Janice McCabe shares her research on campus loneliness and college friendship networks on episode 627 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

The previous surgeon general, among others, have declared a loneliness crisis facing the United States, and, in fact, the highest rates are among young adults.

Many people that I interviewed told me how they felt like everyone else either had more friends than them, had better friends than them, was having more fun than them, along those lines.

Something I hear from students a lot is just this appreciation for taking friendship seriously in students’ lives. And so that’s something that professors, teachers, college administrators can do.

Students often say they don’t really like group projects, but then, that was a place that many of the friendships that formed in classes that I saw formed.