Incoming college students’ emotional health at all-time low
Blame it on the bad economy, low job prospects or sheer jitters about starting college, whatever the cause may be, new research shows that the emotional health of incoming freshmen is at an all-time low. The annual report by the University of California, Los Angeles, known as the CIRP Freshman Survey, saw a 3.4 percent drop from 2009 in incoming first-year students reporting themselves as in the “highest 10 percent” or “above average” when it comes to emotional health. Only 51.9 percent of students across the nation reported such positive feelings of emotional health, compared to 63.6 percent of respondents feeling that way in 1985, when the survey was first conducted.
Experts affiliated with the survey say the rising costs of a college education may be at the root cause of the declining emotional health of the nation’s incoming college freshmen.
“The increasing cost of higher education poses a significant barrier to college access for today’s students,” Sylvia Hurtado, co-author of the report and director of the Higher Education Research Institute, said in a press release announcing the report’s findings. “Students and families are now charged with the task of becoming more resourceful and strategic in finding new and creative ways to pay for college.”
Female students appear to be fairing the worst between the sexes when it comes to the emotional health of incoming freshmen, with the differential between the genders in reporting high levels of health at more than 13 percent. Female students were also twice as likely to report feeling “overwhelmed” by all they had to accomplish as high school seniors, according to the report.
The CIRP Freshmen Survey also found that while students appeared to be suffering from lower levels of emotional health, they were also displaying an increased need to succeed. According to the study’s findings, more than 75 percent of students said their drive to achieve was in the “highest 10 percent” or “above average.” Additionally, more than 71 percent of students surveyed, the highest level recorded, reported that their academic abilities were “above average” or in the “highest 10 percent.”
One of the report’s lead authors, John H. Pryor, says this heightened need to succeed could also be contributing to the decreasing emotional health noted in the annual survey.
“Stress is a major concern when dealing with college students,” said Pryor, director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP). “If students are arriving in college already overwhelmed and with lower reserves of emotional health, faculty, deans and administrators should expect to see more consequences of stress, such as higher levels of poor judgment around time management, alcohol consumption and academic motivation.”
