Dr. Victor Schwartz, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of the Jed Foundation, a suicide prevention group, said the leaves can serve a good purpose. “It may be paternalistic, but it’s actually for the student’s own good, to get them out of the jam that’s occurred that’s leading to their inability to function,” he said.

Some students say leaves have been good for them.

A stress fracture ended Rebecca Minsley’s dream of becoming a ballet dancer, and she was depressed when she arrived at Bates College in 2014, she said. She swallowed a handful of pills but quickly sought help at the campus health center, which wanted her to leave, she said. Her mother and a dean successfully fought for her to stay, arguing that she would just become more depressed at home. By her second semester, she stopped getting out of bed and going to class. When she was asked once again to take a leave, she agreed.

Back in her mother’s New York City apartment, she spent months in bed, feeling like a failure. Eventually, with the right medication, she was able to hold down a job and move into her own apartment.

Ms. Minsley, 23, returned to Bates last fall, after more than two years away, and has been receiving support from Fountain House College Re-Entry, a program that has sprung up to fill the niche of helping students on mental health leave. “It was terrifying and really, really difficult, but I really needed it,” she said of her leave. “I think I’m leading a much happier life.”

A spokeswoman for Bates, Marjorie Hall, said the college gave every case “individualized consideration.”

Lark Trumbly, a former student at Stanford, is more ambivalent about being sent home. Her freshman year, she passed out on the bathroom floor of her dormitory from a mix of pills and alcohol. A dean visited her at the hospital and told her that “students in my situation tend not to succeed at Stanford,” Ms. Trumbly, 23, said.

Her freshman housing was revoked, and she was told that if she was not living on campus she could not take classes, so she would have to take a leave, she said.