Abstract

Emerging evidence shows that students' mental health greatly affects their learning outcomes, although the exact mechanisms are still being studied. Previous research reveals a small to moderate positive link between students' psychological well-being and GPA, with resilience consistently helping academic achievement during stressful times. Building on this, we analyzed survey data from N=202 Croatian undergraduates. A latent-variable mediation model indicated that psychological well-being influences GPA mainly indirectly through students' subjective academic achievement (indirect β=.31, p<.001; direct β=–.09; total β=.22, p=.06). This suggests that feeling mentally healthy improves actual performance by increasing students' sense of academic competence. Hierarchical regression showed that the four variables explain 57% of the variation in psychological well-being: self-esteem (β=.25, p<.01), resilience (β=.31, p<.001), resilience-promoting behaviors (β=.28, p<.001), and depression (β=-.12, p<.05). These results support the idea of incorporating well-being strategies into university plans. First, GPA improvements are unlikely unless interventions also boost students' perceptions. Monitoring subjective academic achievement alongside grades can help identify students at risk earlier. Second, resilience skills training and self-care programs directly target key attributes that statistically influence academic success indirectly. However, these findings should be interpreted with caution given the cross-sectional, self-reported data from a single university sample. Future research should adopt longitudinal and cross-national designs, incorporate objective indicators, and evaluate intervention effects to strengthen applicability.