The college division of MTV – yes, the same network behind "The Hills," "The City," "Bromance," and other self-esteem boosting shows – partnered with the Associated Press to survey more than 2,253 undergraduates students from 40 four-year campuses about the state of their mental health and the stress in their everyday lives.

While two-thirds of college students say they're generally happy, 80% feel day-to-day stress. While many experts say stress can be positive, 63% say they have been stressed to a degree that they couldn't get school work done and 55% say they didn't want to hang out with friends or be in social situations because of stress.

College campuses are heavily populated with like-minded people of the same generation, but 42% say they feel lonely. Around that same percentage of students say friends and relationships cause significant stress. As a college student, I completely relate to this. When you're spending so much time in class and studying, it's hard to find the time to maintain meaningful relationships. Everyone has different class times and test schedules, and that fifth or sixth hour sitting in the library with a stack of text books can be incredibly isolating.

Getting good grades and completing school work were the top stressers on a college campus (71% and 74%, respectively) – no surprise there. Financial concerns fell closely behind that, with 62% worrying about money. This was conducted a few months ago, so this could very well increase if students were surveyed today (especially in our current economic situation). Students have always had a reasonable amount of unease about finding a job after graduating, but to that end, it would be interesting to hear whether students have become more anxious about their career prospects.

A significant number students – 45% – spend time stressing about being in shape for spring break. It would have been interesting to delve a little deeper into the relation between fitness/food college student's mental health, because nutrition isn't a huge priority and in the past, eating disorders have been more prevalent on college campuses than, say, in the work place.

At some point in the past three months, 58% of students felt worried or anxious, 55% of students had trouble thinking or concentrating, 53% of students have had trouble sleeping, and 34% of students have felt outright depressed. At the same time, 7 in 10 students have never considered talking to a counselor or other mental health professional.

Although this is pretty irrelevant to campus stress, one of the questions in the survey was "If the election for president were held today and these candidates were on the ballot, for whom would you vote?" In a bit a timely foreshadowing, Barack Obama won with 59% of the votes.

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Categorized under: Campus

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