Diane D. Walsh, Counseling, McDaniel College; Kathy D. Richardson, Clinical Mental Health
Counseling, Lebanon Valley College; and Nicole Z. Robertson, Clinical Mental Health
Counseling, Christian Theological Seminary
College students face stressors that impact their mental health (Liu et al., 2019), and college students with financial
constraints experience additional challenges (Cattaneo et al., 2019; Ebert et al., 2019). This phenomenological study
explored mental health and counseling experiences of eleven college students who identified as being from low-
income backgrounds. Five major themes emerged related to participants’ felt sense of social class and engagement
in mental health counseling. Clinical and research implications are discuss