Colleges With The LEAST HAPPY Students (PHOTOS)

College kids love to complain -- especially about the schools they attend. Despite a range of locations and programs, the schools in the following slideshow -- based on a survey conducted by the Princeton Review -- have overwhelmingly unhappy student populations. See the Review's full list of sad schools here.

Need a mood-booster? Check out the country's happiest campuses.

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Fisk University

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Comments

[dyatlov]

07:07 PM on 08/17/2010

It's funny, but I've never met anyone who has ever been surveyed by sites like this one. I really wonder where they get this information from. I'm going into my senior year at SUNY Albany and absolutely love it! Everyone I know that has graduated and moved back home or transferred ended up absolutely miserable. Also, I lived on campus for three years and never found it depressing. Dorming was a great experience. The campus is a little industrial looking when you head towards the podium where the classes are located, but the fountain definitely makes up for that. Attending SUNY Albany was one of the best decisions of my life and I consider the city of Albany my home now.

[pbfishtaco]

10:01 PM on 08/09/2010

When touring colleges with my daughter 3 years ago, the docent guiding us around at U of Chicago said that the school was known as the place "where fun comes to die".

[questionablequestions]

02:40 PM on 08/10/2010

It still is, and we've got the witty t-shirts to prove it.

[OC4Obama4Pres]

07:51 PM on 08/09/2010

So many NY based schools. What's up with that?

[WichitaDem]

03:02 PM on 08/11/2010

How about, "New Yorkers just complain more about anything." ;-)

[OC4Obama4Pres]

03:47 PM on 08/11/2010

That was my point. ;-)

[Tom from LI]

10:36 PM on 08/11/2010

I honestly can't understand why University at Albany is on this list. I am a current student at Albany and I love it and it has been the most fun I have ever had in my whole life. The people are great, the professors are great, and the life around campus (for the most part) is great. Going to the University at Albany was one of the best decisions of my life and I had previously attended two schools. I have never been on a campus with so much school spirit. I feel that the campus itself is very unique and large, it makes me feel as though I am a small piece in the very large puzzle that is Ualbany and it makes me feel right at home, whether I am throwing a frisbee at Collins circle or horsing around in the main fountain on fountain day or any other day, University at Albany is a very fun place, this article has it all wrong!!!

[Amanda Donovan]

06:50 PM on 08/09/2010

the new school seems a little out of place on this list, no?

[formerroadie]

04:58 PM on 08/09/2010

UC Riverside is understandable because, well, it's in Riverside.... ewwwwwww

[PelePele10]

07:35 PM on 08/09/2010

Lol, there are many community colleges that are far more exciting and worthwhile than time at UCR.

[redsongia]

10:21 PM on 08/11/2010

So true. Don't be fooled by the UC; Riverside is not interchangable with Santa Barbara or San Diego.

[PelePele10]

02:56 PM on 08/09/2010

UC San Diego should be on the list. Miserable.

[deven61]

03:27 PM on 08/09/2010

There are some terribly racist kids at UCSD...

[PelePele10]

04:58 PM on 08/09/2010

Yup, incredibly awful to hear about the racist events happening at my alma mater. Even worse to hear the excuses made my these priviledged students in support of there hurtful acts towards a very small fraction of the student body. UC San Diego has a great academic and research reputation but has no diversity what's so ever and is socially inept and depressing. I hated most of my time there from frustration and boredom.

[CRMurray]

10:36 AM on 08/09/2010

As a graduate of Tuskegee University and my sister graduating from Fisk the biggest complaint that we usually see is...registration. This process is ridiculously tedious for most students and would like to be modernized as much as possible.

[AbeMartin]

08:21 AM on 08/09/2010

I am skeptical about best, worst, richest, and most beautiful list. That, said the selections do indicate some trends. The U.S. Service Academies are extremely demanding, offer almost no variation in their core curricula, offer few opportunities to take electives, do not tolerate much freedom of expression among students. But each one promises a job to each of their graduates, which no other colleges or universities in the country are able to do. So, my gentle advice to the whiners: Shut up or Drop out.

Two of the ten pictured are historically black schools. Tuskegee and Fisk have long and distinguished histories. But Black schools, are poorly funded & have minimal endowments. Some of them, like Fisk, sell off art or land, to generate funds. Because most have administrations which are highly authoritarian, faculty and students are ignored in the decision making even when they identify serious problems. (highly recommended source: " Reactions to Administrative Responses to Student Protests; (http://www.nathanielturner.com/stateofhbcusblackstudents.htm))

Clarkson spent millions on a bunch of new buildings to attract greater enrollment. It never happened. There is one single screen movie theater in town and outside of that there is nothing to do except watch the hockey team lose and go downtown and get drunk.

Stony Brook University is a slow 65 mile slog on the LIE from New York City and there is almost nothing to do except watch the football team lose and go into town and get drunk.

