El Camino College offers free resources including virtual and in-person mental health therapy, contraceptives, chiropractic services and workshop events; however, a minority of students utilize them.
Students pay a $26 health fee each semester, or a $20 health fee each summer term, entitling them to receive services from El Camino Health Services.
The fee also provides several resources for reproductive care and sexual health, including condoms, birth control pills, Plan B and free-once-per-semester testing and treatment of sexually-transmitted infections.
Susan Nilles, Student Health Services director, hopes more students will take advantage of the resources offered.
“I’m always looking for ways to try to get our students to know about their benefits,” Nilles said. “I hear constantly, especially at our tables, that I didn’t know they existed, which is unfortunate.”
Nilles believes that students are often disconnected from the informational emails the health center releases regarding services and events.
Compared to five other community colleges located in Southern California, ECC is the only one that offers chiropractic services to students.
Chiropractic services are also the most used resource at ECC’s health center, Nilles said.
These services are available on Thursday mornings under the expertise of Roni Megro, a general and athletic chiropractor.
Megro is aided with help from five to eight students who intern at ECC through a local university, Nilles said.
ECC also, compared to the rest, has the most services listed.
Glendale Community College’s health fee is listed at $26; however, their website lists far fewer services than what is offered at ECC, Santa Monica College, Long Beach College and Fullerton College.
Although ECC opened in 1946, health fee charges didn’t occur until 1991 and started at $7.50, according to archives from the Schauerman Library.
The original cost is equivalent to $17.87 in April 2025 when adjusted for inflation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator.
The fee increased only a year later to $10 and remained that way until 2005. At that point, the fee increased by $4 to $14 from 2006 to 2009. Between 2010 and 2012, it increased to $17. Between 2013 and 2017, the fee rose to $19.
After 2017, the fee began increasing every one to two years. Between 2018 and 2020 it was $20, and in 2021, it was $21. The amount increased to $26 in 2023.
A fee of $26 in 2025 is a 246% increase from $7.50 in 1991. ECC’s health fee price is currently one dollar less than the maximum cost set by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.
The chancellor’s office raised the maximum health fee price by one dollar from $26 to $27 in spring 2025. Nilles, however, is unsure if ECC will follow this increase.
El Camino Health Services received an estimated $590,255 in fall 2024 with a student enrollment of 22,702, according to student enrollment data from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Data Mart.
Student fees fund the health center. These centers also receive yearly funding from the chancellor’s office to support mental health services, with ECC receiving $445,522 for such, according to the 2024-25 CCCCO Compendium of Allocations and Resources report.
Fullerton College, Santa Monica College and Glendale Community College also charge $26 for their health fee, while Long Beach City College has the least expensive fee of $20.
The health center’s full-time staff includes the director, a registered nurse and three front desk employees. There are about 20 part-time staff, including nurse practitioners and nurse psychologists. About five student workers are also employed.
The health directors at each community college reviewed by The Union have all agreed that they have seen an increase in students using their health fee for mental health services, including at ECC.
Ida Salusky, medical social science research expert at Northwestern University, said in-person mental health services are important for college students because developmentally, college students are transitioning from a child with no independence to a young adult with independence.
A lot of times, the student is coming to their campus to seek mental health resources.
“There are a number of factors that contribute, but certainly COVID-19 impacted students’ mental health,” Salusky said. “What the data shows is rates of chronic distract-like symptoms of depression and anxiety were increasing in the college-age population, and the COVID-19 pandemic impacted that because of both the isolation and the trauma.”
ECC offers different in-person mental health workshops weekly for students, including services like therapy dogs, journaling and grief workshops.
Undecided major Navonna Hupach, 19, has been pleased with the services offered to her at El Camino Health Services.
“I’ve used my benefit twice at the health center,” Hupach said. “I had some questions that I thought they could provide some answers for, so I went in and saw a nurse practitioner who was able to help me with those questions for sure.”
Hupach said the health center was very stress-free. The nurses were nice and provided information and instructions that were easy to follow.
The student service fee also helps make virtual mental health help accessible through BetterMynd, which offers unlimited therapy sessions for students.
“We pay for BetterMynd, which is an online virtual therapy service,” Eryka Tyler, mental health coordinator at ECC, said. “It’s completely free for students and staff, and they also have workshops students can do, so the student health fee helps pay for all that.”
Virtual services can be convenient, but colleges also recognize the importance of in-person services.
Fullerton College offers mental health services at its health center.
“We have several part-time therapists, we have two psychologists who are only one day a week,” Theresa Ullrich, Student Health Services director, said. “We have about seven therapists to provide mental health care.”
Ullrich said Fullerton College also has a couple of remote therapists for mental health, but those services tend not to be as popular as in-person appointments.
Santa Monica College offers a 24/7 emotional support hotline for its students.
“Faculty can call to consult when they are working with a student and are worried about them,” Susan Fila, associate dean of Health and Wellbeing, said. “It is life-saving. It can be three o’clock in the morning and you’re feeling lonely, depressed, suicidal, you can call and pick up and talk to somebody.”
In a worst case scenario where an individual intends self-harm, the hotline Santa Monica uses is partnered with local the local police department, which initiates hospitalizations.
Glendale only offers in-person mental health therapy on campus.
Zolia Navales, director and nurse at the Glendale Community College Health Center, said appointments are recommended, but spots are limited. Walk-ins are an option depending on the severity of the case.
“Our number one most utilized service would be our mental health,” Navales said. “We’ve seen an increase in not only first-time people coming in for mental health but also returning.”
Long Beach City College also offers an online mental health service for its students.
“One of the cool services we offer here at the college is that we also partner up with a service called TimelyCare, and students here have access to TimelyCare,” Sergio Grimaldi, director of Student Health Services at Long Beach City College, said.
TimelyCare is an online mental health service which can be accessed by students 24/7 any day of the year.
As for ECC, physical and mental health services continue to benefit students.
Communications major Luciana Stuppa, 19, has had a good experience at the health center on campus. With a schedule that causes her to work right after school, she said she appreciates how time-effective the health center is.
“The service I went in for was very fast and efficient,” Stuppa said. “They are on time and get you in and out really quickly. I made my appointment in person, and it was simple — they tell you available times and you can pick which one works best for you and your schedule.”
Nilles works to make sure the health center is on top.
“I think we’re one of the best,” Nilles said. “If we were to have a California student health services Olympics, we would absolutely be in contention for all the services that we do offer, which again is a shame considering our students might not fully know about it.”
Editor’s note:
- Photo caption and credit added at 3:40 p.m. Monday, June 2.
