University students are more at risk of depression and anxiety than their peers who go straight into work, according to a study, suggesting mental health may deteriorate due to the financial strain of higher education.
The research is the first to find evidence of slightly higher levels of depression and anxiety among students, and challenges earlier work suggesting that the mental health of students is the same as or better than their peers.
The first author of the study, Dr Tayla McCloud, a researcher in the psychiatry department at University College London (UCL), said the fact that the link between university and poor mental health had not been established in earlier studies could mean that it is due to “increased financial pressures and worries about achieving high results in the wider economic and social context”.
As well as grappling with rising costs due to inflation, university students this year are facing unprecedented rent rises averaging at 8% and far outstripping the average maintenance loan in many cities.
McCloud said she would have ordinarily expected university students to have better mental health as they tend to be from more privileged backgrounds, making the results “particularly concerning” and requiring more research to pinpoint the risks facing students.
The lead author, Dr Gemma Lewis, associate professor at UCL’s school of psychiatry, said poorer mental health at university could have repercussions in later life.
She said: “The first couple of years of higher education are a crucial time for development, so if we could improve the mental health of young people during this time it could have long-term benefits for their health and wellbeing, as well as for their educational achievement and longer term success.”
The research paper, published in the Lancet Public Health and commissioned by the Department for Education, states that by the age of 25 the difference in mental health had disappeared between graduates and non-graduates.
