Over one-third of young professionals, 39%, said their colleges didn’t help prepare them for the mental health challenges that can come with transitioning to the workplace, according to a new report from the Mary Christie Institute, a think tank focused on young adults’ mental health.

Just over half of respondents reported experiencing burnout at least once a week. Slightly more than half also reported needing help with emotional or mental health problems in the past year. College leaders should partner with employers to prioritize young people’s mental health and well-being for the betterment of both higher education and the workforce, the report said.

The mental health struggles of college students have been well researched and documented, but less is known about their well-being once they’ve graduated, the report said.

The Mary Christie Institute partnered with the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the National Association of Colleges and Employers, along with the mental health research group, the Healthy Minds Network, to change that by conducting the new research.

In the first week of November, researchers surveyed 1,005 adults ages 22 to 28 who held a bachelor’s degree or higher.

The young professionals who did feel prepared by their colleges for the transition to working life cited their extracurriculars and the relationships they had with their peers as their two most influential experiences, the report said. Those factors outpaced mental health counseling and career services, raising questions about how those two types of support are being deployed.

But that almost 2 in 5 of those surveyed felt unprepared emotionally for the workplace should catch educators’ attention, said Shawn VanDerziel, executive director of NACE.

“This is an opportunity for colleges to consider what experiences — such as internships — can help students build emotional intelligence around work and the workplace. For employers, the finding is a signal to ramp up support for all their employees and especially for new entry-level hires,” VanDerziel said.

Read the full article about workforce readiness by Laura Spitalniak at Higher Education Dive.