Do college students report more mental health concerns than peers who are not enrolled?

When students are compared with non-students, the gap is smaller than expected

A review of the research literature on college student mental health set out to compare students with same-aged people who were not in college. Its summary indicates that students and their non-college peers experience these disorders in broadly similar ways, rather than students carrying a distinctly heavier burden [1]. That is the closest thing to a direct answer available here, and it runs against the intuition that the pressures of college produce more distress than life outside it.

The picture is not uniform across outcomes or countries. A review of risk factors for suicide among Chinese college students reports that the suicide rate for college students is higher than for their non-college peers [2]. So the answer depends on which concern you are measuring: general mental health problems look comparable, while this one review describes a higher suicide rate for students in that setting.

Most studies of student mental health never look outside campus

A large share of the research describes students on their own terms. One study tracked mental health concerns among college student athletes and the general college population using national survey data, but it did not compare either group with people who were not attending college [3]. Another monitored students' social anxiety and depression through smartphone data and self-reported assessments, again entirely within the student population [4]. A third examined students' mental health alongside affection received from grandparents, with no non-student comparison group [5].

This matters for the question because a study that only samples students cannot tell you whether students are worse off than anyone else. If you measure distress only among people on campus, you will find distress on campus — but you learn nothing about whether campus life adds to it. The comparative question needs a comparison group, and most of these designs simply do not have one.

The answer depends on what you count and who you ask

The two comparative findings differ in what they measure. The first concerns mental health problems and help-seeking behavior in general, and its summary describes students and non-students as experiencing disorders comparably [1]. The second concerns suicide specifically, and describes a higher rate among Chinese college students than among their non-college peers [2]. A broad measure and a narrow, severe outcome need not move together, so these results can both be accurate without contradicting each other.

Scope also matters. The suicide comparison comes from a review focused on Chinese college students [2], so it should not be assumed to hold for students in other countries or education systems. The general comparison is described at the level of a literature review rather than a single new dataset [1], which means it summarizes what earlier studies found rather than settling the question with fresh measurement.

What a curious reader should take away

If the question is whether enrolling in college makes a person more likely to report mental health concerns, the honest answer is that the evidence does not support a simple yes. Where students have been compared with same-aged non-students, the general burden of mental health problems looks similar [1], though a review of Chinese students describes a higher suicide rate than among non-college peers [2].

If the question is whether we know this well, the answer is no. Most of the student mental health studies here examine students without any non-student comparison group [3][4][5], so they can describe what students experience but cannot say whether it is more than their peers face. The comparison has been made, but only in a small number of places and for a limited set of outcomes.

Sources used in this answer

Related research questions