Universities across the Philippines are bracing for a now-familiar pattern every November: a surge of panic attacks, walk-ins at campus clinics, and students urgently asking for counseling as finals, thesis defenses and scholarship deadlines collide in just a few weeks.
Fresh data suggests this is more than an anecdotal “toxic month.” It sits atop a worsening mental-health landscape for young Filipinos and an overburdened support system struggling to keep pace.
According to the 2021 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study (YAFS5), analyzed in a 2025 paper by psychologist Janus P. Puyat and colleagues, the share of Filipinos aged 15–24 with moderate to severe depressive symptoms nearly doubled from 9.6 percent in 2013 to 20.9 percent in 2021, with almost one in five saying they had seriously considered suicide.
At the tertiary level, a 2025 survey of 332 students at a university in Zamboanga City by Rica Rose May Rubio et al., published in Mental Health: Global Challenges Journal, found that 86 percent reported depressive symptoms, 80 percent anxiety, and 35 percent stress — yet only 12 percent had ever used campus-based mental-health services, and just 9 percent had sought help outside school.
Meanwhile, a needs-assessment study by Janine Sheryll Tan and colleagues on a science and technology unit of a Philippine university reported that more than half of students had symptoms consistent with generalized anxiety disorder or major depression. Around 60 percent of UP Diliman Psychosocial Services (PsycServ) clients since 2017 have been diagnosed with anxiety and/or depressive disorders.
Globally, the pattern is comparable. A 2023 systematic review in Scientific Reports estimated that roughly 27 percent of high school and university students worldwide report depressive symptoms, underscoring that campus mental-health problems are not unique to the Philippines.
READ: Anxiety Disorders: A Global Health Concern
In the country, the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) crisis hotline recorded 7,189 suicide-related calls from January to September 2025, according to data cited in a November 2025 Philippine Star report, with depression, family conflict, and school or work pressures among the recurring triggers.
Against this backdrop, students and counselors have begun calling the November surge in breakdowns a “November academic crash” — more than just the usual pre-finals crunch.
A year-round crisis that peaks in November
The numbers from YAFS5 and university studies are not limited to any one month. Still, campus counselors say the timing of academic demands makes November a predictable flashpoint.
Puyat’s analysis highlights a “worsening and widening” of depressive symptoms among Filipino youth over the past decade, with higher risks among females, out-of-school youth, and those facing economic hardship.
Rubio’s Zamboanga study shows that even in one institution, most students report clinically significant symptoms, yet only a small minority access formal services.
While these studies do not track symptoms by month, university health units report that traffic tends to swell during peak academic periods — especially at the end of each semester, when exams, defenses, and grade cut-offs converge.
Thus, November is less the cause and more the moment when accumulated distress overrides coping capacity.
Why November becomes a breaking point
Most Philippine universities now operate on an August–December academic calendar, placing major assessments in the final weeks of the year. At Centro Escolar University, for example, first-semester final examinations for AY 2025–2026 are scheduled for November 26–29, 2025.
At UP Diliman, over 7,000 students signed a petition in early November 2025 urging the administration to declare a mid-semester “wellness break,” citing intensified workload, rising flu cases, and long queues for counseling. The petition underscored how students experience November as a convergence of deadlines rather than a standard exam period.
Student councils call this convergence a “deadline bottleneck” — weeks of readings, labs, practical exams, and capstone projects collapsing into a short window, with little time for rest or recovery. Universities without reading weeks or wellness breaks see even sharper spikes.
Programs under pressure: engineering, nursing, accountancy and law
Mental-health challenges are not evenly distributed across academic disciplines.
Engineering.
A 2023 study of 378 engineering undergraduates at a state university found that high academic stress and procrastination significantly predicted poorer mental well-being. Dense problem sets, design projects, and high-stakes exams — especially toward semester’s end — contributed to sustained pressure.
Nursing.
Nursing students juggle academic and clinical loads simultaneously. A study in Iloilo City found that most experienced “moderate” stress in clinical practice, with assignments, workload, and patient care as key stressors. Another 2023 nationwide survey reported that academic stress and COVID-19 anxiety were both linked to poorer quality of life.
