According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mental health affects how individuals feel, think, and respond to the world around them and includes "our emotional, psychological, and social well-being". An environment may also affect an individual's mental health, with environmental stressors potentially changing how an individual feels or responds to the world around them. This can also apply to the educational environment; students face several stressors entering into and progressing within the higher education environment - all of which can influence their mental health.
Almost half (41%) of postsecondary students identify as having diagnoses related to mental health and nearly one-third (29%) of postsecondary students were in mental health therapy/ counseling in the past year. Eisenberg et al. found that, as of fall 2021, of the more than 33,000 participants surveyed for the American College Health Association's National College Health Assessment, 27.4% were diagnosed with anxiety and 21.7% were diagnosed with depression. While there is an overall increase in students' poor mental health, Lipson et al. found that students from different ethnic and racial identities may be at a greater likelihood for mental health complications.
When navigating the higher education environment, Ennals et al. found that "knowing oneself and negotiating social spaces of educational settings are key processes" for students to improve their mental health -- factors that support their ability to thrive within the postsecondary environment. However, research indicates a negative relationship between poor mental health and postsecondary success. Poor mental health can impact a student's ability to persist within and graduate from higher education. Other postsecondary student characteristics may further complicate their mental health which may have subsequent challenges to their success within the higher education environment. A student's first-generation status11, military status, and other "non-traditional" (e.g., age, dependency status, etc.) characteristics may impact their perceived sense of belonging within the higher education community and subsequently impact their mental health. Additionally, the specific institutional environment and their academic performance within that postsecondary setting can also impact student mental health.
With the increase in student requests for mental health services and resources, there is a greater need to provide more comprehensive support services that better address student mental health needs. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the lives of many college students, negatively impacting their mental health and creating the need to seek support services. Though more students are seeking mental health services, institutions may not allocate appropriate funding to support the increased need for student mental health initiatives. Limited mental health support services may impact the overall experience and success of the student with mental health needs. As such, it is necessary to further explore student mental health and different student mental health patterns. The investigation of student mental health patterns in a nationally representative sample of students will provide insight into key student and institutional characteristics that can be associated with poor mental health and help postsecondary institutions with student advocacy efforts in the future.
The following research questions guided this project:
1. What are the descriptive differences in student and institutional characteristics based on variation in students’ perceived mental health over time?
2. To what extent do student and institutional characteristics account for varying students’ perceived mental health statuses?

Data included in this paper were drawn from the restricted use Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study 2012/2017 dataset (BPS:12/17), a nationally representative sample of first-time beginning undergraduate students in the United States. Variables included within this paper were taken from the base year and the first follow-up of the survey. The majority of the predictor variables included were student-specific, including demographic characteristics (e.g., age, race, gender) and institutional-going characteristics (e.g., full-time enrollment, first-year GPA, Pell eligibility). The inclusion of the predictor variables was based on extant literature. This paper explored the different disclosure statuses related to students’ perceived mental health. For this paper, perceived negative mental health was defined as a student self-identifying their mental health as either “fair” or “poor” and perceived positive mental health was defined as “good,” “very good,” or “excellent.” Three mental health self-disclosure categories were established based on the first and second survey time points: (1) consistent negative mental health (student identified negative mental health at both first and second data collection); (2) shifting mental health (student identified negative mental health at either the first or second data collection); and (3) consistent positive mental health (student identified positive mental health at both first and second data collection). This analytic sample consisted of 18,990 cases. This study focused on the first and second waves of data collection (2012 and 2014 data collections). Student subgroups organized by mental health identification status included the following: consistent negative mental health (N=480), shifting mental health (N=1,980), and positive mental health (N= 16,530). All reported sample sizes were rounded to the nearest ten, complying with our NCES restricted data use agreement. All analyses were conducted in Stata 16 and were weighted using the longitudinal weight and bootstrap replicate weights to account for attrition and to be nationally representative of the population. To address the first research question, weighted descriptive statistics were conducted to examine students’ perceived mental health statuses for the full sample and by specific student characteristics. Significance tests were conducted to assess whether there were statistically significant differences in identification based on student characteristics. To address the second research question, a weighted multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted and the results were presented as relative risk ratios. All but one variable included in the research model had complete data. For the one variable with missing data, GPA, listwise deletion was used.

