Under Pressure: The College Stress Test

The impact of relocation, isolation, and rebuilding while working and in college.

Starting over is supposed to be brave, empowering. A fresh start, somewhere new and exciting… but no one talks about how deeply lonely it can be.

Relocation—especially going it alone—requires a certain level of fantasy and reinvention. New town, new stores, new restaurants, new people, new traffic. It’s a totally clean slate. But what happens when, instead of feeling hopeful, you feel empty? When you’re trying to build a life from the ground up while carrying burdens like academic pressure, financial strain, and emotional exhaustion, all at once? Let’s be real here, moving somewhere new costs—and I don’t mean just financially. I forked out thousands of dollars to move here, and a few months later, another few thousand to move into a new house, where I pay all the bills by myself as a 30-year-old college student. For many college students, loneliness may not be a passing feeling; it may very well be a constant background hum that tails along right behind them like a new puppy wanting attention.

According to one February 2024 study conducted by Active Minds and TimelyCare, nearly two-thirds of college students (64.7%) report feeling lonely, and more than half (51.7%) are concerned about the mental health of their friends. Even more alarming, is the data that shows that students who report feeling lonely are over four times more likely to experience severe psychological distress—with 28.8% already suffering at that level (Rock, 2024). Loneliness may just look like sadness to some, but it’s more than that: it’s a risk factor, a pressure multiplier, and for many, a quiet crisis.

In late 2022, I moved clear across the country to go be near my paternal grandparents, who I had just started having a relationship with. As an orphan who raised herself since the age of 7, the opportunity to learn what family felt like was something I didn’t want to pass up—especially as my grandfather was battling cancer that he contracted from Camp Lejeune while in the Marine Corps. I packed up books and clothes and a dog into a 32-foot RV and I left everything I had ever known behind for a new adventure. Classes were starting in mere days as I trekked across the United States in the midst of a brutal winter storm.

In April of 2025, I made another huge jump: I moved to Wyoming, where I knew nobody. I came for a job, ended up loving it, and never left, even though the original plan had me moving back to Georgia in August to spend my last semester of college in full-focus mode. Instead, I made an impact at my job, corporate noticed, and I climbed the ladder a notch or two. With that came more responsibilities, not enough extra money, added stress—and still, I had no support. I needed a hug. I didn’t get one.

Loneliness doesn’t always look like sitting alone in the dark at home. Sometimes it looks like being surrounded by people and still feeling invisible. Many a day went by at work where I felt just that—invisible. I severed ties with coworkers because I was now “above them” in rank and pay, which caused tension. The amount of times I hear people ask someone how they’re doing, and the automatic answer is “I’m good” troubles me. I’m not one of those people; it feels disingenuous. It feels too heavy to unload onto another being how you really feel in that very moment. They don’t know you; they don’t care; or otherwise, they aren’t responsible for your feelings or turmoil or they don’t have the capacity to understand what you’re going through.

What makes this kind of isolation sharper is the contradiction between appearance and reality. On paper, I’m thriving. I have a 3.95 GPA; I’m on the President’s List; next week I graduate college Summa Cum Laude (Latin: “with highest honors”). My workplace and colleagues don’t see the workload I have when I clock out and go home to do schoolwork while I’m already running on E. They don’t understand why I need days off just to recuperate, reset, and grind to read and write for multiple college courses designed to test me, teach me, and better me. These various titles I hold suggest confidence, competence, stability. What they don’t show is the crippling, chronic anxiety that long-ago settled deep into my chest because there was never anyone to teach me how to cope with it growing up.

Loneliness does not always come from physical isolation—it also comes from emotional displacement. This is a feeling I have unfortunately battled with for most of my 30 years. When you have no family; when you move away from anything familiar; when you leave the couple friends you have that you have deemed your family… the support system doesn’t come with you. The couple friends you had that could get you out of the house on a day when you needed a break the most are now thousands of miles away. Now, the only thing anyone can see is the image you portray to them through text, call, or social media presence. In essence, you become the sole witness to your own unraveling and rebuilding. That alone can be lonesome. All the littlest (and biggest) successes you come by are yours and yours alone to recognize and celebrate.

The survey data provided above makes one thing abundantly clear: students are not just lonely, but they can see it in others, too. We can see the struggles, the exhaustion, the fear, the survival—everyone is overwhelmed, and we can’t even find the ways to support each other. Working while being a full-time student compounds the isolation issue. Time is now transactional at best—we work shifts, we complete assignments for a deadline, we crave a few hours of sleep. Free time? What’s that? The only downtime I get, I’m so worn out I don’t do anything but the bare necessities—and sometimes not even that.

Now, let’s talk about the shame of loneliness. Because I’m being noticed by corporate at work because of my hard work; because I’m making all A’s for four years straight in college, I’m supposed to be “okay.” Admitting to loneliness or other ailments then translates to ingratitude, which to yourself feels like a failure. But loneliness doesn’t discriminate based on your GPA. There are so many things college students are navigating: financial burdens/hardships, relocating, the constant “on” of being tied to the digital world, academic pressure, etc. etc. etc.. In short, we are becoming unraveled by the go go go of trying to network, pass grades, plan our futures, cook dinner, feed the dog, everything.

For me, rebuilding hasn’t been some picturesque fairy-tale. It has been learning new places to buy essentials; recognizing locals; finding beauty in the nature I’m in now; remembering to breathe in the fresh air; finding a new safe person, one at a time—and notably, teaching myself how to be content in aloneness. Some days I succeed. Some days I don’t.

Sometimes success makes loneliness lonelier. You’re the strong one, the resilient one, the smart one… and suddenly people become disconnected with your humanness, and stop asking you to join them for break-time or lunch. I’m not alone in this—college students everywhere are living some of the same realities as I am. We grieve who we used to be, we stress about who we’re supposed to become… and yet we keep going. I still work. I still try. I still show up—and sometimes I haven’t done my hair or fed the dog yet. For many people, loneliness is the cost of becoming someone new. Starting over (and keeping going) is about perseverance and courage and endurance.

For more information related to loneliness in college students, click here.