The Cost of Stress: Mental Health and Dropout Intentions among Queer Graduate Students

• In Event: Responding to the Void: QuantCrit Analyses of Queer and Trans Outcomes across Four Large-Scale Surveys

Abstract

Purpose
Graduate student mental health has emerged as a growing concern in higher education, with research documenting alarmingly high rates of anxiety and depression among this population (Evans et al., 2018). While the general challenges facing graduate students are increasingly recognized, recent scholarship has drawn attention to persistent lack of research concerning minoritized populations, including graduate students with minoritized sexual identities (Kaler et al., 2019). Our study seeks to address this need by exploring the relationship between mental health challenges, academic performance, and the intent to leave graduate school among queer students.

Theoretical Framework
Our study is grounded in Minority Stress Theory (Myers, 2003) and the work of Riggs and Treharne (2017), which together provide a framework for understanding how external stressors and internal psychological processes shape academic outcomes. Heightened distress and social isolation can impair students' ability to manage academic tasks, leading to difficulties with concentration, reduced motivation, and missed deadlines. Conversely, psychological well-being and resilience are conceptualized as key protective factors that can buffer these adverse effects.

Methods
Data for this analysis were drawn from the 2023 National College Health Assessment (NCHA), with a sample of 4,467 queer graduate students enrolled in master's and doctoral programs. Using path analysis with maximum likelihood estimation to address missing data, we examined how external stressors impact self-reported academic difficulties and the decision to consider leaving school. Additionally, we investigated whether emotional distress and social isolation act as mediators in these relationships. For an overview of variables and our sample, see Table 1.

Results
The final path analysis (Figure 1) demonstrated excellent model fit: χ²(2) = 2.09, p = .352, CFI = 1.00, TLI = 1.00, RMSEA = 0.003 [90% CI: 0.000, 0.030], and SRMR = 0.003, all within recommended thresholds (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Queer graduate students experiencing higher recent stress reported more serious mental health issues, greater loneliness, and lower well-being. Those who faced discrimination or bullying in the past year also showed poorer mental health outcomes, though with smaller effect. A strong sense of flourishing was the most important protective factor against considering leaving graduate school, while serious mental illness had a smaller negative impact; loneliness and resilience were not directly linked to dropout intention. Flourishing increased feelings of resilience, while serious mental illness reduced them.

Scholarly Significance
Our study empirically demonstrates that harassment and discrimination contribute to serious mental illness, loneliness, and lower flourishing among queer graduate students, which influence their decisions to stay in or leave their programs. Our findings call for targeted, evidence-based interventions to support queer graduate students’ well-being and persistence in a challenging political and educational landscape.

Authors

• Animesh Paul, University of Georgia

• Kristopher Oliveira, University of South Florida

• Roman Christiaens, Indiana University

• Cat Metcalfe, Florida State University

• C. V. Dolan, University of Vermont

• Jason C. Garvey, University of Vermont