Study: Depressed college students twice as likely to drop out

College students who suffer from depression are twice as likely their nondepressed peers to drop out of college, new research suggests. Investigators at the University of Michigan School of Public Health conducted a Web survey of about 2,800 undergraduate and graduate students about a range of mental health issues, then gave them a follow-up survey two years later. The researchers found that when they compared a student in the 50th percentile of the GPA distribution to a student with depression, the depressed student would call into roughly the 37th percentile. When the student suffered from both depression and anxiety, the researchers found that the student's GPA dropped 50 percent, to the 23rd percentile. Investigators say the loss of interest in activities is the likely link between depression and poor academic performance.