In one of the stories that inspired this column (The Star), a prof. Of psychiatry (U of Calgary) made the bold pronouncement that students have never before faced the level of stress that they face today.

First: how would the prof know? She is less than 50 years old, so let's discount personal experience.
Second: no studies on levels of student stress were likely undertaken at ANY time in the 20th century...

That would include the stress levels of kids who managed to go to university during the dirty 30s' Great Depression (before student loans, except what uncles and grandparents provided). That would include returning WW II vets, some suffering from what we now call PTSD, fast-tracked through programs in double-quick time, so they could get jobs to support new wives they barely knew any longer and children born during their time away. 

Student stress ain't new. My father certainly felt it. And survived it. Was it more that today's stress? Don't know. Neither does the professor.