What students and faculty are experiencing now, and what truly helps
By Yang Song and Rob McLay
The picture in 2025: severe strain, some hopeful trends
Mental health remains a major concern across universities worldwide for both students and employees. Large multi-campus data show high, yet gradually improving, rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality. The Healthy Minds Study 2024–2025 student report, spanning more than eighty thousand students at over one hundred campuses, finds severe depression down to about eighteen percent and past-year suicidal ideation down to about eleven percent, continuing a post-pandemic recovery but from a high baseline (Healthy Minds Network, 2025; University of Michigan School of Public Health, 2025).
Globally, the World Health Organization reports that one in seven adolescents has a mental disorder and that suicide is the third leading cause of death among people ages fifteen to twenty nine. These realities carry through to the university years and shape demand for campus services (World Health Organization, 2025a, 2025b).
Faculty and staff: the quiet crisis
While student well-being draws attention, faculty and staff are also under real strain. National surveys in Australia and institutional reviews in the United Kingdom and Australia point to persistent burnout, heavy workloads, and psychosocial risks, with many employees reporting limited organizational capacity to prevent chronic stress (Healthy Minds Network, 2024). In most systems, spending on student supports has grown faster than supports for employees, creating a persistent imbalance (Healthy Minds Network, 2024).
What is driving the pressure?
Academic and economic stressors include compressed curricula, high-stakes assessment, competition for placements and funding, and concerns about living costs and tuition. Large student datasets show improvement since the pandemic but uneven recovery across groups, including athletes and international students (Healthy Minds Network, 2025; University of Michigan School of Public Health, 2025). For postgraduate researchers and early career faculty, research culture matters: studies link long hours, job insecurity, and hostile feedback with higher depression and anxiety among doctoral researchers (Naumann et al., 2022).
On access and stigma, new WHO and UNICEF guidance urges integrated youth mental health models that connect schools, communities, and health systems. Implementation has been uneven across regions but offers practical service models for expansion (World Health Organization & UNICEF, 2024).
What is working: interventions with evidence behind them
- Low-barrier, multi-channel care
Blending on-campus counseling with tele-mental health, stepped triage, and after-hours coverage reduces wait times and extends reach. Recent reviews and trials support stepped-care approaches and show digital mental health programs can help university students, especially when guided rather than fully automated (Madrid-Cagigal et al., 2025). - Faculty-focused supports
Workload reviews, peer support, and evidence-based skills training can reduce distress, but sustained organizational backing is essential. Sector studies emphasize that unmanaged workload is a central driver of burnout and disengagement (Healthy Minds Network, 2024). - Training the front line
Gatekeeper training for instructors and staff improves knowledge and referral confidence and can support earlier help-seeking. The newest meta-analysis shows moderate effects that fade without refreshers, and it highlights the practicality of online delivery for scale (Liu et al., 2025; Lipson et al., 2014). - Culture and policy shifts
Psychologically safe feedback, clear expectations, anti-bullying practices, and recognition for teaching and advising are linked with better mental health among researchers and teaching staff (Naumann et al., 2022). - Data-informed continuous improvement
Using validated surveys such as the Healthy Minds Study alongside dashboards that track help-seeking, wait times, and academic outcomes enables targeted improvement and can narrow equity gaps (Healthy Minds Network, 2025).
Equity matters: who is still being left behind?
Persistent disparities by gender, identity, and income remain. Evidence shows higher distress and lower help-seeking among women, LGBTQIA+ students, first-generation students, and many international students, underscoring the need for targeted outreach, language access, and culturally responsive care (Healthy Minds Network, 2025; World Health Organization & UNICEF, 2024).
A practical campus playbook for students and staff
- Implement stepped care with clear entry points across self-help, peer support, counseling, and specialty referral, and publish service standards for response and follow up (Madrid-Cagigal et al., 2025).
- Resource faculty well-being with workload audits, protected time, confidential counseling or EAP access, and peer communities of practice (Healthy Minds Network, 2024).
- Build mental health literacy into orientation and courses; train instructors and tutors in supportive conversations and referral pathways, and refresh training regularly (Liu et al., 2025; Lipson et al., 2014).
- Design for postgraduates and researchers with clear supervision standards, equitable authorship practices, and mentoring to reduce isolation (Naumann et al., 2022).
- Measure and improve each year with HMS or a similar survey, publish an action plan, and monitor student retention, progression, and staff turnover (Healthy Minds Network, 2025).
Why this matters for learning and completion
Across OECD countries, better mental health is linked with stronger engagement and persistence. Systems that protect student health support completion and long-term skill development that economies need. Healthy students and healthy staff build healthy universities.
References and Reading
Healthy Minds Network. (2024). 2023–2024 HMS Faculty and Staff National Data Report. https://healthymindsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/HMS-2024-Faculty-Staff-National-Data-Report.pdf
Healthy Minds Network. (2025). 2024–2025 HMS National Data Report: Student Survey. https://healthymindsnetwork.org
Lipson, S. K., Speer, N., Brunwasser, S. M., Hahn, E., & Eisenberg, D. (2014). Gatekeeper training and access to mental health care at universities. Journal of Adolescent Health, 55(5), 612–619. https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(14)00227-4/fulltext
Liu, H., Chen, X., Wang, Y., & Zhang, L. (2025). Gatekeeper training for suicide prevention: A systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health, 25, Article 21736. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-025-21736-1
Madrid-Cagigal, A., Ortega-González, R., & Fernández-Álvarez, J. (2025). Digital mental health interventions for university students: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22(1), Article e11876723. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11876723/
Naumann, S., Huber, L., & Trautwein, U. (2022). Doctoral researchers’ mental health and PhD training conditions. Scientific Reports, 12, 21618. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-26601-4
University of Michigan School of Public Health. (2025, September 9). College student depression, anxiety decline for third consecutive year. https://sph.umich.edu/news/2025posts/college-student-mental-health-third-consecutive-year-improvement.html
World Health Organization. (2025a). Adolescent mental health: Fact sheet. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health
World Health Organization. (2025b). Suicide: Fact sheet. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide
World Health Organization, & UNICEF. (2024). Guidance to improve access to mental health care for children and young people. https://www.who.int/news/item/09-10-2024-who-and-unicef-launch-guidance-to-improve-access-to-mental-health-care-for-children-and-young-people