Factors that predict freshmen college students’ preference to drink alcohol.

Abstract: 

Students who drank in high school are three times more likely to begin heavy episodic drinking in college. The question remains if location of attending college and high school drinking behaviors are significant predictors of college drinking behaviors. The current study will try to determine that question as well as determine which factors motivate students to begin drinking in college. There were 65.6% female and 34.4 % male freshmen in the sample. Only one-fifth of the freshmen class actually started drinking within their first year. This could be because they had already started drinking before college, or they were still abstaining. Only one-fourth of the students were still abstaining within their first year. Of all the freshmen that begin drinking within their first year of college, 70% were female. A significant correlation between college drinking behaviors and location of college was found. This finding shows that change of scenery or change of normal patterns could lead to destructive behaviors in college freshmen.