There’s the flip side to this in that not every student “found dead in their rooms, no sign of foul play” is a suicide. Parents are just as reluctant to disclose a child’s accidental drug overdose as they would be a suicide. Several years ago, we lost a student to auto-erotic asphyxiation. The parents absolutely favored language that implied a drug overdose or suicide. No one was trying to cover anything up, you just do what you think is right and listen to the family when possible.
I’m not sure that there’s always that much intent behind the death announcements. Sometimes you make the best decision you can on short notice. When my husband committed suicide, the funeral home went with “died unexpectedly at home” – definitely suicide code for a man in his 40s, but perhaps not as blunt as I would have been if you had given me a week. I had a eleven-year-old to worry about, I didn’t care what the obituary said as long as they didn’t lie about it… My husband’s colleagues, students, and outside collaborators all knew what happened, as did the parents of my son’s 6th grade classmates. More than 5 years later and two other children in my son’s class (of 120) have lost parents to suicide. I suspect that the rising rates are not just with college students, although I can’t imagine anything worse than losing a child.