Alcohol

Alcohol abuse among U.S. college students is a long-standing problem, with approximately 44 percent of college students classified as heavy drinkers by the Harvard School of Public Health’s College Alcohol Study (CAS). According to these researchers, a male high-risk drinker has had five or more drinks in row at least once in the past two weeks, for women this measure is four or more drinks. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) uses a similar measure, defining “heavy episodic drinking” as a pattern of drinking alcohol that brings blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08. To reach this level, a typical adult male or female would consume five or four drinks respectively in a period of two hours.

Research indicates that while alcohol use on campus overall has remained fairly steady on a national level, the nature and extent of drinking that contribute to the overall figures can vary. For instance, CAS data demonstrate increasing polarization of drinkers, with both higher percentages of those abstaining and those frequently engaging in heavy drinking, while percentages of drinkers “in the middle”—either non–heavy drinkers or occasional heavy drinkers—fell. There are also data to indicate that while women lagged behind their male peers for many years with respect to their alcohol intake, they have been catching up, with increased alcohol use.

Examining figures more closely, it is clear that alcohol use from one campus to another can fluctuate considerably, and that regional patterns are also apparent. In particular, Northeast and Midwest campuses demonstrate higher levels of alcohol use compared with other areas of the nation, according to CAS and the Core Institute.

Research has also consistently pointed to particular populations of students tending to use more alcohol than others, namely fraternity and sorority members, athletes, and first year-students. White students also tend to drink more alcohol than Hispanic, American Indian, Asian and Pacific Islander, and African American college students.

All of these trends in alcohol use and the fluctuation of behaviors seen from one campus to another point to the need to carefully measure and examine the drinking behaviors on one’s own campus when embarking upon an effective approach to addressing the problem of college student alcohol abuse. With local data in hand, it is also important to compare individual campus figures with those of other colleges and universities. For this purpose, the CAS, Core Institute, and Monitoring the Future studies are invaluable sources of comparative data.

A deeper examination of the level and dimensions of alcohol abuse on college campuses can be found by reading the Higher Education Center’s publication Alcohol and Other Drugs on Campus—The Scope of the Problem. For more in-depth information on effective approaches to addressing alcohol abuse among college students, explore the Addressing High-Risk Drinking on Campus and Environmental Management sections of this site.