Editors Note: Yesterday afternoon a 27- year old Mason student fell to his death from the third story of the Johnson Center. This post was written yesterday afternoon, before the current facts were known, and is in no way meant to be insensitive. DCist extends every condolence to the young man’s family and the Mason community.

George Mason University, located in the middle of beautiful congested Fairfax, Virginia, is, apparently, one of the unhappiest college campuses in the country. We were barely reading this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine when this alarming and surprising stat, mentioned in a secondary story called “Happiness 101”, caught our collective eye.

One Tuesday last fall I sat in on a positive-psychology class called the Science of Well-Being — essentially a class in how to make yourself happier — at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. George Mason is a challenge for positive psychologists because it is one of the 15 unhappiest campuses in America, at least per The Princeton Review. Many students are married and already working and commute to school. It’s a place where you go to move your career forward, not to find yourself.

According to recent college rankings released by the Princeton Review, George Mason University has the dubious distinction of placing 15th on a list of 20 schools where the students are least happy. Hm, we bet that stat isn’t making into in the admissions packet. The Princeton Review site is thin on details as to how they arrived at this conclusion, but it looks like the schools on the “Least Happy Students” list are ranked in answer to the simple question: Overall, how happy are you? The number one spot is held by the United States Merchant Marine Academy.

That last sentence, like most things in the New York Times these days, baffles us just a bit. Who knew that being married, having a job and commuting meant instant unhappiness? I’m a student at George Mason and the campus seems like a cheery enough place to me, but for the rest of you Mason students, what are you so bummed out about, anyway?

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