Accountancy.
Accountancy programs often impose rigorous retention and qualifying exams tied to licensure expectations. A 2023 Pampanga study showed that out of 700 first-year BS Accountancy students, only 105 remained by fourth year after successive qualifying exams.
Law.
Although Philippine data is limited, international studies show high levels of anxiety and depression among law students. Locally, deans and bar reviewers acknowledge that heavy reading loads and exam-driven training create significant mental-health risks.
Globally, the evidence aligns: undergraduates in highly competitive, exam-driven programs face consistently high stress.
Campus mental-health systems: overwhelmed and understaffed
On major campuses, the strain is increasingly visible.
UP Diliman’s University Health Service saw mental-health consultations rise from 28 in the first semester of AY 2022–2023 (when classes were hybrid) to 83 in the second semester after full face-to-face return.
PsycServ recorded at least 87 monthly sign-ups during the pandemic, peaking at 131 in 2021 — forcing temporary intake closures.
UP’s guidance office served more than 359 clients per month between August and September 2023, despite having only nine counselors for 24,845 students, a ratio of 1:2,760 — nearly triple CHED’s recommended 1:1,000.
Nationally, the shortage is even more severe: roughly 2,000 counselors for 28 million basic-education learners.
Pending bills such as the proposed SUCs Mental Health Service Act seek to mandate dedicated mental-health offices in state universities.
These shortages explain why November feels like a collective breakdown: as academic stress peaks, already overstretched systems hit their limit.
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Cramming, coping and the stigma barrier
Cramming is often treated as a harmless rite of passage, but research shows that prolonged overload and chronic procrastination are linked to serious mental-health risks.
A 2025 study of Pampanga students found that higher self-stigma about seeking help predicted poorer mental well-being. Students who need help most may be the least likely to seek it.
Other Philippine and international studies show that students rely on both adaptive strategies (peer support, reframing) and avoidance strategies (sleep deprivation, excessive caffeine, skipped meals), which become harmful under chronic stress.
Campus health professionals say they commonly see students during finals who — after nights of limited sleep and heavy caffeine use — arrive convinced they’re having a medical emergency when they are experiencing panic symptoms.
Campus responses and gaps in the Mental Health Act era
Universities have implemented initiatives, though unevenly.
UP’s system-wide “Sandigan, Sandalan” trained peer supporters and created referral pathways, but limited resources hinder scale-up.
The Department of Education declared a nationwide “wellness break” for teachers and learners in late October 2025, citing rising illness and stress — a move supported by international research showing the benefits of purposeful breaks.
The Mental Health Act (RA 11036) mandates mental-health programs in all schools, but a 2024 Ateneo School of Government study found persistent gaps in funding and implementation.
Advocates stress that meeting CHED’s counselor ratio, institutionalizing wellness breaks, and fully funding campus mental-health offices would significantly ease today’s predictable November spikes.
Not just a November problem
Experts emphasize that the “November academic crash” is a symptom of deeper systemic issues. Students carry psychological distress across the semester, and problems emerge when both individual coping and institutional support fall short.
November merely exposes the strain: academic overload, financial pressure, family conflict, and limited social support combine with long counseling queues and stigma around help-seeking.
A crisis that demands more than sympathy
As the semester ends, campus clinics brace for familiar scenes: shaking hands, racing pulses, collapsing schedules. December brings temporary calm, but by the next term, the cycle often repeats.
The “November academic crash” is now well documented across surveys, records, hotlines, and policy hearings. Academic systems built on relentless output, limited rest, and too few mental-health professionals are producing preventable breakdowns among thousands of Filipino students each year.
The steps needed — more counselors, built-in breaks, full Mental Health Act enforcement, stronger peer-support systems, and destigmatization — are clear.
The question is whether institutions will act before another cohort reaches breaking point.
Because no student, in any discipline, should be pushed to the edge simply to earn a diploma.
Photo by Emily Underworld on Unsplash
