CNN Full Circle Features Ed Equity and Laurie Santos Partnership Class

(CNN) — In order to help young people combat the growing mental health crisis brought on by the pandemic, Yale University is now offering a variation of its most popular online course to more than 500 low-income high school students across the US at no cost.

Yale psychology professor Laurie Santos created the online course — called “The Science of Well Being” — in 2018. It was introduced the same year as her in-person version of the course, “Psychology and the Good Life,” which attracted more than 1,200 undergraduates, or about one in four students on campus, in its first semester, according to a statement released by Yale.

Santos, who lived among students as the head of Yale’s Silliman College, said the idea for the course came to her after she saw firsthand the growing levels of depression and anxiety her students were experiencing.