The aim of this study was two-fold: (a) to investigate the differences in student and institutional characteristics based on students' perceived mental health over time and (b) to examine the influence of these characteristics on perceived mental health. The findings of this study revealed students had greater perceived mental health when they perceived greater support (e.g., perceived belonging and dependent status) and were academically successful (e.g., higher first-year GPA). Students with shifting or poor mental health were more likely to have low socio-economic status and with a low perceived sense of belonging within their campus community. Moreover, students' age, gender, and race all influenced their perceived mental health status. Lastly, students' institutional environment also contributed to their perceived mental health. Findings highlight the many factors associated with differences in perceived mental health over time. There are several implications for researchers and practitioners from the data presented in this paper. While there is an active research presence around student mental health, there will also be a need to further explore this area in new and unique ways. A person’s mental health can be influenced by their surroundings and daily activities; conversely, how a person feels and responds to the world around them can also be related to their perceived mental health. As such, it is important for researchers to explore the various internal and external elements of developing and maintaining one’s mental health. Similarly, practitioners (namely postsecondary administrators, including counselors, advisors, and disability resource professionals) must advocate for and support the increased requests for mental health services. Moreso, with the increased cases of student mental health challenges, it is vital that higher education leadership maintain, if not increase, resources and appropriate funding to allow for suitable services to support the wide range of students' mental health needs.

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About mental health. https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/learn/index.htm Updated 2021. Accessed October 22, 2022. 2. Bratman GN, Hamilton JP, & Daily GC. The impacts of nature experience on human cognitive function and mental health. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2012; 1249, 118-136. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06400.x 3. Fernandez A, Howse E, Rubio-Valera M, Thorncraft K, Noone J, Luu X, & Salvador-Carulla L. Setting-based interventions to promote mental health at the university: a systematic review. International Journal of Public Health. 2016; 61:797-807. doi: 10.1007/s00038-016-0846-4 4. Pascoe MC, Hetrick SE, & Parker AG. The impact of stress on students in secondary school and higher education. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth. 2020;25: 104-112. doi: 10.1080/02673843.2019.1596823 5. Eisenberg D, Lipson SK, & Heinze J. The health minds study: Fall 2020 data report. https://healthymindsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/HMS-Fall-2020-National-Data-Report.pdf Updated 2020. Accessed October 22, 2022. 6. Lipson SK, Zhou S, Abelson S, Heinze J, Jirsa M, Morigney J, & Eisenberg D. Trends in college student mental health and help-seeking by race/ethnicity: Findings from the national healthy minds study, 2013–2021. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2022;306: 138-147. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2022.03.038 7. Ennals P, Fossey E, & Howie L. Postsecondary study and mental ill-health: a meta-synthesis of qualitative research exploring students’ lived experiences. Journal of Mental Health. 2015; 24(2): 111-119. doi: 10.3109/09638237.2015.1019052 8. Eisenberg D, Lipson SK, & Posselt J. Promoting resilience, retention, and mental health. New Directions for Student Services. 2016;156: 87-95. 9. Hartley MT. Examining the relationships between resilience, mental health, and academic persistence in undergraduate college students. Journal of American College Health. 2011;59(7): 596-604. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2010.515632 10. Koch LC, Mamiseishvili K, & Higgins K. Persistence to degree completion: A profile of students with psychiatric disabilities in higher education. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation. 2014;40(1): 73-82. doi: 10.3233/JVR-130663 11. Stebleton MJ, Soria KM, & Huesman RL. First‐generation students' sense of belonging, mental health, and use of counseling services at public research universities. Journal of College Counseling. 2014;17(1): 6-20. doi: 10.1002/j.2161-1882.2014.00044.x 12. Bonar TC. Mental health and military‐connected students on campus: Culture, challenges, and success. New Directions for Student Services. 2016;156): 41-51. doi: 10.1002/ss.20190 13. Trenz RC, Ecklund-Flores L, & Rapoza K. A comparison of mental health and alcohol use between traditional and nontraditional students. Journal of American College Health. 2016;63(8): 584-588. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2015.1040409