Stress Among Students

A view from the freshman quad

Politics is out, but smoking is up and so is stress among today's students

Newt Gigrich, the former college instructor with a genius for political phrasemaking, will need more than a Contract with America to engage today's college students. The American Council on Education's annual poll of college freshmen found that today only 32 percent of the incoming class considered “keeping up with political affairs” an important goal in life, which was the lowest expression of interest in politics in the 50 years that the survey has been conducted. That was in contrast to 2000 when 42 percent gave politics a high priority, and 1985, when almost 58% did.

In this poll, conducted annually for the Council by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, only 16 percent said that they frequently “discuss politics.” That was more than a third lower than in 2000 and almost a half lower than in 1985.

If political apathy has been the recent order of the day on campuses, that may be because of all the other things that have students worried. Tuitions, room and board, and fees increased an average of 6 percent in the latest poll, and borrowing heavily to foo the bills has become commonplace.  The share of students who expressed doubt about their ability to pay for college hit in all-time high of almost 19 percent now, that was 1,5 percent higher than in 2000, and more than double what it was in 1985.

Fight the stress, enjoy flowers. Photo by Elena.

Stress among students was pronounced.  The ACE poll found that 24 percent of all incoming freshmen in 2018 reported “feeling frequently overwhelmed by all I have to do.” That was a 50 percent increase over was it was for freshmen in 1985. The share of freshmen reporting that they frequently “felt depressed” also increased for the fourth consecutive year, and student assessment of their of the own emotional as well as physical health hit all-time lows.

On the other hand, beer-drinking among college freshmen dropped to only 53 percent in 2018; in 2000 more than 75 percent of incoming freshmen reported drinking beer at least occasionally. Public health experts attribute at least some of the recent decline to organizations such as Mothers against Drunk Driving, which have raised student awareness of the dangers of drinking while driving. Perhaps taking up the slack, anti-smoking efforts have been less sucessful on campuses. The percentage of freshmen classifying themselves as frequent smokers rose for the sixth time in seven years.

In recent surveys of college freshmen, these objectives were considered to be essential or very important:

• Be very well off financially
• Raise a family
• Become authority in my field
• Help others in difficulty
• Get recognition from colleagues
• Develop philosophy of life
•  Be successful in own business
• Influence social values
• Promote racial understanding
• Keep up to date with politics.