As colleges and universities prepare for a fourth academic year shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, students continue to endure mental health issues at a high rate. However, students’ sources of stress and anxiety may be changing, according to a new survey from TimelyMD, a telehealth provider that focuses on higher education.
The survey, conducted at the end of July, garnered nearly 1200 responses from college students who plan on returning to school in the fall. Although the respondents are not necessarily demographically representative of the college student population in America, their responses offer insight into the contours of mental health on campus.
The results show that mental health remains a crisis. Nearly seven out of ten respondents said that they were currently experiencing some form of mental health issue, such as stress, anxiety, or depression, and 86% reported that their level of stress or anxiety was the same or greater as at this point last year.
However, the causes of student stress may be evolving. 
“If mental health was a fire, COVID was the gasoline,” said Dr. Rufus Tony Spann, executive director of mental health at TimelyMD. “However, the survey found COVID is no longer the primary accelerant.”
In contrast to a winter poll in which 73% of students said that they were more or equally concerned with COVID compared to a year prior, only 46% of students said that they were more or equally concerned about COVID now as previously. Students’ most frequent sources of anxiety included mass shootings (41%), inflation (40%), finances (40%), and academics (38%). However, the most common source of stress for students was their own mental health, with nearly half including it. This finding may reflect the continued influence of COVID and its attendant social, financial, and medical upheaval, even as students became less concerned about the pandemic itself.
“The pandemic has had a major impact on people’s mental wellness,” said Spann. “There’s definitely a correlation.”
