The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention

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Infofacts Resources:
College Academic Performance and Alcohol and Other Drug Use

Several national studies have documented high rates of drinking on college campuses and a wide range of negative repercussions of student alcohol use.^1,2 Associated with fighting, vandalism, acquaintance rape, and unprotected sex, drinking on college campuses has a clear and damaging effect on campus life.^1,2,3

Difficulty meeting academic responsibilities is one of the most common consequences of alcohol use. In addition to well-documented consequences such as poor performance on assignments and missed classes, anecdotal evidence suggests that many students who drop out of colleges and universities have alcohol and other drug problems.⁴

A national survey of nearly 94,000 students from 197 colleges and universities conducted over three years found in the third year that students with an A average consume a little more than 4 drinks per week, B students have 6 drinks per week, C students average almost 8 drinks per week, and students with Ds or Fs consume almost 10 drinks per week.¹

In a national survey of 65,033 college students from 157 two-and four-year colleges located in the United States, 22.6 percent of students reported performing poorly on a test or assignment, and 32.8 percent said they had missed a class due to alcohol use in the previous 12 months.⁵

A national study of so-called "binge drinking" (defined as five or more drinks in a row for men and four or more for women in the previous two weeks), which surveyed nearly 14,000 students, found that 26 percent of students who binge drank had fallen behind in their schoolwork and 31 percent had missed class because of their drinking since the beginning of the school year. Among frequent "bingers"—students who had binged three or more times in the previous two weeks—46 percent had fallen behind in school and 63 percent had missed class due to their drinking. Only a fraction of "non–binge drinkers" fell behind in their studies or missed class because of drinking (9 percent and 10 percent, respectively).²

An estimated one-third of American colleges can be classified as "high-binge" schools, where more than half the student body are binge drinkers. At high-binge colleges, nine out of ten students living on campus have suffered some ill effect, such as fights, assaults, and property damage, because of others’ drinking, and nearly 70 percent have had their studying or sleep interrupted.²

References

1. Presley CA, Leichliter JS, Meilman PW. Alcohol and Drugs on American College Campuses: Finding from 1995, 1996, and 1997. A Report to College Presidents. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1999.

2. Wechsler H, Lee J, Kuo M, Lee H. College Binge Drinking in the 1990s: A Continuing Problem—Results of the Harvard School of Public Health 1999 College Alcohol Study Journal of American College Health 2000; 48 (10): 199–210.

3. Abbey A. Acquaintance Rape and Alcohol Consumption on College Campuses: How Are They Linked? Journal of American College Health 1991; 39: 165-169.

4. Eigen LD. Alcohol Practices, Policies, and Potentials of American Colleges and Universities: An OSAP White Paper. Rockville, MD: Office for Substance Abuse Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1991.

5. Core Institute. 1999 Statistics on Alcohol and Other Drug Use on American Campuses. These colleges conducted the Core Survey sometime during 1999. All institutions used methods to insure a random and representative sample of their respective student bodies. http://www.siu.edu/departments/coreinst/public_html/recent.html.

Other Organizations

American College Personnel Association
One Dupont Circle, NW
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036-1110
(202) 835-2272
http://www.acpa.nche.edu

The American College Personnel Association (ACPA) is a professional organization for college student affairs educators and administrators. The association sponsors an annual conference and regional workshops addressing a range of issues, including alcohol and other drug prevention, and publishes the magazine About Campus: Enriching the Student Learning Experience and the Journal of College Student Development. The ACPA Commission on Alcohol and Other Drug Issues provides a network for campus administrators and educators working on AOD use prevention.

Center for the Advancement of Public Health
Mail Stop 1F5
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
(703) 993-3697
http://vision.gmu.edu/

The Center for the Advancement of Public Health, which is affiliated with the Institute of Public Policy at George Mason University, provides technical assistance and training to support colleges and universities with substance abuse prevention program design, implementation, and evaluation.

The center publishes Promising Practices: Campus Alcohol Strategies, which describes over 200 college substance abuse prevention programs and includes contact information. Promising Practices was funded by the Century Council, a national not-for-profit organization of alcohol industry distillers, vintners, brewers, and wholesalers.

Its Website, Vision: Preventing Alcohol and Other Drug Misuse Through Healthy Living, offers information and resources on substance abuse prevention and links to many other related Internet sources.

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockwall 2, 9th Floor
Rockville, MD 20857
(301) 443-8956
http://www.samhsa.gov/csap/index.htm

The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) is one of the primary agencies leading federal efforts to prevent alcohol and other drug abuse. CSAP supports prevention programs on the local, state, and national level through trainings, technical assistance, curriculum development and testing, project grants, and information services, including the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information (NCADI) and Prevention Pipeline, a bimonthly periodical.

Core Institute
Center for Alcohol and Drug Studies
Student Health Programs
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
Carbondale, IL 62901-6802
(618) 453-4420
http://www.siu.edu/~coreinst/

The Core Institute is a federally funded program based at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale that assists colleges and universities in alcohol and other drug prevention efforts. The institute offers copies of the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey, a four-page questionnaire designed to be used as a pretest-posttest measure of the effectiveness of campus-based prevention programs. The survey includes questions on academic performance as well as substance use, campus climate, campus violence, beliefs about the effects of alcohol, participation in campus activities, perceptions of group norms, risks involved in using alcohol and other drugs, and secondary effects of drinking. The institute provides technical assistance on survey administration and data analysis and interpretation. The Core Survey is widely used by colleges and universities around the country and was designed to be inexpensive, easily administered, statistically reliable and valid, and comparable to other surveys used in the field. Copies of the survey can be ordered by contacting the institute.