[gigantor21]

09:07 AM on 08/09/2010

Stony Brook's remoteness is the reason I didn't go there. I left the school I was going to upstate for the same reason.

[Bob Barski]

12:05 PM on 08/09/2010

As both a former student and faculty member at Stony Brook, I can testify that the students are indeed miserable, because the school is absolutely not invested in their happiness. Students are crammed (sometimes 3/4 to a room) into overpriced, unmaintained housing (how about having to walk to the gym to use the toilet?!?), and since most of the students are commuters, there is not much campus life or spirit, and the school does little to promote such things. I can imagine being an undergrad living on campus at Stony Brook is very depressing. Most of the money the campus spends goes into image-boosting, not activities for students or hiring enough faculty. (Students are repeatedly surprised when you know them by their name, and not their ID number - most have no relationship with faculty, as classes are overfull to the extreme). Regardless of what its image is, Stony Brook is not a world-class institution academically - far from it. I attended another SUNY school as an undergrad, and yes, it can be a great experience, academically rigorous, and an amazing value. Stony Brook falls into none of these categories. Unless you are one of the many Long Islanders who live at home and attend, avoid at all costs... and even then, there are better academic options in NYC.

[Sean Stephens]

07:45 AM on 08/09/2010

I can't say much for the City of Albany, but I know several satisfied SUNY Albany students. These kids must be whining because they didn't get accepted to any private schools - SUNY is a much better value than half of them! I'm a grad student there, and our Public Affairs program is in the top 20 in the country, so who cares if we're not in a big city.

[AbeMartin]

08:25 AM on 08/09/2010

Albany, Stony Brook, Binghamton, and Buffalo are excellent schools with top notch faculty. The Colleges of the City University of New York are also outstanding values. But you are right about one thing: everyone thinks they would get a better education at Harvard, Yale, Columbia or Dartmouth.

[Michael Simon]

08:42 AM on 08/09/2010

Completely agree, but Albany's campus is dreary and depressing. I think that has a lot to do with it. I toured on beautiful sunny day, and it still looked cold and soulless. I visited friends there numerous times, and despite having a lot of fun, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

[veritas88]

04:08 PM on 08/09/2010

I went to a SUNY school for 2 years, transferred to Johns Hopkins for my junior and senior years and I am now at an Ivy League grad school. The education at Hopkins and the Ivy are far better. I felt like I was in high school at the SUNY. The academic environment was so uninspiring there.

[Bishop999999999]

07:45 AM on 08/09/2010

What, no USMA? Come on, guys, we should be number 1 in this. If cadets aren't miserable then West Point isn't doing its job.

[cgeorgan]

01:24 PM on 08/09/2010

Cadets *love* their lives at the Prison on the Hudson.

[murphthesurf3]

09:36 PM on 08/09/2010

From my reading I suspect that the Corps' long, long history, a tradition packed environment, emphasis on hardy physicality and physical environment carry many through their darkest days.

I have attended programs during the school year at USMA, USNA, USCGA and the USMMA and one can feel the difference in the intensity with which cadets live their lives. USMA seems to do it best.

Interested in other comments.

[Actraiser]

06:37 AM on 08/09/2010

I had family that went to SUNY Stonybrook and I visited the campus often. I believe that entire area is a nexus of unhappiness.

[AbeMartin]

08:26 AM on 08/09/2010

Sounds like Stephen King should use the campus for one of his next novels. It isn't that far from Maine.

[pfods]

02:14 AM on 08/09/2010

went to SUNY potsdam for a semester, which is right next to clarkson, and i can attest that anything in the vicinity of the town of potsdam is incredibly unhappy.

[SparkyDash]

02:26 AM on 08/09/2010

LOL

[healthanalyst]

12:31 PM on 08/09/2010

Its the snow. That part of NY is just dreary until, oh, May???

[Sean Stephens]

02:30 PM on 08/10/2010

Haha... I grew up in the Albany area and couldn't wait to leave after high school. Yet here I am, back here for grad school! Oh well... short-term thing.

[Wintersoldier7020]

12:38 AM on 08/09/2010

Military + hardship= unhappiness...no shock.

[bassaiguy]

08:44 PM on 08/10/2010

But it wasn't all the military academies - only the maritime ones. And no state military academies like the Citadel, VMI or Norwich, either. I wonder why?

[mass maritimer]

09:23 PM on 08/18/2010

A complaining sailor is a happy sailor

That's what I learned at Maritime

[Q2]

10:16 PM on 08/08/2010

"New York is Possibility"... and this is a language school?

[RadicalCaveman]

08:14 PM on 08/08/2010

I notice a high concentration of military schools here.

[Amalek]

02:02 AM on 08/09/2010

You can get a great education at a military academy, but the excessive rules and discipline cheat one out of the main reason to go to college.

[cgeorgan]

01:24 PM on 08/09/2010

Which is?