Dive Brief:
- A new study presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education annual meeting reveals that graduate students are commonly and negatively impacted by incidents of racism and financial struggle, but are less likely to take advantage of campus counseling resources and more likely to commit suicide than undergraduate students.
- According to the Chronicle, the more academically rigorous the program, the more likely the stress is to manifest in bouts with anxiety or depression.
- Nearly a third of more than 21,000 students surveyed at more than 69 colleges and universities said that they, at least once, felt so depressed they had difficulty maintaining normal functioning.
Dive Insight:
This survey not only delves into the areas of mental health support needed for typical advanced degree pursuit, which has been cited in previous analysis of doctoral retention rates as a primary cause for disrupted or discontinued study among students. But it also adds another layer to conversations about safe space on campuses, even for students who are not living or intensively interacting with large groups of students.
Colleges can either determine that the typical path to a doctoral degree, which has been described by some as legal hazing, is no longer the formula for encouraging diversity or grassroots promotion of a program, but these surveys are showing that traditional approaches to advisement and training are being lost upon thousands of paying students. And for millennials, the process may not be welcomed at all.