Abstract This article describes the results of the research that established the association between depression and academic achievement in undergraduate students. The design used was the cross-sectional descriptive for which was taken a probability sample of students in a public university. Depression in recent fifteen days was determined with the Zung scale for short depression (cut-off point 22/40) and the perception of academic performance during the last month was investigated by VESPA survey question. It was estimated association by calculating the ratio of opportunity (OR), it was adjusted for other variables by logistic regression. The presence of depression was identified in 155 students and (42,2%) and low or poor academic performance in 101 students (26,2%). We found a relationship statistically significant relationship between depression and fair or poor academic performance (OR = 3.1, 95% CI 1.9 - 5.0), adjusted for sex and semester (goodness of fit Hosmer-Lemeshow X2 = 1.89, df = 6, p = 0.757). We concluded there is a significant relationship between depression and fair or poor academic performance in students of a public university in Santa Marta City. Resumen El presente articulo de investigacion presenta los resultados de un estudio cuyo objetivo consistio en establecer la asociacion entre depresion y rendimiento academico en estudiantes de pregrado. El diseno utilizado fue el descriptivo transversal para el que se tomo una muestra probabilistica de estudiantes de una universidad publica, para un total de 385 participantes. La depresion durante los ultimos quince dias se determino con la escala breve de Zung para depresion (punto de corte 22/40) y la percepcion de rendimiento academico durante el ultimo mes se indago mediante una pregunta del cuestionario VESPA. Se estimo la asociacion mediante el calculo de razon de oportunidad (OR), esta se ajusto para otras variables mediante regresion logistica. Los resultados muestran que en 155 estudiantes (42,2%) se determino presencia de depresion y en 101 estudiantes (26,2%), regular o mal rendimiento academico. Se encontro una relacion estadisticamente significativa entre depresion y rendimiento academico regular o malo (OR = 3,1; IC95% 1,9-5,0), ajustado para sexo y semestre (Bondad del ajuste de Hosmer-Lemeshow X2 = 1,89; gl = 6; p = 0,757). Se concluyo que existe una importante relacion entre la depresion y regular o mal rendimiento academico en estudiantes de una universidad publica de Santa Marta.