While parents cough up ever more money on their children’s post-secondary education, a growing number of students are drinking their college years away. According to a study released this week by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), binge drinking in on the rise among full-time college students aged 18 to 22. The study, Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America's Colleges and Universities, examined the drinking practices of students from 1993 to 2005. It showed that while the percentage of students who binge drink has remained fairly constant at about 40 percent of the student population, excessive drinking is occurring more frequently. Binge drinking is defined as consuming four or more consecutive drinks for women and five drinks for men. Among the study’s findings, the number of students who had gotten drunk at least three times in the past month was up 26 percent from 1993 levels.
Similarly, the number who drink for the purpose of getting drunk is up by 21 percent. The number of binge drinkers among full-time college students is estimated at 3.1 million in the United States. It's understandable, then, that 62 percent of college administrators said alcohol is a problem on their campuses. More disturbing, the report found that in 2005, nearly one quarter of college students—roughly 1.8 million—met the medical criteria for substance abuse or dependence. That’s almost three times the 8.5 percent among the general population.
Evidently, a culture of alcohol, prescription and illicit drug abuse has entrenched itself on the college campuses. But administrators, professors, parents seem unwilling or unable to make headway in changing that culture. "College presidents are reluctant to take on issues they feel they cannot change. This growing public health crisis reflects today's society, where students are socialized to consider substance abuse a harmless rite of passage and to medicate every ill," said Reverend Edward A. Malloy, President Emeritus of Notre Dame, and Chair of the 2002 CASA study. Just under half (49.4 percent) of college and university students binge drink, abuse prescription drugs or use illegal drugs on a monthly basis. Several studies have demonstrated a correlation between alcohol abuse and lower grade point averages, suspensions, falling behind in school work and absenteeism. In 2001, nearly 30 percent of student drinkers reported missing a class due to alcohol use. The CASA report found over half of frequent binge drinkers fall behind in their school work or miss class as a consequence of their drinking.
Califano compared these findings against the widely shared belief that the students from the 4-year colleges and universities are the pool from which most of the nation's future leaders will come. "In this world of fierce global competition, we are losing thousands of our nation's best and brightest to alcohol and drugs, and in the process robbing them and our nation of their promising futures," said Califano.
Racial Differences
A number of previous studies have noted that caucasian students drink and binge drink more frequently and in greater quantities than African-American students. Asian and Hispanic students tend to fall somewhere in the middle. Take a 1995 study that compared the drinking habits of students from historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) to predominantly white schools. Study found that HBCU students drank less than half as much as their counterparts, and were significantly less likely to engage in binge drinking. Students at HBCUs have also been found to use illicit drugs much less than students at predominantly white colleges. A study appearing in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education showed that the prevalence of marijuana use was 13 percent among HBCU students in 1995, compared to 23 percent in non-HBCU colleges. The number of university students across the country using marijuana as of 2005 is closer to one-third.Prescription Drugs Abused
College students abuse controlled prescription drugs more than any other group, according to the CASA report. Painkillers like Percocet, Vicodin, and OxyContin are becoming increasingly popular on college campuses, even though they can cause drowsiness, constipation, difficulty breathing, and even death if overdosed and combined with alcohol.Ritalin, Adderall, and other stimulants are also increasingly popular. These can result in irregular heartbeat, high body temperatures and seizure. The use of tranquilizers like Xanax and Valium are also up 450 percent from 1993 to 2005, and the abuse of sedatives like Nembutal and Seconal has more than doubled in the same period.
Smoking on the Decline
Smoking is the one bright spots in the CASA report, which shows that the number of student smokers has dropped from a high of 31 percent in 1999 to 24 percent in 2005.Again, race proved an important factor in the prevalence of tobacco use. Cigarette smoking is most common among white students at 30 percent, compared to just 14 percent of black students. Hispanic and Asian students came in at 25 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
And while about 1.8 million full-time college students still smoke, they are much less likely to do so than non-college students. In a 2005 study cited in the report, heavy smoking was nearly three times more common among non-students.
Religion as Deterrent
Among the other findings of the CASA report was that "students who report that religion is not important to them or who never or rarely attend religious services are more likely to drink, use drugs and smoke." Students who say religion is not very important to them are 4.5 times more likely to use marijuana than students who claim their religion is very important to them.
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