Every year since 2007, researchers have conducted the Healthy Minds Study, gathering confidential data about the mental and behavioral health trends of college students.
For the third year in a row, respondents reported decreased rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.
The 2024-2025 study recorded responses from more than 84,000 students at 135 colleges and universities. Results showed continuing declines, including severe depression dropping to 18% in 2025, down from 23% in 2022, and suicidal thoughts decreased to 11% from 15%.
“These sustained reductions tell me this is not a blip,” said Justin Heinze, a co-principal investigator of the study.
“Whether it’s distance from the pandemic, better institutional support, or something else driving the change, I think this is a promising counter-narrative to what seems like constant headlines around young people’s struggles with mental health.”
Staff and faculty at colleges and universities are also surveyed in the annual study. In 2025, about half of faculty and staff said they have conversations with students about mental health, with most saying they recognized worsening trends. However, about half of respondents said they were not confident in recognizing a student in distress.
“These findings underscore both the critical role that faculty and staff are playing in supporting students and the opportunity for institutions to provide training and resources that will strengthen their capacity to respond,” co-principal investigator Sarah Ketchen Lipson said.
“Bringing training into existing spaces where faculty and staff time is required also sends an important message by the institution that mental health is integral to the overall mission.”
Other researchers, like Sasha Zhou, noted that the findings showed disparities still exist among student groups, though research suggests there are solutions to bridge the gap.
“These disparities have been persistent in the last decade and underscore that there’s more work to be done to close the gap in mental health support,” Zhou said.
“Emerging research suggests that affinity-based peer support programs, curriculum-integrated psychoeducation, and adaptations of social/emotional learning approaches show promise in supporting the mental health of underrepresented or overlooked students.”
The study did also find that loneliness and a lack of optimism are still challenges plaguing most students, but mental health service use has remained stable over the last four years, with 60% of students who experienced depression or anxiety symptoms receiving clinical mental health treatment.
Figuring out how to meet students where they’re at will also continue to improve these rates, researchers suggest.
“While overall access to mental health services seems to be similar to previous years, the good news is that students are accessing an increasingly diverse array of resources,” said Daniel Eisenberg, another co-principal investigator on the study.
“Digital and mobile services are evolving rapidly and are now popular among students. An important challenge in the coming years will be to help students make sense of their many options and help them access something that will be a good fit for their needs and preferences.”
You may also like: To combat the youth mental health crisis, this school district lets students text a therapist for free
A version of this article was originally published in The 2026 Mental Health Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
Header image by Keira Burton via Pexels
