Economic anxiety affects mental health on campuses

‘Wash. U. Confessions’ highlights student stress

| Staff Columnist

The “Wash U Confessions” Facebook page, a forum on which students can anonymously post about issues they are facing, has since become notorious for hordes of messages detailing students’ bouts with clinical depression, chronic anxiety and other mental health issues.

Websites like these exist at a large body of universities and colleges across the United States, and they all point toward the same troubling problem: unprecedented rates of perceived stress and higher rates of mental disorders than have ever been observed on college campuses.

There are a variety of possible sources that may be a part of the cause for this trend, including the effective treatment of mental disorders, an increase of aimlessness for college students as dictated by the overwhelming amount of choice at colleges or even social pressures to fit in. However, a body of evidence reveals that current economic turmoil, rising student debt and an increasingly competitive job market have a significant impact on students’ mental health.

Seven years removed from the economic recession of 2008, college graduates are still experiencing higher rates of unemployment than before the recession—and worse, 16.8 percent of recent graduates are “underemployed,” work part-time jobs or accept offers for jobs for which they are entirely overqualified. Today, college students face the reality of not only having to secure a job for themselves but making sure it is one that puts them above the poverty line. It’s no surprise that research shows college students are incredibly nervous about finding jobs and are struggling to be optimistic about their opportunities.

One particularly insightful survey, done by eHealthInsurance, found that approximately 62 percent of college students are afraid that they will not be able to find a job after graduation. This finding reveals a cycle of worry perpetuated by a constricting job market that leaves many students in menial or underpaying jobs. Students have less reason now to expect to feel financially secure after graduating college, which leads to a newfound pervasiveness of economic anxiety around finding jobs.

Student loan debt adds another complex layer to the problem. Recently, BBC News reported that American students owe over $1 trillion in student loans. Worse, as living costs and tuition prices continue to rise across the United States, especially at private institutions, students have to take more loans to pay for their education. Roughly six out of 10 current students and recent graduates are anxious about being unable to pay their loans at some point in their 20s.

Debt is an incredibly scary and intimidating issue for any human being to deal with, let alone a college student looking for the increasingly elusive well-paid job needed to adequately pay back these loans. External factors of economic uncertainty and higher costs of tuition are two of the primary factors causing stress for college students. With a further examination of students’ long-term angst over their career paths, the frighteningly toxic picture of stress on college and university campuses becomes more clear and disconcerting.

With all of the attention placed on the importance on going to college, it is concerning that we are now seeing the consequences of the depreciation in the value of a degree in the job market. There must be a larger discussion on the value of a higher education, especially as private schools continue to raise their prices.

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