<p>Swimmom, this thread would be a good place to start: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=52585%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=52585</a>. The acronyms can be daunting at first. :)</p>
<p>"Has anyone seen any data correlating the rise in binge drinking on campuses with raising the legal drinking age to 21? I have a sneaking suspicion that there's a link."</p>
<p>Nope. Just the opposite happened. And in a very big way. But, over time, the impact has worn off. I'll try to find a link to a chart from the UMichigan Monitoring the Future studies, as they do go back that far.</p>
<p>I'm surprised at the mention of Earlham. When we went on the college tour the guide told us that they didn't give tours on Fridays because the kids had already started partying for the weekend and it wouldn't look good to the parents.</p>
<p>Earlham's binge drinking rate is at the low end of the scale.</p>
<p>You highlight the problem with scattered student reports, which research has shown invariably overestimate the drinking on a campus.</p>
<p>BYU wins Princeton Review's "Stone Cold Sober" rating every year.</p>
<p>Folks asked about the impact of the raised drinking age to 21 on college binge and heavy drinking, and on the "displacement hypothesis" (low drinking means heavier drug use). So I did a little more research.</p>
<p>On the first question, there are two kinds of data. The first has to do with the fact that the raised drinking age was phased in over a three-year period in the earily 80s, with neighboring states having different drinking ages - 18 vs. 21. In every case, the states with the lowered drinking age had substantially lower alcohol prevalence, binge drinking, and heavy drinking among both high school and college students than the neighboring states with the higher drinking ages.</p>
<p>Longitudinal data indicates that these changes remained over time. Binge drinking fell some 31% from 1983 to 1993. More critically, even though it has risen since then (with some variation up and down), the rate of daily drinking among college students in 2005 was 29.2% lower than it was in 1980. Note, however, that some of this is a factor of there being a higher percentage of African-American, Hispanic, and Asian students, and a higher percentage of women and, perhaps, lower income students, as well as larger, non-residential urban colleges and universities. I expect if one went to the prestige colleges, most of which being less economically diverse than in the early 1980s, it is possible that the rise of the binge/heavy drinking in the 1990s brought things today to where they were in the early 1980s. But this is far from universal. </p>
<p>However, one thing that is quite notable is there is a substantially higher proportion of total abstainers than in the early 80s. This again might reflect higher proportion of minorities, as well as increases in enrollment at Christian colleges, as well as abstinence becoming a more acceptable option.</p>
<p>College students still have higher rates of binge and heavy drinking than their non-college-bound peers. This is thought to be associated with greater likelihood for leaving the parental home, and less likelihood of getting married in the four years following high school, and, again association of binge drinking with race (white) and income (higher). There is also a strong association between fraternity/sorority membership and heavy episodic drinking and marijuana use.</p>
<p>During the entire period, drug use rose and fell in tandem with alcohol use. However, when college binge drinking rose again in the mid-90s, marijuana use actually rose somewhat faster. The "highs are higher and the lows are lower".</p>
<p>Thanks, Mini. Very interesting. </p>
<p>You point out the strong association between Greek membership and heavy episodic drinking and marijuana use. This has been my personal experience (going back to 1970). I wonder if anyone has looked into the reasons for this correlation.</p>
<p>The two most likely hypotheses are 1) self-selection, and 2) an environment conducive to alcohol and drug abuse. Other factors might include: higher proportions of white students; higher incomes; association of frats/sororities with residential colleges; higher proportion of men.</p>
<p>However high drinking level in college has little or no connection to drinking problems later in life.</p>
<p>Mini,
I believe there is data to support that driving deaths among those under 21, particularly among teenagers, went down after the drinking age went up to 21. How does that square with the increase in binge drinking? Is it possible that most students do not have cars in college so that driving deaths did not go up? Is it also possible that although college students may binge drink, they still may have enough sense not to drive (perhaps that message worked its way through)?</p>
<p>"I believe there is data to support that driving deaths among those under 21, particularly among teenagers, went down after the drinking age went up to 21. How does that square with the increase in binge drinking?"</p>
<p>Driving deaths went down massively for those under 21 when the drinking age went up. (And it was specifically the impact of the laws, as demonstrated by the neighboring state comparisons.) But, as I noted, so did binge drinking from 1983-1993. After 1993, binge drinking started to go back up, and, lo and behold, so did DUI-related accidents among teens. But not deaths (I'll have to go check the data.) Safer roads, safer cars, airbags, seatbelt laws, provisional licensing all seem to have mitigated against motor vehicle fatality rates, not just among teens, but among adults as well, as motor vehicle fatality rates among all drivers fell to an all-time-low in 2003.</p>
