The Healthy Minds Survey was conducted at Harvard in spring 2025. With a response rate of 25 percent, more than 5,900 students across undergraduate and graduate Schools completed the 25-minute survey. Healthy Minds, a national initiative launched in 2007 by the University of Michigan, administered the survey, which is designed to gather information about mental health on college campuses. Since its inception, more than 850,000 students at 600 colleges and universities have participated, including Stanford University, MIT, Tufts University, and Boston University.
When newcomers or a family rising out of poverty, or maybe just a middle-class family that has squirrelled away the money for a college education, push a child to study hard, that child can feel the heavy burden of family hopes. In many countries around the world, these expectations are driving an epidemic of suicide and self-harming behaviors among emerging adults.
The class of 2029 is on edge. Today's 18-year-olds spent middle school locked down in a pandemic. They've grown up more online and socially isolated than past generations, and in the Healthy Minds Study, a survey conducted by a consortium of universities, more than 30% of students report feeling depressed and/or anxious. The campuses they've just arrived at are entrenched in a culture war, as the Trump administration has cut research budgets or pulled funding to enforce restrictions on student protests and free speech.
I spent my daughter's senior year in what felt like survival mode. It was a year of constant decisions and deadlines, culminating in four years of planning. There were dozens of essays for college and scholarship applications, SATs, an artistic portfolio, supplemental applications, and departmental interviews. We had to complete all of this while managing an extremely rigorous senior year with AP classes, dual enrollment courses, and a calendar full of extracurriculars.
Jamel Bishop is seeing a big change in his classrooms as he begins his senior year at Doss High School in Louisville, Kentucky, where cellphones are now banned during instructional time. In previous years, students often weren't paying attention and wasted class time by repeating questions, the teenager said. Now, teachers can provide "more one-on-one time for the students who actually need it." Kentucky is one of 17 states and the District of Columbia starting this school year with new restrictions, bringing the total to 35 states with laws or rules limiting phones and other electronic devices in school. This change has come remarkably quickly: Florida became the first state to pass such a law in 2023.