For the first time in 15 years, the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and suicidality in a key survey of college students has decreased in consecutive years — which researchers hope marks the beginning of a downward trend.
The data comes from the Healthy Minds Study, one of the country’s largest datasets on student mental health. The report includes survey responses from more than 100,000 students at nearly 200 colleges.
“We were crossing our fingers hoping that we would get another year of data that showed a decrease again, so we could say that we’re starting to see an actual trend as opposed to just one year of being an outlier,” said Sarah Lipson, an associate professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health and one of the study’s principal investigators.
The survey also found an uptick in positive mental health for the second year in a row. Using a scale that measures success in relationships, self-esteem, and feeling purposeful, the study found that 38 percent of students reported having positive mental health. That’s an improvement from 32 percent two years ago.
Lipson is hesitant to make any definitive conclusions on what two years of data might suggest.
“We now have three bars of data that show one level down, and then down again from that,” Lipson said. “The trend will continue to be strengthened if we can add more years.”
Overall, this year’s survey results offer a little good news about bad news. Students are still experiencing mental-health challenges at high rates. More than a third of students screened positive for some form of anxiety, and almost four in 10 met the criteria for moderate or severe depression.
The state of student mental health has been called a crisis, although some have cautioned against using such language. Many counseling centers have struggled to keep up with demand, and professors feel like they’re on the front lines of defense.
“If we have a 20-foot flood and now we’re at 19.5 feet, it’s still a flood,” said Marcus Hotaling, president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors and director of the counseling center at Union College, in New York.
There are two ways to look at this year’s Healthy Minds figures, Hotaling said. If you’re a glass-half-empty type of person, you might reason that students have normalized feeling depressed or anxious and no longer identify it as a problem. If you see the glass half full, like Hotaling, then perhaps students are becoming more hopeful and resilient.
“The optimistic side is that treatment is working,” Hotaling said. “We’re seeing the decreases in mental-health rates, but again, they’re still significant amounts.”
Lipson also pointed to the wide treatment gap that still exists among students who have symptoms of mental-health problems. Close to 40 percent of students reported that they did not receive any type of mental-health services. While not every student who screens positive for depression or anxiety needs therapy, counseling, or medication, that data point shows “what the levels of unmet need might be,” Lipson said.
According to the report, the two main reasons students did not seek help were that they didn’t think they needed services or didn’t have time.
In several key areas, students were still struggling. Loneliness remained prevalent. Close to 60 percent of students reported this year that they lacked companionship.
Mental-health challenges also continued to affect students’ performance in the classroom. About 75 percent of students said that an emotional or mental difficulty impaired their academic performance at least once in the previous four weeks. That’s down from 83 percent, when it spiked in the fall of 2020.
Colleges that participate in the Healthy Minds Study get a tailored report that shows how they compare to their peer institutions.
Mental-health challenges don’t go away quickly, especially among the highly vulnerable group of traditional-age college students. But Lipson hopes that administrators and staff members who work in student wellness are encouraged by the declining prevalence of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation.
“What we hope is that there’ll be this continued momentum,” Lipson said. “Colleges and universities can see that the work that they have been doing is moving the needle.”
