Paper revival: The Financial Circumstances Associated with High and Low Wellbeing in Undergraduate Students
Student mental health has been receiving a fresh wave of attention recently, with University Mental Health Day taking place last week, discussion in the media such as this piece on Wonkhe by Rosie Tressler, Chief Executive at Student Minds, and new research including survey findings from the ONS which suggest that the cost of living crisis is taking a toll on student wellbeing.
A few years ago I made a very modest contribution to research in this area through a piece of survey research I carried out while working in the Widening Participation team of a London Russell Group university. The survey combined the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale with questions about students' financial circumstances including paid employment, debt, bursary receipt and parental contributions, in addition to asking some specific questions about students' sense of financial wellbeing. The survey had over a thousand responses from undergraduate students and, while not able to support any causal claims, highlighted some significant - and some surprising - associations between mental wellbeing, financial circumstances, and financial wellbeing (broadly used to describe someone's level of worry about their financial situation).
If you're interested in reading the full article you can find it on the journal website: The financial circumstances associated with high and low wellbeing in undergraduate students: a case study of an English Russell Group institution. It is paywalled, so if you can't access it feel free to reach out to me for a copy. You can read the abstract below:
This article examines the relationship between a student’s mental wellbeing and their financial circumstances. In England, successive governments have adopted a strategy of shifting the cost of university from the state to the individual as a means of increasing participation in higher education. In recent years, some have attributed the significant rise in the number of students accessing university mental health services to this increased financial pressure. Drawing data from a large-scale questionnaire completed by undergraduate students at a London-based Russell Group institution (N = 1171), this article explores the interaction between financial factors such as part-time work, debt, bursary receipt and parental contribution, and a student’s score on a validated scale of mental wellbeing. Taking this further, it explores the relationship between a student’s wellbeing score and the extent to which they feel that their financial situation has impacted their university experience. Two main research questions will be addressed: which financial circumstances are associated with high and low mental wellbeing in students, and what role does a student’s perception of their financial circumstances play in relation to their wellbeing? The impact of demographic factors will also be explored. This article finds that, compared to students in the top 20% for wellbeing (Q5), students in the bottom 20% for wellbeing (Q1) were more likely to be in receipt of a bursary, less likely to receive parental financial support and less likely to be debt-free. Most notably, there was a clear relationship found between a student’s mental wellbeing and their financial wellbeing.
Image credit Emily Underworld