Education and Mental Health: Review

Further education has become a widespread norm, particularly within the UK. Concurrently, however, rates of mental health issues have also risen. While this is not a direct cause-and-effect relationship, research has shown that education may play an important role in the onset of mental health conditions, being predominantly associated with stress, anxiety, and depression. Previous research has considered both the impact of educational stressors induced by higher education as well as the protective factors and support systems it can provide. Yet, the solution to these issues has remained evasive. In this review, we sought to assimilate the extant literature in order to provide a comprehensive and disentangled perspective on the relationship between education and mental health. In doing so, we propose and explore a 4-factor, 3-step hierarchal structure of factors, comprising individual differences/predispositions, the institutional factors, the individuals’ adaptation to university, and the student’s derived sense of belonging. We consider the impact of each factor’s role in the association between education and mental health, before then considering how these factors are intertwined. We discuss the impact that such a model will have on the subsequent understanding of how education impacts mental health, and we consider the role that both institutions, staff, and students themselves can play in improving outcomes for vulnerable students henceforth.