Romy Ulvestad, a student at the University of Edinburgh, died at her parents’ London home four days after her 21st birthday.
She had killed herself after staff failed to provide additional support despite repeated warnings that she was struggling with her mental health.
Now her mother is supporting a campaign for the British government to create a statutory duty of care for students.
The university, which apologized for letting Romy down, said it has upgraded the support it has been offering since her death.
Libby Kitson, Romy’s mother, has joined Westminster’s calls for changes to the law to better protect students and is hoping the Scottish Government will follow suit.
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The petition to the UK government is supported by 25 bereaved families who have come together to form the LEARN network.
It received more than 127,000 signatures before the midnight deadline on Mother’s Day, meaning Parliament will consider the issue for debate.
Speaking to BBC Scotland, Ms Kitson said she was unaware her daughter was struggling with her mental health when she returned to London during the Covid lockdown in 2020.
“Her father and I were unaware of her mental health issues, but they signaled well to people at Edinburgh University who could have done something about it,” she said.
“I sent Romy to university to study Classics, which would be a turning point for the rest of her life. What I didn’t expect was to send her to university to die.”
Romy, a classical music student and part-time model, died in April 2020, more than a year after she communicated with the university about her struggles by submitting a “special circumstances” request to retake her exams without penalty.
Ms Kitson said: “We want there to be a legal duty of care in all higher education institutions and I think some people, including our government, seem to think there is a legal duty of care, but there really isn’t.
“You want to know that if your child has any mental health issues or is overwhelmed by college life, there are people who are trained and competent to deal with it.
“And if they’re really, really in a crisis, you want to be informed.”
ForThe100 activists are calling for a law change to ensure colleges have a legal duty of care to their students, as schools already do.
The Department of Education said creating a duty of care enforced by law was “a disproportionate response”.
Ms Kitson said the campaign is not aimed at giving families the power to sue universities but at preventing similar deaths.
She said she didn’t want other parents to have to go through the same situation.
“We would hope that the Scottish Parliament would look to England and Wales and think, ‘You’ve set a good example, we should follow suit,'” she said.
“The life of a Scottish student is no less important.”
A University of Edinburgh spokeswoman said she was “shocked and deeply saddened by what is happening” with Romy and “deeply regretted” for the gaps in support she has received.
“Supporting the mental health of our students and ensuring their well-being is our absolute priority,” she said. “Our support policies and practices will be regularly reviewed as we continue to focus on and improve our mental health support offerings and provide the best possible environment for our students.”
University students now have access to a “named contact relationship” with staff trained in wellbeing and mental health, among other support services.
The spokeswoman added: “We continue to work with students through both the Student Union and Sports Union to determine how best to design and develop our services to most effectively support students.
“We are working closely with the three other Edinburgh universities and our NHS mental health colleagues to improve access to specialist mental health services for students.”
The Ministry of Education had previously responded to the petition on the grounds that university providers already had a “general duty of care not to harm their students through their own actions”.
A spokesman said: “We recognize the profound and lasting impact that a young person’s suicide has had on family and friends and know that there are among the petitioners those who have personally experienced these devastating, tragic events.
“[However] We … believe further legislation to create a statutory duty of care where such a duty already exists is a disproportionate response.”
In a response to the petition, the Scottish Government said: “We are committed to supporting the mental health of all pupils. Over the past three years we have invested £11.5m to introduce additional advisors to colleges and universities.”
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