<p>The national average for college students aged 18-24 is much lower than the national average for people in this age range who don’t go to college. It makes more sense to compare MIT’s suicide rate to the rate of college students. </p>
<p>It’s no myth that MIT has historically had an astromically high suicide rate and easily the worst in the country, but there are less suicides than there used to be. I’m not sure why this is so.
In the late 90’s, there were 10 undergraduate suicides in the span of 5 years. The Boston Globe reported that MIT had twice the suicide rate (per capita) of the 2nd worst school, which was Caltech. Caltech has had a rash of suicides lately, so I think if you look at the past 5 years, per capita, Caltech is probably worse.</p>
<p>So this topic is probably not pertinent to a discussion of MIT vs. Caltech.</p>