College in Isolation: The Student Experience During COVID

How Mental Health Has Suffered During the Pandemic

The mental health of young people has suffered dramatically during the pandemic and isolation faced because of it. A recent, FAIR Health study found that in the beginning months of COVID-19, mental health claim lines for individuals aged 19-22 rose by nearly 80 percent. In June 2020, 74.9 percent of individuals aged 18-24 reported symptoms of at least one mental or behavioral health issue, according to the APA. The APA also found that 79 percent of Gen Z adults said they needed more emotional support during COVID than they received.

The isolation has been intensified for those who recently began their freshman year of college. School events have been held online, and many schools have banned gathering inside. Spending time with others is crucial to finding support systems at universities; without it, a new home can quickly go from being exciting and stimulating to overwhelming and foreign. 

“I’ve become so much more anxious,” says Maria, who attends the University of Minnesota as a freshman. “I’ve just gotten comfortable with not interacting with people ever. Frankly, I don’t really have much of a social life; I’ve just been staying in my room.” 

Sadie, a freshman at California Polytechnic State University, has had similar experiences. “There’s just not really opportunities for social things that aren’t partying that I don’t want to be a part of …  It’s definitely isolating,” she says. 

For many students with marginalized or minority identities, the pandemic means isolation from identity groups that would have otherwise provided community and acceptance. Maria has been involved with the Black Students Union online, but says the experience hasn’t been what she hoped. “I think it’s really important for people to be able to place themselves, especially in a ‘Big Ten’ school. It’s huge, and you have to be able to find your place somewhere so that it can feel smaller. Not having that this year … I don’t really feel particularly rooted anywhere.”

Though the students’ experiences are disheartening, given the statistics, they’re not surprising. Denver-based therapist Karen Mills provided insight into the challenges adolescents often face. “It’s such a huge transition from being a child to being an adult … It can be scary,” she says. “With adolescents, connections with peers are so important. And, they weren’t able to engage like they normally do,” she continues. She also stressed the importance of therapy. “I think therapy is always helpful, just having someplace and someone to talk to and express yourself.”

Yet, many students are dissatisfied with their school’s mental health resources. Maria was placed on a long waitlist when she reached out to counselors at the University at Minnesota. Jenn, a student at Yale, had a similar story, mentioning a recent suicide at the school and a student campaign to allocate more money to the school’s services.

Also concerning are the students’ worries about life after the pandemic.  “I don’t know if I still know how to make new friends,” Ava, a student at Columbia University, says. “I don’t know if I know how to read social cues as well.”

Maria has worried that her social situation at school won’t improve. “I’ve sort of just prepared myself for the reality of, like, I might just not have much of a college experience in terms of having a robust social life.”

Lindsea, a student at Bellarmine University in Kentucky, says, “It kind of makes me nervous for the future, you know, because everyone says, ‘Oh, you meet your best friends in college within the first week, or in your first year.’ It’s like, ‘Well, I haven’t met anybody, so what does that say about the next three years?’”

Though the stories of student mental health during COVID-19 are demoralizing, the pandemic has brought about a new awareness of the problem. We now have an opportunity to provide young people with accessible, emotional support and to decrease mental health stigma.

“I think that it’s really important for there to be more open talk so that it’s not so much of a stigma,” Karen Mills says. “A lot of kids are very much reluctant to talk. They think it means they’re sick or crazy … I think that’s important, to not only make resources available, but to help kids feel free and comfortable seeking help.”

The growing de-stigmatization has already made a difference in some students’ lives. “Hearing people be like, ‘A huge amount of people are going to experience depression at some point in college.’ Hearing that can just make such a big difference, because these things can feel so catastrophic, you know, when it feels like it’s just you,” Maria says.

Large-scale, legislative change is needed to improve the mental health system in our country.  But for now, we cannot allow isolation to be the norm. We must move forward with intentional and deep empathy for the challenges and setbacks students and young people have faced. We must be better teachers, parents, siblings, children, friends, and peers. We must counter unprecedented isolation with unprecedented humanity—for the sake of our students, and for the sake of each other. 

Some names have been changed.

If you are having thoughts of suicide and are in need of support, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.