have consulted mental health professionals (like Ceballo) about implementing an actual mental health intervention? What actions are Georgia schools taking to provide more mental health care and support outside of just talking about it and recognizing it as a need? These are the questions I’m left with.

Where this leaves me

These pieces of news are absolutely a step in the right direction. Acknowledging a need is the first part of any process of change, and in both these cases, that’s been done.

However: abolishing first-semester grades is a kind gesture, not a mental health treatment. Taking my classes pass/fail my freshman year would not have made an ounce of difference in my mental health, especially considering that without that one RA, I wouldn’t have lived to see my grades. Personal attention and quick mental health care were what mattered.

Ultimately, Michigan is trying something, and I would always rather see a university try something rather than nothing; I just think the “something” should be different.