When did a bad grade become a mental health problem?

The University of Michigan wants to help address the mental health struggles of college students by making first-semester grades matter less. The policy raises a question that extends well beyond Ann Arbor: When did feeling anxious about something become a reason to make that thing less consequential?

Treating anxiety over grades as a mental health problem gets something important wrong. Getting a C can be disappointing. It can be embarrassing. And it can make a student anxious about his GPA or his future. But none of those reactions means the grade is psychologically harmful. Feeling bad isn’t the same thing as being unwell.