The purpose of this study was to assess and compare the quality of life of undergraduate students in the area of health care at a public university. This cross-sectional exploratory study included 630 voluntary students of Nursing, Pharmacy, Speech Therapy and Medicine, corresponding to 57% of all such students at the institution. The instrument used was the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), plus an open-ended question about the student's perception on the influence of the university on his or her quality of life. The domain which reported the best scores was functional capacity and the worst was vitality. Comparing quality of life in each year of the course, Pharmacy showed lower scores in the initial years and an improving trend over the years. The other courses scored lower in the final years, which may be related to increased practical internship activities. Among the qualitative findings, lack of free time and exhaustion were cited by students as the main factors that compromise their quality of life, validating the SF-36 results which reported the lowest scores for vitality.