Opinion: Why the friends you make at university often become mates for life

There is something special about the friendships many of us make during our late teens and early twenties. They're often the people who stand beside us at our weddings, celebrate the births of our children, or remain the first people we call when life falls apart. It's tempting to think this is simply nostalgia at work. Psychology suggests something deeper.

A unique stage of life

Developmental psychologists have long recognised that our late teens and twenties represent a unique life stage. Jeffrey Arnett coined the term emerging adulthood to describe this period between adolescence and full adulthood—a time characterised by exploration, uncertainty, feeling in-between, optimism about the future, and rapid personal growth.

During these years, we're asking some of life's biggest questions.

• Who am I?
• What do I believe?
• What career do I want?
• What kind of life do I want to build?

These aren't questions we answer alone. We answer them through conversations, shared experiences, disagreements, adventures, and the people who accompany us along the way. The friends we make during this period don't simply witness our development, they often become part of it.

University is a perfect environment for friendship

Friendships don't happen by accident. Psychological research consistently shows that close relationships are much more likely to develop when three key ingredients are present: repeated contact, shared experiences and appropriate vulnerability. Universities provide all three in abundance.

Students spend enormous amounts of time together. They attend the same lectures every week, work on assignments together, share accommodation, eat together, celebrate together and, occasionally, panic together before exams.

Psychologists call this the mere exposure effect, or the familiarity principle. Simply spending repeated time with someone increases familiarity and, over time, liking. While proximity alone doesn't guarantee friendship, it's one of the strongest predictors of who eventually becomes close.

University also creates a sense of shared identity. Whether it's surviving statistics together, living in the same hall, joining the debating club or spending weekends on the sports field, people begin to feel they're part of the same group. Feeling a sense of ‘we’ and ‘us’ helps transform acquaintances into trusted friends.

Then there are the life experiences. Many students are living away from home for the first time. They're navigating independence, finances, relationships and uncertainty simultaneously. There can be a real sense of loneliness when leaving home, until a new ‘home’ is developed and new connections are formed. These transitions create opportunities for mutual support that deepen emotional bonds. Friendships forged through challenge often become remarkably resilient.

Growing up together

Another reason these friendships endure is that they're formed while our identities are still taking shape. Research suggests that relationships become especially meaningful when they coincide with periods of significant personal change. University friends often know us before careers, bills, mortgages and family responsibilities define us. They remember us when we were still figuring everything out. That shared history becomes part of the friendship itself. Decades later, these are often the people who remind us of who we used to be, and in many ways, who we still are.

Friends are good for your health

These relationships aren't simply enjoyable; they're remarkably good for us. Decades of research have shown that strong social connections are associated with better mental health, greater resilience, lower rates of depression and anxiety, better physical health and even longer life expectancy. Close friendships provide emotional support during stressful times, help us regulate difficult emotions and create a sense of belonging that protects psychological wellbeing.

Perhaps most importantly, friends help us make sense of our experiences. When something wonderful happens, they amplify our joy. When something difficult happens, they help carry the emotional load. Psychologists sometimes describe social support as one of the most powerful protective factors for wellbeing across the lifespan.

Why making friends gets harder

Many adults notice that making close friends seems much harder in their thirties, forties and beyond. It isn't because people become less friendly. Life simply changes. As we age, our time is increasingly taken up by work, parenting, caring responsibilities and existing relationships. Research suggests that close friendships require considerably more time than most people realise. Developing genuine closeness often takes well over a hundred hours of shared interaction. We rarely spend that many unstructured hours alongside the same people in the way university students do. Adults may genuinely want new friendships, but opportunities for that kind of repeated contact become increasingly rare.

There's another psychological shift too. When we're younger, we're actively looking to expand our social worlds. As we age, many of us become more selective and we increasingly prioritise a smaller number of emotionally meaningful relationships over meeting new people. Quality begins to matter more than quantity.

Building friendships that last

For current students, the message is simple.

• Say yes.
• Join the club.
• Stay after class.
• Accept the invitation to grab coffee.
• Spend time with people outside formal teaching.

Research consistently shows that friendships grow from repeated, ordinary moments, rather than extraordinary events. It's the conversations walking back from lectures, the shared frustrations over assignments, the late-night takeaway after exams and the countless small interactions that gradually build trust and deepen connection.

Perhaps equally importantly, allow yourself to be known. Real friendships develop when people move beyond discussing lectures and timetables to sharing hopes, worries, failures and aspirations. Vulnerability, offered gradually and reciprocated, is one of the foundations of lasting closeness. Choose wisely and selectively the people who share your goals and values, and allow yourself to form genuine connections that will have the potential to last.

More than memories

International Friendship Day reminds us that friendship isn't simply a pleasant extra in life. It's one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing we have. The friendships many people form at university endure because they are built during a period of extraordinary personal growth, in an environment rich with shared experiences, repeated contact and mutual support. Years later, those friends often remain connected not simply because of the memories they share, but because they helped shape one another into the people they became.

And that's a bond that's incredibly valuable, and remarkably difficult to replace.

Professor Kirsty Ross is a Clinical Psychologist and the Head of the School of Psychology at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University.

This article was first published on The New Zealand Herald on 30 July 2026.