One of those asking questions is Marcello Flores, who had no idea why his friend Jesse Jeter hung himself from a tree on the campus last week.
"It was just a total shock," Flores told the Lansing State Journal in a story published yesterday. "He always had a smile on his face."
Jeter's death was the fifth ruled a suicide at the school since January.
Flores said there was no indication that Jeter - a well-liked, athletic, 20-year-old - was on the verge of killing himself.
"The worst thing is that everybody here knew him," he said. "He could have come to any one of us for help."
Dr. Dennis Jurczak, director of Michigan State's Olin Health Center, said the recent suicides fit the population group that has the highest suicide rate: men between the ages of 21 and 25.
Men accounted for 2,555 of 3,008 suicides in 1994 among 20- to 24-year-olds nationwide. In Michigan, 104 of 121 suicides among that age group were committed by men in 1994.
"This is the time when people start dealing with their sexuality, encounter new social situations, independence," Jurczak said.
Michigan State officials had only reported two suicides since 1991, except for 1996 when officials did not release numbers.
Jurczak said the recent deaths could be a result of a "copy-cat syndrome."
Suicides are known to come in waves, said Morton Silverman, director of the University of Chicago's counseling center.
"One anticipates one or two suicides a year. If you haven't had any in a while, more or less you're due."
A couple of the Michigan State students who committed suicide were under psychiatric care, Jurczak said.
Suicide rates are normally 50 percent lower on college campuses than among others that age who are not in college, according to a study by Silverman.
"It has a lot to do with the role of student counseling services, dorm personnel and academic counselors," Silverman said. "Students who are in trouble are more likely to be identified than those comparable individuals in other communities."
Michigan State residential staff have responded to the recent suicides by counseling students about the deaths.
Zsofi Gomory, a 25-year-old graduate student, said thoughts of the man who shot himself Jan. 16 on her floor haunted her for days.
"It was a huge shock," said Gomory, a Hungarian student. "I don't know how many times I woke up that night thinking about that bullet."
After a suicide, trying to help those affected by the death can prove difficult, said Jane Olson, Michigan State's department of residence life director.
"There's an awful lot of fallout," Olson said. "At least 15 to 20 people are directly affected. That's where we do most of our work."