Key takeaways:
The Healthy Minds Study received responses from more than 84,000 students from 135 colleges and universities and 9,000-plus faculty and staff members from 22 institutions.
Student survey results showed that those experiencing severe depression dropped to 18% in 2025 from 23% in 2022. Suicidal thoughts decreased to 11% this year from 15% three years ago.
While positive trends continue, levels of flourishing, or psychological well-being marked by self-esteem, purpose and optimism, dropped slightly to 36% after reaching 38% in 2024.
College students’ reports of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts have continued to move in a positive direction, the third year in a row of such improvements since 2022, researchers have found.
The 2024-2025 Healthy Minds Study, conducted annually by researchers from UCLA, the University of Michigan, Boston University in Massachusetts, and Wayne State University in Michigan, under the leadership of the Healthy Minds Network based at Michigan, received responses from more than 84,000 students from 135 colleges and universities and 9,000-plus faculty and staff members from 22 institutions — the second year of surveying campus employees.
“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, a co-principal investigator on the project and professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management. “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.”
Student survey results show continuing declines, including severe depression dropping to 18% in 2025 from 23% in 2022 and suicidal thoughts decreasing to 11% this year from 15% three years ago.
“These sustained reductions tell me this is not a blip. Whether it’s distance from the pandemic, better institutional support or something else driving the change, I think this is a promising counternarrative to what seems like constant headlines around young people’s struggles with mental health,” said Justin Heinze, associate professor of health behavior and health equity at U-Michigan’s School of Public Health and a co-principal investigator of the study.