Other materials available from the Core Institute include monographs reporting results from the 1989–91, 1990–92, 1991–93, and 1992–94 cohorts; Recent Statistics on Alcohol and Other Drug Use on American College Campuses; Statistics on Violence on American College Campuses from 1995-1996 (Second President’s Report); Statistics on Alcohol and Other Drug Use on American College Campuses from 1995-1997 (Third President’s Report); an instructional video on the use of the Core Survey; the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey Users Manual; a slide presentation of Core results; the Faculty and Staff Environmental Alcohol and Other Drug Survey; the Sexual Behavior Survey; and the Campus Survey of Alcohol and Other Drug Norms.

National Association of Student Personnel Administrators
1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 418
Washington, DC 20009-5728
(202) 265-7500

The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) is a professional group for student affairs administrators in higher education. NASPA sponsors national conferences, management trainings, teleconferences, and workshops to support the work of student affairs administrators around the country. NASPA publications include Alcohol Policies and Practices on College and University Campuses, which covers effective policymaking and legal liability issues.

National Clearinghouse for Commuter Programs
1195 Stamp Student Union
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
(301) 314-5274
http://www.inform.umd.edu/NCCP

The National Clearinghouse for Commuter Programs (NCCP) provides resources and technical support for educators and administrators developing services for commuter students on college campuses. NCCP staff lead workshops related to the needs of commuter students, including enhancing academic performance and preventing alcohol and other drug use. The clearinghouse publishes The Commuter, a quarterly newsletter; Serving Commuter Students: Examples of Good Practice, a compendium of innovative programs from around the country; and Learning About Commuter Students: Resources Within Reach, a comprehensive guide to resources on commuter students. NCCP also maintains a resource library of surveys, brochures, handbooks, and other materials from commuter student programs around the country.

National Resource Center on the Freshman Year Experience and Students in Transition
1728 College Street
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
(803) 777-6029
http://www.sc.edu/fye

The National Resource Center on the Freshman Year Experience and Students in Transition, based at the University of South Carolina, provides support and resources for administrators and instructors implementing orientation programs for new students. The center’s orientation strategies are designed to enhance new students’ academic performance and other aspects of the college experience and to incorporate alcohol and other drug use prevention. The center offers a series of national and international conferences; topical national forums; first-year seminar instructor training workshops; resource seminars; technical assistance; video/audio resources; and publications, including a series of monographs, the Freshman Year Experience Newsletter, and the Journal of the Freshman Year Experience and Students in Transition. The center also maintains a Website and two Internet listservs.

With a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), the University of South Carolina also developed "RisQué Business," a peer education drama program focusing primarily on alcohol and other drug use but also including a series of skits addressing acquaintance rape, smoking, suicide, eating disorders, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and racism and other bigotry on college campuses. The University of South Carolina distributes a "RisQué Business" replication package, which costs $250 and includes scripts for each of the skits, an accompanying video, and logo reproduction rights. The "RisQué Business" performance runs about 45 minutes and is followed by a discussion with the audience led by the student actors. For ordering information, call the University of South Carolina Student Life Programs at (803) 777-6688.

Other Internet Resources

Prevline
National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information
P.O. Box 2345
Rockville, MD 20847-2345
(800) 729-6686
http://www.health.org

National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information (NCADI), administered by the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), is the world’s largest resource for current information and materials concerning substance abuse prevention, and Prevline is its site on the World Wide Web. NCADI’s information services staff is equipped to answer questions from the public and to do customized bibliographic searches on request in alcohol and other drug databases. The clearinghouse also distributes fact sheets, brochures, pamphlets, posters, videotapes, and other educational material free of charge and disseminates information on federal funding opportunities. NCADI’s Website offers access to five searchable databases, including the Prevention Materials Database, which details primary prevention materials developed by public and private agencies.

Project Cork Institute
(603) 646-3935
http://www.state.vt.us/adap/Cork/cork1

Project Cork Institute at Dartmouth Medical School promotes the education and training of health care and human service professionals in issues related to substance abuse. The institute supports educational efforts through its online database of substance abuse information, which includes resource materials, bibliographies, and links to other related Internet sources. The bibliographic database contains abstracts for over 13,000 journal articles, books, book chapters, and other publications on alcohol and other substance abuse.

The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention

The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention, established by the U.S. Department of Education, provides nationwide support for campus alcohol and other drug prevention efforts (see first page for contact information).

The mission of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention is to assist institutions of higher education in developing alcohol and other drug (AOD) prevention and policies programs that will foster students’ academic and social development and promote campus and community safety.

The Center offers the following services:

• Training and professional development activities
• Technical assistance: Resources, referrals, and consultations
• Publication and dissemination of prevention materials
• Support for the Network of Colleges and Universities Committed to the Elimination of Drug and Alcohol Abuse
• Assessment, evaluation, and analysis activities

Publications from the Center include Secondary Effects of Binge Drinking on College Campuses. This and many other guides, manuals, bulletins, and flyers can be requested by phone or downloaded from the Center’s Website. The Center also publishes the newsletter Catalyst three times each year.

This publication has been funded at least in part with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education under contracts numbered SS95013001 and ED-99-CO-0094 with Education Development Center, Inc. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Published 1997. Revised 2001.