These findings are detailed in an article entitled “African American College Students and Stress: School Racial Composition, Self-Esteem and Social Support” by Feven Negga, Sheldon Applewhite and Ivor Livingston published in the College Student Journal in December of 2007.

The authors acknowledged the fact that up until this point there has been little research done focusing on stress factors for black students in college. There has only mainly been research on stress factors for college students in general.

“College students are a very vulnerable group to experience stress, the latter of which is related to a variety of outcomes, such as health and academic performance. However, there is a dearth of research examining African American college students and stress. Further, fewer studies have compared stress for students attending predominately white institutions to those attending historically black colleges and universities,” reads the study.

The researchers sampled African American students from historically black colleges and universities, African American students from predominately white institutions and white students from predominately white institutions.

The relationships between self-esteem, social support, school racial composition, age and gender on students’ stress were evaluated using the Student Stress Survey (SSS).

The SSS consists of 40 groups divided into four areas of stress: academic stress, interpersonal stress, intrapersonal stress and environmental stress. The participants were asked to rate how much of a problem each area was for them on a 4-point scale ranking them from “not a problem at all” to “very much a problem”. The more of a problem the areas were for students, the greater the stress.

There are women that make up the historically black college and university population than the predominately white institution population. The majority of the students from both types of institutions interviewed were freshmen and sophomores. The historically black college and university sample was made up mostly of African American students at 94 percent while the predominately white institution sample had a significant African American population at 17 percent.

The findings of this survey revealed that there were very different things that stressed black and white students. The stresses between students at predominately white institutions and historically black colleges and universities varied as well.

Seventy two percent of white students reported low grades as a major stressor, compared to only 62 percent of black students at predominately white institutions and 69 percent of black students at historically black colleges and universities.

Black students reported overall higher levels of interpersonal stress. For example, 82 percent of black students at historically black colleges and universities, compared to 54 percent of black students at predominately white institutions, rated the death of a family member as a high cause of stress. White students did not rate the death of a family member as one of the top five stressors at all.

Also, a greater number of black students at historically black colleges and universities rated boyfriend/girlfriend problems as a significant source of stress.

The researchers concluded that both predominately white institutions and historically black colleges and universities need to take into account the different stress factors for their students and treat them accordingly.

“The study points out the need for colleges and universities to develop stress intervention programs that address stress specifically based on race and school racial composition,” say the authors.

“African American students at predominately white institutions may need additional intervention or counseling services that target them that are culturally sensitive to issues of racial discrimination, isolation and coping, as well as addressing the other factors common to all students at predominately white institutions, such as control and self-esteem.”

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