Students at these U.S. universities are under the most stress

19 Dec 2016

Mental health among university students have come under the spotlight over the past few months, especially after an investigation was launched at a UK university last month in relation to three student deaths believed to have been suicides.

According to the American College Health Association, 32 percent of students say they have felt so depressed “that it was difficult to function.”

This statistic is mirrored by the University of Colorado (CU) in Boulder, which recently reported that walk-in appointments for mental health services at the university have gone up by 32 percent in 2016 alone.

The Top 50 Colleges With The Most Stressed Out Student Bodies https://t.co/t7zyrLi3hS

— University Primetime (@UPrimetime) December 19, 2016

Alan Kent, director of Counseling and Psychiatric Services at the university’s health services, told Daily Camera: “College counseling centers across the nation have reported record demand. At CU, we have experienced unprecedented increases in the demand for service.”

Using statistical analysis and surveyed studies to find out which U.S. schools had the highest depression rates among students, University Primetime released the top 50 institutions in the hopes of raising awareness on the prevalent issue and push schools to improve their mental health services.

These are the top 10 U.S. universities featured on the list:

Top 10 U.S. institutions with the most stressed-out students
Rank	University
1	University of California, Berkeley
2	New York University
3	Cornell University
4	Duke University
5	Pennsylvania State University
6	Princeton University
7	Yale University
8	Vanderbilt University
9	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
10	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

And the problem isn’t only found at U.S. universities: in September, the UK’s Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) reported that a majority of university students in the country experience low well-being, and one-in-three students are affected by depression and loneliness.

The report’s author, Poppy Brown, who is a third-year Psychology and Philosophy undergraduate student at the University of Oxford, remarked that although over one-in-ten students have been found to have a diagnosable mental illness, support is still difficult to access.

Student stress is education's overlooked crisis. #ewopinion https://t.co/RFYFl40Kgo pic.twitter.com/E6mQgu9Jmc

— Education Week (@educationweek) December 19, 2016

While more and more students are reaching out for help in how to manage the stresses brought on from adjusting to university life, it’s become clear that most universities don’t have the sufficient resources to deal with the increasing demand.

Speaking to The Tab, one student who has experienced mental health problems during her time at university said: “When I have attempted to engage with the services offered by the university, I have been largely disappointed. I attempted a full course of counselling with the student counsellor, and left feeling patronized and hurt by how little I was taken seriously.”

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