How can we help cope with sleep deprivation among university students?

Unless the university is requiring students to become sleep deprived in order to complete assignments (which i'm sure it is not), then changing the course structure, reducing the number of lectures, etc, will have very little impact.

Sleep deprivation is often actually a cultural issue. Cultural in the sense that every Institute/Company/University has a culture, and new students are always brought into that culture, taught "how things are done here", and in 3 years they teach it to the next intake of students.

If the culture at your university is to work all day and play all night, or simply just work all day and all night because to be seen working is to be a good student - then you need to change that culture.

Ideally try informing the students of the dangers of sleep deprivation. Try to promote efficient learning, and a balanced lifestyle of work and rest. Try to explain that being in the library 18 hours a day, does not make you a good student. Alternatively, if you play MMORPGs all night instead of sleeping, you will fail the course, and that is your own fault.

Often sleep deprivation or stress have their root cause in overcommiting by the student (need to graduate on time, that means taking 150% class load, ...) or, very often seen here, bad time management or inefficient studying. I.e., play all day (and party through the night) until just before midterms, (try to) cram in two days what just flew by for three months, rinse and repeat. Or study irrational hours, but do not recognize you are stuck, don't seek outside help, don't look for additional material (today there are tons of lecture notes, blogs, and discussion sites like this!), ... Results (in horrible grades, in high stress levels) are predictable.

Some suggestions that helped me are to review each class shortly afterwards, at least the same day, and jot down any doubts to resolve next time; reserve a few (more or less fixed) hours each week for resolving problems, exercises and homework; keep one day a week for other activities (go hiking, go to the movies, whatever), disconnect; never study for an exam the day before, arrange to do a last sweep two days early, leave the last day to e.g. study something else altogether, make sure you go to bed early and are rested for the exam.

If you get stuck studying (or while doing homework, or whatever), switch over to something else. Staying stuck is just a waste of time, often you just need to have your subconcicious mull it over a night or a couple of days, and the solution (or at least some alternative lines of attack) will be obvious next time you pick it up again. So it is useful to have several tasks pending (to have something worthwhile to do always).

Yes, you won't always be able to keep it up, but try to do so. Your sanity will thank you. Yes, I recommend my students to do this each term; yes, only a tiny minority heeds the advise.

From the point of view of a student, one way is to start classes later, preferably after 10am.

Another way is to limit the amount of homework given by professors to a realistic amount.

Lastly, one can spread pamphlets detailing the harms of sleep deprivation and excessive use of Internet. For undergrads the major reason for sleep deprivation is probably internet usage or late night partying.