--- title: Education Does Not Make You a Happier Person description: A new study by Warwick Medical School finds no link between education level and happiness canonical: https://time.com/3759397/education-happiness-mental-health/ author: Kevin McSpadden article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-26T08:02:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:56:53.380Z og:title: Education Does Not Make You Happier og:description: New study finds no link between education level and happiness. og:url: https://time.com/3759397/education-happiness-mental-health/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc148ad4a2679faba/698785542dce01d9109de35f/education-happiness-study-mental-health.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Silhouetted profile of woman wearing graduation cap og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Education Does Not Make You Happier twitter:description: New study finds no link between education level and happiness. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc148ad4a2679faba/698785542dce01d9109de35f/education-happiness-study-mental-health.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Education Does Not Make You a Happier Person ## Video: How $1,000 Could Help Your Health [Watch (HLS stream): How $1,000 Could Help Your Health](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EILRa37f.m3u8) (2:01)  _Published 2014-08-22. From acupuncture to yoga, $1,000 can go a long way to improving your health._ by [Kevin McSpadden](/author/kevin-mcspadden/) ## Kevin McSpadden Mar 26, 2015 8:02 AM CUT  Silhouetted profile of woman wearing graduation cap Silhouetted profile of woman wearing graduation capGetty Images by [Kevin McSpadden](/author/kevin-mcspadden/) ## Kevin McSpadden Mar 26, 2015 8:02 AM CUT There is no link between your education level and your personal happiness, says a new [mental-health research study](http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/education%5Fmay%5Fnot/ "undefined") published by the _British Journal of Psychiatry_. According to a press release, researchers from Warwick Medical School were inspired by the strong association between poor education and mental illness and wanted to investigate if the opposite was true: Does being educated lead to happiness? The team discovered that the odds of happiness were equivalent throughout all levels of educational attainment. “These findings are quite controversial because we expected to find the socioeconomic factors that are associated with mental illness would also be correlated with mental well being,” said Sarah Stewart-Brown, the lead author on the study. “But that is not the case.” Researchers defined happiness as a state of high mental well-being in which people “feel good and function well.” They applied this to data from the Health Survey for England, which was administered to 17,030 people in 2010 and 2011. Stewart-Brown said that her discovery means that socioeconomic factors may not be applicable to programs aimed at boosting mental well-being. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3759397/education-happiness-mental-health/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3759397/education-happiness-mental-health/"},"headline":"Education Does Not Make You a Happier Person","datePublished":"2015-03-26T08:02:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:56:53.380Z","description":"A new study finds that the chance of happiness is the same, whether you went to college or not","url":"https://time.com/3759397/education-happiness-mental-health/","keywords":["Living","Mental Health","Education","Happiness","Science topic","emotions","health","Mental Health/Psychology","psychiatry"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc148ad4a2679faba/698785542dce01d9109de35f/education-happiness-study-mental-health.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kevin McSpadden","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kevin-mcspadden/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc148ad4a2679faba/698785542dce01d9109de35f/education-happiness-study-mental-health.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Silhouetted profile of woman wearing graduation cap","caption":"Silhouetted profile of woman wearing graduation cap","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3759397/education-happiness-mental-health/","name":"Education Does Not Make You a Happier Person"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How $1,000 Could Help Your Health","description":"From acupuncture to yoga, $1,000 can go a long way to improving your health.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/EILRa37f/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-22T16:19:48.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EILRa37f.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3759397/education-happiness-mental-health/","duration":"PT2M1S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3759397/education-happiness-mental-health/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```