Quarantine, isolation, and social distancing were essential for preventing the transmission of the virus and protecting people's physical fitness during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, they may have had lasting negative impacts, notably on mental health and well-being, especially on higher education students, as they are in a pivotal life-transition stage linked to increased mental health crises. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to assess the influential factors associated with mental health crises among foundation-level students during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study involved 277 students from the foundation of science programme at the Preparatory Centre of Science and Technology, University of Malaysia Sabah. A questionnaire was originally constructed to analyse the factors impacting mental health crises. Overall results found that the range of the mean from the questionnaire was 4.56 to 4.80, indicating that depression, anxiety, stress, and eating disorders are undoubtedly the influencing factors of mental health crises among foundation-level students. The majority of students scored much higher on the items under the stress factor (4.73) compared to the other three factors, which suggests that most of the students suffered from stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is followed by depression (4.69), anxiety (4.64) and eating disorders (4.63). Thus, universities and lecturers play a crucial role in reducing stress, depression, and anxiety associated with academic commitments.