Every year, a new group of freshmen arrive at college campuses across the country, many of them being away from home for the first time.
Even though they are under age, they will have no problem finding cheap or free alcohol as they become part of a culture that promotes partying and binge-drinking.
According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, the number of college students who drink has remained about the same, around 3.8 million, or 49% of full-time students.
However, the study found that the frequency and intensity of drinking has increased. Since 1993, the proportion of students who binge drink three or more times over a two week period has increased 16%.
In 2005, 1.8 million college students met the medical criteria for substance abuse and dependence (almost three times the rate in the general population).
A press release by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment claimed that “more than 10 million current drinkers are age 12 to 20.”
A recent survey conducted by NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education - has found that nearly half of all college freshmen who drink spend more time drinking than they do studying.
Students who admitted to having at least one drink in the past two weeks spent an average of 10.2 hours a week partying and drinking, compared to about 8.4 hours a week studying and doing school work.
Of all respondents who said they drank, 49.4% claimed to spend more time drinking than studying.
About 25% of all college students report academic consequences, including missing classes, falling behind, doing poorly on assignments, and receiving overall lower grades, due to drinking.
Gwendolyn Jordan Dungy, the executive director of NASPA, told USA Today, “Our hope is that this new finding will motivate campus and community leaders to join us as we redouble our efforts to deemphasize the role of alcohol in college life.”
Our Take
While alcohol abuse is a serious issue, and school administrations are certainly responsible for keeping the students safe by offering help for and alternatives to binge drinking, the results of studies like this should be taken with a grain of salt.
The NASPA study claims 70% of all college students drink, compared with significantly lower numbers cited in other surveys.
Last year, a National Survey of Student Engagement found that freshmen spend an average of 13.2 hours a week studying, more than they do drinking.
As the USA Today article notes, “Students were not selected randomly” for the study, and it is difficult to acquire reliable statistics as many college students, especially ones who are underage, might be inclined to lie when surveyed.
