One of the hardest aspects in the first stage of life is learning how to balance your school classes. Every student in the U.S. will have at least four classes to work on, sometimes it’s even seven classes, but studies show that the high expectations and commitments lead to academic stress, which could lead to multiple lasting impacts like depression or anxiety, which could scar someone for a long time. What factors lead to academic stress? And is there something that could be changed in order to reduce academic stress or is it on the students to seek out help to combat their stress?

To start, what is academic stress? According to ScienceDirect, academic stress is “an adaptive psychological systematic process that occurs in learning environments when students face challenges and perceive them as stressful.” This physiological state can also branch out into mood disorders like depression, anxiety, and ill health. And according to some statistics, academic stress impacts a lot of people. According to Transforming Education, 60% of students feel stressed everyday, 1 in 5 college students report feeling stressed all the time. Stress levels among college students have increased 30% over the past three decades, and high school students in the U.S. report higher stress levels than adults. It is very clear that academic stress is a huge issue to our modern students. What is the cause of this increase in stress?

According to BNI Treatment Centers, they theorize the main reason for this dramatic growth in academic stress is due to the heavy workload students are taking on in their everyday lives. According to the National Library of Medicine, academic stress is caused by the low mental health literacy which is people who can’t recognize the signs of mental health issues in themselves. “I think academic stress is caused by social media which I think is used as a crutch to forget about the workload of school.” Says Eli Corridon-Crum, student at Maine University. Academic stress is also being caused by poor academic performance which is a gateway to depression and anxiety. This growth is a huge issue, should schools be blamed for this massive increase in academic stress?

This question has been asked and debated by a lot, should schools be the one to blame for the surge of academic stress? A lot of evidence says yes, “Students deserve better mental health support in their schools to help with overall academic performance and better quality of life, to get the most out of their learning, and to academically and mentally be okay within their school walls” states CDC. Also most of the stress from students comes from schools and stress levels appear higher than adults. 

According to all this information, schools should be mainly at fault for academic stress and there needs to be changes. Schools should cut back on the amount of classes students are required to take, as that would reduce the amount of work students have to worry about. Lastly, schools should reduce the amount of tests being enforced by their state or county, but students should also make changes to reduce their own academic stress. According to Intent. Clinical, it says there are ways for students to prevent academic stress, like making a to-do list, budgeting your time, creating an awards system, asking for help, taking breaks, eating healthy, getting more sleep, exercising, having days to relax, and seeking help as a last resort. These options will be beneficial ways to combat academic stress, but why is this blowing up as it is now?

Schools have barely changed their ways of teaching, if academic stress wasn’t a problem then, why is it now? According to the National Education Association, they claim “the impact of social media and bullying have, for good reason, dominated much of the discussion around this growing crisis. But there are other factors that increase student stress and anxiety that are not as widely reported, including not getting enough downtime. Homework is at least partly to blame.” To put it in another way, the rise of technology and social media has been a huge factor in the increase of academic stress. Along with that, the fact that students are getting enough rest time due to homework which puts schools partially to blame for this rising issue. 

In conclusion, academic stress is a problem a lot of students face and it should be fixed as fast as possible so the people that are miserable can recover and feel relieved again. It will need changes from schools and students but the outcome will benefit both. Students will feel less stress and schools will get better academic performances.