Prior to the crisis event, I don't think there will clear indicators as to who is so dangerous that their lives must be controlled by the government, and those who are simply outside the norms.
For example, how many students do you think are attending Virginia Tech today who have had counseling sessions for reasons of emotional instability? Five? Ten? One hundred? I would bet it is closer to the latter.
The truth is that the vast majority of people with extremely serious mental problems never hurt anybody, including themselves. They just live very troubled, dysfunctional lives.
The purpose of college is to impart a college-level education and to prepare students for lives as productive members of society. Cho’s mental illness was clearly inconsistent with either of these objectives, and so he shouldn’t have been there. According to people who knew him in middle school, high school, and college, the videos he sent to NBC were the first time they’d ever heard him speak in complete sentences. His written work for college English classes that have been publicized or described were not only violent and disgusting, but largely incoherent and full of non-sequiturs, barely on the middle school level in terms of technical writing skill. And this guy had been allowed to become a SENIOR English major at a pretty well-regarded college. As a taxpayer, I’m not interested in forking over the huge sums that are currently devoted to post-secondary education, so that each and every profoundly mentally ill young adult who isn’t absolutely, unmistakeably “dangerous” can enjoy a 4 year stint of full-time wallowing in their fantasies, fears, and confusions.
If intensive intervention had been started back in middle school (or earlier) and continued throughout high school and college, it’s possible that his condition could have been improved and stabilized to the point where he could do college level work and graduate as an employable adult. Being “dangerous” is not the only reason to impose involuntary mental health interventions on a minor, and he was clearly in urgent need of this for many years before his 18th birthday. This is clearly what should have happened, but given that it didn’t, no college should be letting people like this in the door until and unless their mental health has improved to the point where they can meaningfully participate in a college curriculum.