Student loans, physical and mental health, and health care use and delay in college

Abstract

Objective: Determine relationships between college students’ student loan presence and self-rated physical and mental health, major medical problems, mental health conditions, physical, dental, and mental health care visits and delays, and medication use and reductions. Participants: A total of 3,248 undergraduates at two regional public U.S. universities, surveyed Spring 2017. Methods: OLS and Logistic regression. Results: Loan presence was related to significantly worse self-rated physical and mental health and more major medical problems, but not to mental health conditions, or physical or mental health medication use. Respondents with loans were less likely to visit the dentist and more likely to report delaying medical, dental, and mental health care, and reducing medication use to save money. Conclusions: Results provide evidence of health and health care use divides among college students by loan presence.

Keywords:

• Debt
• health
• health care use
• mental health
• student loans

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Jazmyn Edwards and Stephanie Pruitt for their research assistance on this project. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2021 Population Association of America virtual conference.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Boards of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Rutgers University-Camden.

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants no. 1947603 and 1947604, a Rutgers University-Camden Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award, a Rutgers University Research Council Grant, and a University of North Carolina at Greensboro Faculty Research Grant, as administered by the Office of Sponsored Programs and Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.