In case you didn’t know, graduate students are suffering from a mental health crisis. The situation is BAD. Advocating for graduate students was a central focus of my time in graduate school, and I became involved in advocacy efforts at my university and in my state and national governments. It led me to volunteer with the National Association of Graduate Professional Students as their Director of Legislative Affairs.
I’ll save you the extended edition of the data, but from what we can tell, the rates of poor mental health and its associated outcomes are greater than any industry. Approximately 40% of graduate students suffer from moderate to severe anxiety and depression – a rate 6 times that of the general population – and approximately 10% are suicidal. The problem is systemic and universal – global data on graduate education bears this out (see more in my Graduate Student Life Policy Brief).
While I was still with NAGPS, I helped co-found the FAARM Project, a Framework for Accountability in Academic Research and Mentoring. Its goal is to create (and eventually implement) federal framework that incentivizes universities to take the steps they need to reform graduate education.
Even though I am no longer a student, I remain active in these efforts, appearing on podcasts, writing blog posts, and meeting with legislative offices. The more people who know and care about these problems – especially those who are not graduate students – the more we’ll be effective in our efforts for change.
