Predictors Of Stress In College Students

College students are guaranteed to encounter a countless stress inducing situations as they begin and progress their journey through higher education. These stress causing situations include deciding a degree program, making and adhering to their own schedule, meeting regular deadlines, and balancing a life outside of school all at the same time, among plentiful other examples. Many colleges and universities offer hundreds of degree programs and often students feel pressured to select a degree program that could lead to a higher paying job instead of a degree program that they are legitimately interested in pursuing. College is also often the first experience students have with being completely independent and having little to no supervision.

Stressors that are not directly caused by educational requirements have become serious issues for today’s college students and are discussed in the academic journals Frontiers in Psychology, College Student Journal, and the American Journal of Health Studies, respectively, and can be found in “Predictors of Stress in College Students” by Dalia Saleh, Nathalie Camart and Lucia Romo, “College Students’ Stress Under Current Economic Downturn” by Yuh-Jen Guo, Shu-Ching Wang, Veronica Johnson, and Marcela Diaz, “College Students’ Academic Stress and its Relation to their Anxiety, Time Management, and Leisure Satisfaction” by Ranjita Misra and Michelle McKean. These three academic articles reveal that non-educational related stress also heavily impacts academic stress and that three major causes of education related stress include poor time management, psychological distress, and economic

Various issues cause psychological distress in college students, including “. . .psychological distress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, . . .low self-esteem…, little optimism…, and a low sense of self-efficacy…” (Saleh, Camart, Romo 1). These psychological issues are often seen as normal for college students, however when coupled with the inherent stresses of college, they can cause havoc for a student. It’s not often reported just how widespread these issues are. A study conducted by Saleh, Camart, and Romo found that out of 483 college students, “. . .72.9%, 86.3%, and 79.3% of them were suffering from psychological distress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, respectively…” and that “. . .more than half the sample was also suffering from low self-esteem (57.6%), little optimism (56.7%), and a low sense of efficacy (62.7%). . .” (Saleh, Camart, Romo 1). As the study shows, psychological stressors such as psychological distress, anxiety, and depression are very common while low self-esteem, little optimism, and a low sense of efficacy are moderately common in college students. These prevalent psychological issues place academic stress on a lot of college students. On top of time management and psychological issues, the financial burden that many college students carry can also be a major cause of