When did he suddenly go off the rails, ditching his degree program? Was it after he became involved with OWS? His parents know what happened to him and talking to them should answer some questions as to his motivation.
A truly mentally ill person usually is too distracted and disorganized to study. A mildly mentally ill person can study and earn a degree but takes a lot of extra effort for them to do so.
What the majority of people don’t know and will never be told is that a person can kill somebody, get committed to a mental institution, and get released scot free in a year if they play their cards right.
I had an old con once tell me that in his case he studied a book on psychiatry. He picked a mental illness that was easy to fake. He committed his crime and when the cops caught him he started playing crazy. The court sent him for an evaluation. He played crazy 24/7 at that facility. The psychiatrists certified him as crazy so the court committed him to a mental health facility. After a little time went by he convinced the people at the mental hospital that they had ‘Cured’ him. They petitioned the court to release him and they did. Had he gone to prison he’d have gotten life. Instead he got a few months in a mental hospital which to a convict is far easier time than being in prison. A mentally ill person has far more ‘Rights’ than a convict does.
That convict basically told me that a diagnoses of mental illness is like a license to kill.
Many liberal psychiatrists claim that it is not possible for a person to fake mental illness. These are the type that are most likely to certify a sane person as mentally ill. They will also do their best to see to it that the criminal beats the death penalty even if they think the criminal is sane.