Lonely, isolated and under pressure: the deteriorating mental health of EU students

By&nbspJulián López & Damaso Jaivenois

Published on 17/09/2025 - 10:56 GMT+2

The kids are not okay. Some 3 years ago, a study showed that 40% of EU students successful higher acquisition education difficulties with their intelligence health, with astir 1 successful 5 suffering from a intelligence disorder.

Now, a much caller survey by the non-profit organisation Nightline France, which surveyed 15,000 radical from 4 EU countries (Germany, France, Ireland, and Austria) and the United Kingdom, suggests that the concern has worsened.

Mental wellness disorders among students are connected the rise.

The report's authors property this inclination to unit implicit world performance, fiscal issues, arsenic good arsenic an summation successful radical feeling lonely oregon isolated.

Depression and ADHD

The astir prominently named intelligence wellness problems are slump and anxiety, some affecting 71% of respondents.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder oregon ADHD (25%), eating disorders (20%), property disorders (11%) and addiction disorders (8%) are besides prevalent.

The study underlines that successful the EU, the bulk of intelligence wellness disorders look earlier the property of 25, with astir fractional emerging by the property of 14.

Too small information

Despite this, pupil intelligence wellness is "under-researched and under-invested", the report's authors claim.

They summarise the findings of different caller studies that recovered that "there is small accusation circumstantial to the intelligence health" of the pupil colonisation successful Europe.

The experts accidental determination is adjacent "a deficiency of consistency successful defining intelligence wellness erstwhile addressed by policy- and decision-makers, creating the hazard of disorder and inefficient oregon harmful implementation."

The study concludes that determination is "a deficiency of concern successful pupil intelligence wellness [that] has a crippling effect connected our societies and economies."

The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that 12 cardinal moving days are mislaid each twelvemonth globally to slump and anxiety, astatine an yearly outgo of astir €1 trillion successful mislaid productivity.