<p>It's a good question though as to what has happened to drivers under 21, and I'll have to go talk to our DUI expert.</p>
<p>I don't have data -- and i can't really find any that directly addresses the issue -- but think there probably is a correlation between the increase in "binge drinking" and the rise in drinking age. At bars and clubs, there are built in controls: the main one being the cost of buying alcohol. In a dorm room, kids can chug down huge volumes of booze in a very short time.</p>
<p>I have seen studies showing that the rise in the drinking age cut down on drunk driving incidents. But I also think that coincided with a huge public awareness campaign on the issue. I think most kids today have gotten the message loud and clear: If you're going to drink, don't drive.</p>
<p>"I don't have data -- and i can't really find any that directly addresses the issue -- but think there probably is a correlation between the increase in "binge drinking" and the rise in drinking age."</p>
<p>I DO have the data, and the opposite is strongly the case. Binge drinking fell by almost a third (31%) among 12th graders between 1983 (when the new drinking ages went into effect) and 1993. They also fell about the same amount for folks of college age during the same period, though among college students the fall in binge drinking was more moderate (17.1%). You can find all of this in Johnston, L. et al., "Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2005, Volume 1, Secondary School Students. National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2006.</p>
<p>Looking back over these posts, I find that one would have to conclude that binge drinking was phenomenally high before 1983. Is that true? The percentage of students now who report binge drinking is high, yet the rate has dropped (even with increases after 1993) from 1983, when the drinking age was increased?</p>
<p>I still wonder why white teenagers and higher incomes and Greek affiliation are correlated with this phenomenon. And I mean why? What induces these kids to get rip-roaring drunk on such a frequent basis?</p>
<p>Barrons, although teenage drinking may not be correlated with later adult drinking problems, I am concerned about the accidents that happen with binge drinking. For example, falling out of windows, off balconies, over parking deck rails, etc. And alcohol poisoning and aspirating etc.</p>
<p>Yes during the college years there can be accidents of many types. However the fact is that far more students have died driving cold sober to Spring Break or the Rose Bowl and similar trips than have died in a drinking related accident on or near campus. Actually more have been murdered by pschos than died from drinking accidents at Wisconsin..And they do drink quite a bit at Wisconsin.</p>
<p>I will admit that I was a big binge drinker, pre-'83 (not a big drinker post-college, though). When I think about it, it seems that drinking was pretty much just what people did where I grew up. Parents drank, people on tv drank (Bewitched!), billboards & ads touted drinking ... like smoking, it's just something adults "did." Like smoking, though, the message about drinking being hazardous began to sink in for many people. My parents stopped serving potent Brandy Alexanders to their guests at the holidays ... bars stopped having 2-for-1 & free cocktail happy hours ... people started designating a nondrinking driver ... media coverage & police crackdowns influenced many people I know to stop drinking & driving. I feel like I have raised my kids to be very, very aware of the impact of drinking on behavior & health. Maybe it's people like me --- there are many of us baby boomers --- who have helped to contribute to the downturn? I don't know. It's just a guess.</p>
<p>Overall per capita alcohol consumption is at its lowest in recorded memory, as is percentage of adult binge drinkers. And abstainers probably at the highest level since prohibition. But those who drink tend to drink more (statistically), and liver cancer and cirrhosis and other deaths from alcohol-related disorders are high, and the alcohol-induced death rate nationally has risen significantly since 1997.</p>
<p>Brandy Alexander--it's been a long time. Nick's made a great one.</p>
<p>My dad made an awesome one!!!</p>
<p>From an AP report in 2002:</p>
<p>Nearly half of America's 5.4 million full-time college students abuse drugs or drink alcohol on binges at least once a month, according to a new study that portrays substance and alcohol abuse as an increasingly urgent problem on campuses across the nation.</p>
<p>Alcohol remains the favored substance of abuse on college campuses by far, but the abuse of prescription drugs and marijuana has increased dramatically since the mid-1990s, according to the study released today by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.</p>
<p>CASA, which called on educators to move more aggressively to counter intensifying drug and alcohol use among students, first studied students' drug and alcohol habits in 1993. Today's report — the center's second on the subject — involved a survey of 2,000 student and 400 administrators as well as analyses of six national studies.</p>
<p>The center found that "the situation on America's campuses has deteriorated" since 1993, CASA President Joseph Califano says.</p>