Running on Empty
How the U-M’s culture of success fuels student burnout
—By Isabela Fernandez
Around 2 am, Sasha, a University of Michigan sophomore whose name has been changed for privacy, was still sitting in a corner of the Shapiro Library, surrounded by empty energy drinks and glowing laptop screens. She hadn’t taken a break all day, and her to-do list seemed to keep growing. “I was so exhausted I couldn’t tell if I was sad or just ready to give up,” she says. But skipping an hour of studying felt impossible. “If you stop, you fall behind, and everyone else keeps going.”
The exhaustion Sasha describes is a shared experience among many of her peers. A U-M School of Public Health report states that 44% of college students showed symptoms of depression and 33% reported anxiety disorders. These are the highest rates ever recorded by the Healthy Minds Study, an online annual survey measuring mental health of undergraduate and graduate students across the United States. At the University of Michigan, those numbers have faces: the roommate who hasn’t left the library in three days, the lab partner juggling three jobs, the friend who quietly stopped showing up to class. Burnout has become the unspoken cost of achievement —a byproduct of ambition, debt, and the myth that doing it all is just part of the college experience. Why are so many students running on empty and what might it take to let them breathe again?
The pressure to perform
At the University of Michigan, excellence isn’t just encouraged; it’s expected. With a reputation for attracting high-achieving students, unwavering success often feels like a prerequisite. But the same drive that propels students into the nation’s top programs can just as easily push them to the brink of exhaustion, altering their academic and postgraduate careers.
Burnout, though often used casually to describe stress or exhaustion, has a specific psychological definition in research on student well-being. It’s recognized as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. This is often marked by feelings of cynicism, detachment, and decreased motivation. Among college students, burnout frequently shows up as loss of engagement and declining academic performance, which can undermine both learning and mental health. A 2021 study on undergraduate burnout found that prolonged academic stress strongly correlates with emotional exhaustion and decreased well-being, while a 2023 paper from the Journal of the National Medical Association described burnout as a “growing public health concern” across student populations. Together, these findings point to burnout as a reflection of systemic pressures embedded in higher education. However, many students may falsely categorize experiencing burnout as a personal failure.
“The competition specifically does, in my opinion, contribute to burnout,” says Dr. Josh Ackerman, a professor of social psychology at Michigan. He describes a familiar pattern: students look around and feel as though everyone else is achieving more, faster, causing them to beat themselves up. “Competition can make students feel like they are falling behind, kicking off a cycle of catastrophizing about future outcomes and increasing one’s workload to compensate, eventually leading to burnout,” he explains.
That pressure is magnified by the university’s culture of prestige. Surrounded by peers who come off as tireless, students internalize the belief that slowing down equals failure. Ackerman notes that much of this stress stems from social comparison, the human tendency to measure our worth against others. “The competition that is frequently salient can be a function of social comparison rather than something inherent to the work,” he says. “As a result, we might feel we need to compete when that isn’t the case.”
Social comparison is rarely rational. It’s easy to see only others’ highlights while concealing one’s own fatigue, especially with the increase in popularity of social media platforms such as LinkedIn; students are able to post their successes and keep their struggles behind closed doors. A 2023 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that perfectionism, where individuals feel others expect perfection from them, is one of the strongest predictors of academic burnout. Students who tied their self-worth to achievement reported higher stress, lower life satisfaction, and greater emotional exhaustion.
At Michigan, that dynamic plays out daily. Honors students compare GPAs, pre-meds swap MCAT scores, and first-years already worry about recruiting for future internships. The university’s identity as a “Public Ivy” becomes both a badge and burden: a status that consistently demands proof of deserving to be here.
As Ackerman points out, “more work does not necessarily mean more productivity. Learning how to work better and not exhaust oneself in the process is extremely beneficial.” But for many, that balance feels impossible in an environment where the measure of success is endurance itself.
Professors may not share this sense of student effort because it may be hard to recognize. Ackerman shares that “burnout can be noticed by professors, especially in smaller classes but it requires time to see those shifts in student behavior.” With undergraduate enrollment of 34,545 at UM, many classes are held in large lecture halls that accommodate hundreds of students. This format limits opportunities for student–professor interaction, which may make professors less aware of the challenges their students are facing.
The price of a degree
For many students, burnout has financial roots in addition to academic stress. Rising tuition costs, rent, and daily living expenses compound the stress of academic pressure, particularly for those balancing jobs alongside full course loads. A 2023 UM summary of a Healthy Minds Study noted that financial insecurity remains one of the strongest predictors of anxiety and depression among college students. When basic needs like housing or food feel uncertain, studying often becomes secondary to survival.
Dr. Ackerman observes that this financial stress feeds directly into burnout cycles. “It’s not just the workload,” he explains. “It’s the feeling that you can’t afford to fall behind, because every hour off means money lost or opportunities missed.” For students juggling part-time jobs or unpaid internships, rest becomes a privilege rather than a right.
Research supports this link between financial strain and mental exhaustion. The Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health states that financial stress significantly amplifies emotional fatigue and disengagement, especially when students feel as if they have little to no support from their institutions. This reflects structural inequities that contribute to varying experiences and feelings of burnout.
