How the Pandemic Affected Mental Health in College Students

Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic sent college students home the decline in college students’ mental health became more apparent.

More than 60% of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health problem during the 2020-2021 school year. According to the Healthy Minds Study, which surveys 373 college campuses to assess mental health, service utilization, and related factors among students.

“This statistic does not surprise me. Being a college student over the last couple of years has been very stressful and challenging,” said Pamela Farer-Singleton, a Kent State adjunct professor and the director of the Counseling and Psychological Services department.

Students have to deal with anxiety, panic, and being overworked. According to the Mayo Clinic Health System, 44% of college students have dealt with anxiety and depression.

“I would imagine that number to be a little bit higher,” said Elizabeth Manzetti, a licensed professional counselor at Counseling For Wellness in Kent.

Manzetti works with adults and adolescents who are struggling with anxiety and depression. She would expect that number to be higher because not everyone who has a mental health problem seeks treatment.

Manzetti said the main reason people do not always seek treatment is because of the stigma that is attached to mental health. Over the past couple of years, Counseling for Wellness has tried to get rid of the stigma surrounding mental health by offering services like mental health counseling, teletherapy, mediation, and counseling.

“There is so much in terms of pressure. This age group shows a lot of perfectionist tendencies, which does lead to mental health problems like anxiety and depression. It was already on that track,” Manzetti said.

The track for mental health in college students was already a problem, but the pandemic heightened the issue.

“Over the last 10 years, there has been an increase in anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems in college students. The rates for mental health concerns in racial and ethnic minorities have also increased due to the climate of social and political injustice,” Farer-Singleton said.

Kent State has free counseling available to its students and their employees, and it offers the same services at a nominal fee for Kent area residents. People can sign up for counseling by calling the Kent State counseling office and scheduling an appointment. The service is a training clinic for graduate students in the counselor training and supervision program.

Ohio State also provides its students with numerous mental health resources. One of which is an app called, The Ohio State: Wellness. The app was designed to help students find the right resources to help them with mental health issues. The app allows students to create a wellness plan and provides quick access to emergency and support resources.

Colleges across the country have been trying to figure out how to help students when it comes to mental health issues. Schools like the University of California, Berkeley, offer their students help when it comes to issues like drugs and alcohol. These services include risk management, harm reduction, emergency, and non-emergency interventions, counseling, and support.

The pandemic reached the United States in March 2020, and colleges everywhere had to turn to remote learning which meant less social interaction for students. According to the American Psychological Association, stress relief for college students comes through social interaction with other students. During the pandemic, numerous schools invested in therapy for students to help with the mental health of their students.

Farer-Singleton said that students during the remote learning sessions at Kent State had a hard time staying focused. Social interaction for students, when it came to family and friends, was limited and that would cause students distress.

“I have had an opportunity to talk to a lot of students. I have heard from them, and the remote instruction for the extended period was difficult for them,” Farer-Singleton said.

Manzetti said the loneliness that was caused by the pandemic would cause problems to snowball, and this is something that is impacting students to this day despite being back to in-person classes.

“Moving to online classes, it is a struggle for many people to stare at a screen all day. It would be harder for people to concentrate; therefore, grades decrease, and when grades decrease, a lot of people get stressed,” Manzetti said.

BioMed Central (BMC) Public Health stated that less social interaction among college students played a part in college students being less motivated to do work. The emotional stress would amplify the functional stresses which would lead to students not being as motivated to do their schoolwork.

BMC Public Health stated that the rate at which COVID-19 spread in an area would play a role in a student’s mental distress. If the virus was high in an area, that would have an impact on the motivation of the student.

“Students were isolated. They felt anxious. They were cognitively and emotionally exhausted due to online learning, and the lack of social connections,” Farer-Singleton said.

Farer-Singleton explained the problem does not stop at students who were in college during the pandemic. The problem of social isolation also affected some high school students which can translate to their college years. Farer-Singleton explains that high school students, from the pandemic era, have had a harder time adjusting to college. The reasoning is that the students never expected how much college would change their life.

Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health reported that the transition to online learning for high school students caused the students to lose the structure and routine that high school teaches students at a young age. High school students lost the opportunity to do their extracurricular activities which would have played a part in their social experience in high school. This affects their transition into college.

“There is a lot on students’ plates. There is pressure to pick the right major, earn good grades, and have adequate finances to complete school,” Farer-Singleton said.

Coming out of high school during the pandemic and going into college, plays a role in the decline of students’ mental health when it comes to finances and picking the right major.

“I think it is very important for universities to support mental health well-being, by providing mental health services, as we do here at counseling and psychological services,” Farer-Singleton said.

Farer-Singleton said that Kent State University over the last three years has invested more money in mental health services. The increase in money for the on-campus mental services has allowed Kent State counseling center to hire more professionals and provide a better service. This is shown through the Counselor Education and Supervision program being nationally accredited at the master’s and doctoral levels by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs.

 

https://www.kent.edu/ehhs/ldes/ces/program-accomplishments