Back in 2022, I had just finished my freshman year of college when the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision. Since then, I’ve still been able to live in two states where abortion is legal; I’m from California, and I go to school in New York.
But now, as a senior about to graduate this spring, I’m thinking about my peers in other states—women who started college at the same time that I did, but have watched their access to reproductive healthcare drastically shift over the last four years while they’ve been students.
Nearly six million students currently attend college in states where abortion is banned or severely restricted.
More than half of college students in the United States are women, and many states with some of the highest student populations—like Texas, Indiana and Florida—have made abortion completely or mostly illegal.
As we’ve seen from a number of tragic recent cases, abortion bans are deadly. While we watch abortion restrictions unfold nationwide, is there anything colleges can do to help their women students?
Right now, 14 states have total abortion bans. But in the 36 where abortion is still at least partially legal, colleges can offer abortion through their student health services.
By offering abortion—especially medication abortion—on campus, schools can remove many barriers for students. Even in states where abortion is legal, college students are an especially vulnerable population, often lacking the time, money and resources needed to research abortion options and travel to find care. Thanks to post-Dobbs legislation, some large public university systems, such as in California and New York, now offer abortion care through campus health.
My own college, Columbia, started offering medication abortion on campus in 2024. In the fall, I interviewed a group of students at our affiliated sister school, Barnard College, who are working to make abortion available there too.
New York, like other blue states, has become a destination state for abortion-related travel after Dobbs. Higher traffic from out-of-state patients can increase demand and wait times at abortion clinics. By offering abortion on campus, colleges can not only help their own students but also support overworked, understaffed local clinics.
In states with abortion bans, colleges can help students access emergency contraception (also called EC, the “morning after pill” or the brand name, Plan B). EC access on campus makes it easier for students to prevent pregnancy in the first place, reducing the need for stressful and costly out-of-state travel for abortion care.
The organization Emergency Contraception 4 Every Campus (EC4EC) helps stock EC in vending machines on college campuses around the U.S. It also works with student groups to create peer-to-peer EC distribution services at schools where EC is hard to acquire through the college itself.
Less than two months into the new Trump administration, we’ve been seeing reproductive rights under attack at the national level. As more and more young people flee states with abortion restrictions, colleges can let their students know that help is still available.