Eli, a recent University of Michigan graduate now preparing for medical school, has experienced this imbalance firsthand. “I felt the financial stress in undergrad as I constantly had at least one job on top of being a full-time student each semester,” he says. What might look like time management felt to Eli like running in survival mode. “I needed to take a gap year following graduation from U of M to make money prior to starting graduate school,” he adds. “With the debt and student loans in my near future, I’m having to delay the start of my career to set myself up for both financial and academic stress.”
Yet, stepping back has also become an act of recovery. “I think the gap year will benefit me because I can make money,” Eli says, “but I also need time to recharge my brain and regain the motivation after four years of intense competition with my peers at U of M.”
Bridging the gap between need and care
For students like Sasha and Eli, the challenge isn’t just recognizing burnout, it’s finding help that can meet the demand. On paper, the University of Michigan offers a robust network of resources: Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), the Wolverine Support Network (WSN), and a range of peer-led programs designed to foster connection. In practice, though, many students describe a gap between need and access. Wait times for therapy appointments can stretch for weeks, and by the time support arrives, the stress has often already escalated.
“While CAPS in principle is a great resource,” says Lejla Pargan, a UM senior and the director of facilitator development for WSN, “it offers a band-aid fix to a larger issue, the competition and fending-for-yourself culture we have at Michigan.”
Programs such as WSN strive to provide readily available outlets for students who are in need of more frequent, casual support. “Our groups meet weekly, and anyone can come talk about whatever they want to talk about,” Pargan explains. “The nice thing about a group is that you’re talking to your peers, people who’ve navigated similar situations and can really relate. We aren’t therapists, we’re just students who want to listen.” This peer-driven approach fills a crucial gap, creating spaces that feel more accessible than clinical settings. Research supports the idea: students are often more likely to open up in peer-based or informal environments than in traditional therapy.
For many, that sense of shared experience makes all the difference. Maya, a UM junior who used university counseling services for the past year, remembers waiting nearly a month for her first therapy appointment. “By the time I got there, I was already in crisis mode,” she says. “Therapy helped, but I realized I also needed everyday support, people who understood what burnout felt like, not just what it meant.”
Studies back up her experience. Research has found that interventions emphasizing group-based coaching, resilience training, and peer-led cognitive-behavioral programs significantly reduce academic burnout and improve engagement. These findings suggest that lasting relief depends on shifting from reactive, one-on-one crisis care to community-centered prevention.
At Michigan, that shift is beginning to take shape. CAPS has expanded its “Let’s Talk” drop-in consultations and partnered with peer programs like WSN to reach students outside traditional therapy settings. Still, Pargan believes meaningful progress requires cultural change, not just institutional expansion. “I wish there was more of an emphasis on our studies and less of a push for clubs and résumé padding,” she says. “Burnout is tied to late-stage capitalism, we’re all running ourselves ragged trying to prove our worth.”
The School of Public Health report underscores both the progress and the pressure: more students are seeking help than ever before, but without additional funding, staff, and accessible care models, student needs may soon outpace the system’s ability to respond. Still, programs like WSN show that small, student-driven efforts can spark a cultural shift. “We teach students to catch stress early,” Pargan says, “before it turns into burnout. Sometimes all it takes is being reminded that you’re not alone.” For Maya, that reminder made all the difference. “I used to think asking for help meant I wasn’t strong enough,” she says. “Now I realize it’s the opposite, it’s what lets me keep going.”
Maya’s experience highlights what many students may be thinking—that the burnout they’re experiencing is somehow their own fault. Rather, it often reflects a broader systems failure at UM rather than a personal shortcoming. When students are overloaded with demanding course schedules, limited support, and institutional pressures that prioritize performance over well-being, burnout becomes an almost predictable outcome. Framing it as an individual problem overlooks the structural issues that make students feel overwhelmed in the first place. WSN tries to shift this mindset by encouraging students to approach themselves with more kindness and understanding.
Rewriting what strength means
College burnout isn’t just about students who can’t keep up—it’s about a system that refuses to slow down. The exhaustion Sasha felt in the library, the financial strain Eli carried each semester, and the long wait Maya faced for help all point to the same truth: the pursuit of success has outpaced the structures meant to support students. At the University of Michigan, achievement often comes at the expense of well-being, leaving students to navigate impossible standards with little room to rest.
Yet even within that pressure, students and campus organizations are reshaping what strength looks like. Peer-led groups, drop-in programs, and student-driven initiatives are chipping away at the culture of endurance and quiet suffering. They show that healing doesn’t always begin in an office—sometimes it starts in a conversation between classmates, a reminder that rest isn’t something earned through all-nighters and perfect grades.
Real progress in addressing burnout will require more than temporary relief. It calls for a cultural shift that values balance alongside academic success and community alongside competition. If universities want to cultivate resilient students, they must build compassionate environments where vulnerability is understood as connection rather than weakness.
Because strength, as students across Michigan are learning, isn’t about pushing past exhaustion—it’s about knowing when to pause, speak up, and reach out. Or as Pargan shared, “sometimes all [fighting burnout] takes is being reminded that you’re not alone.”
Feature Photo by Tim Gouw via Unsplash