The number of student deaths by suicide in England & Wales and in Northern Ireland in 2015 were at the highest levels in 10 years, according to recent data released by the Office of National Statistics. Meanwhile, the student suicide rate in Scotland was near 10 year lows.

The rise in student suicides follows increases to UK tuition fees in 2012, in all regions except for Scotland where there are no tuition fees for undergraduates.

A longitudinal study 0f 454 undergraduate students in 2016 suggested that financial difficulties “lead to poor mental health in students with the possibility of a vicious cycle occurring”. Recent research featured in Times Higher Education also revealed that “most students in the UK worry about their finances all the time or very often”.

Increasing demand for counselling services has been noted for some time, but while there might be other explanations for a rise in the student suicide rate, this is the first evidence that that the rise in UK tuition fees might be associated with an increase in student suicides.

Female student suicides

Female student suicides in England & Wales rose for a third consecutive year in 2015, according to new figures released by the Office of National Statistics. The release follows a BBC article indicating that up to a third of female students reported having a mental health problem.

In 2015, 41 female students died by suicide, up from 33 in 2014, which was a rise of over 20%. This was the third consecutive year of rising female student suicide rates, and the highest in at least 10 years.

Between 2012 and 2015, female suicides in England & Wales increased from 22 per year to 41 per year. All of the 2015 deaths were individuals usually residing in England and Wales. Male student suicides were the same in 2012 and 2015 at 87 per year (although higher when excluding figures from Scotland), reflecting a consistently higher suicide rate amongst males in the general population compared to females.

Between the 2011/2012 and 2014/2015 academic years, the number of full-time UK female students decreased approximately 0.6% according to figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

The previous highest suicide rate for female students was in 2010, a year in which the number of graduates in employment, and in high skilled jobs, decreased due to the fallout from the economic recession.

As of 2015, the proportion of graduates in high skilled jobs was 5% lower than in 2006. In 2015, female graduates also experienced lower rates of high skilled employment than male graduates, and faced an £8000 gender pay gap compared to males.

Student Suicides At 10 Year High

The number of UK university students taking their own lives in 2014 reached the highest level in at least 10 years.

In 2014, 166 students across the UK died by suicide, up from 128 in 2013. Both male and female suicides increased, with the rate continuing to be more than twice as high for male students as for female.

The majority of student deaths by suicide were in England & Wales, however Northern Ireland showed the highest rate of student suicide per 100,000 students for 2014, with a steady increase from 4 suicides in 2009 to 11 suicides in 2014.

An analysis by Dr. Raymond Kwok from the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Hong Kong University, indicated that the UK student suicide rate per 100,000 was 9.79 for 2014, up from 7.59 in 2013 (with statistical significance at p-value=0.02), based on figures provided by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). The suicide rate amongst the general UK population was 10.8 in 2014.

As with the general population, student suicides rose during the 2008 recession, before sloping off after 2010. The rise of student suicides in 2014, in contrast to a decrease in suicide in the general population, may reflect the impact of rising student tuition fees and graduate under-employment.

The 2014 student suicide data was published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) and National Records of Scotland (NRS) following a Freedom of Information request by Ed Pinkney, a student mental health campaigner and associate at the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Hong Kong University.

Some parts of this article were originally posted at www.mwproject.org