Effect Of Drinking On College Students

Since 1997, binge drinking has increased each year (Wechsler, Lee, & Kuo. 2010). Binge drinking is no stranger to San Jose State University as well as college campuses nationwide (Police Department, n.d.). Binge drinking has been on epidemic on college campuses and continues to grow over the course of time with alarming numbers of incidents that occur while under the influence. Since binge drinking is common on most college campuses, about 60% of students nationwide have stated that they have binge drank during their college years (College Drinking Fact Sheet, 2015).

“According to the CDC, about 90% of all teen alcohol consumption occurs in the form of Binge Drinking, which experts say peaks at the age of nineteen.” (qtd by Listfield). Binge Drinking is the consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. The author, Emily Listfield, defines that the standard alcohol consumption over a two hour period is considered to be four beers for women and five beers for men. This has become a great distraction for college students nationwide and a major dilemma on college campuses. Nearly two hundred thousand students visit emergency rooms each year due to the abuse of alcohol, and more than one thousand seven hundred students die. In the article “ The Underage Drinking Epidemic”, Listfield identifies the problems that underage drinking can cause, the dangers that could happen, and four solutions on what parents can do to keep their kids from binge drinking.

Fraternities and sororities are at the center of binge drinking on college campuses. It is proven that in fraternity houses, approximately 80% of students binge, and over 50% binge frequently. Fraternities attract people beyond their members, including high-school seniors, which are future college freshmen that are already being introduced to binge drinking as being a social norm. The majority of alcohol-related deaths of college students involve fraternity parties. College administrators are afraid of acting out against fraternities because they do not want to anger the generous alumni donors who themselves, too, were partying during their college years. Colleges should not wait until a tragic event happens to realize that something must be done about fraternities and the alcohol-related problems that they cause. Also, it is morally wrong to treat alumni better than students, giving them the privilege to drink at events such as homecoming activities and sports. Banning alcohol for just students is not an effective way to gain students’ support for any new alcohol-control policies. It is quite obvious that colleges base their decisions on

“From the moment freshmen set foot on campus, they are steeped in a culture that encourages them to drink, and drink heavily. At many schools, social life is still synonymous with alcohol-lubricated gatherings” (Cohen). Binge drinking is a huge aspect of the culture of college life; many college students binge drink to become socially accepted in a particular group. Binge drinking is not only

“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college

Binge Drinking is a problem for college students who are expose to an unlimited access of alcohol for the first time ever. Studies have found that an individual’s critical thinking ability is impaired because of alcohol consumption.

Alcohol abuse is a serious health problem when it comes to college students. "The average amount of binge drinkers on college campuses is 50% of men and 39% of women" (<a href="http://www.oregoncounseling.org/ArticlesPapers/">http://www.oregoncounseling.org/ArticlesPapers/</a>). There are various reasons why students drink and serious short and long term effects on the body and mind. Alcoholism is a serious problem for college students and there are many actions being taken to try to lessen the problem among colleges throughout the country.

​Did you know 82-92% of college students consume alcohol? (Taylor) Did you drink while in college? Do you agree with alcohol on college campuses or do you disagree? Why? Restricting alcohol consumption on campuses sometimes is used to prevent alcohol abuse and alcohol-related problems. Dry campus policies, however, remain misunderstood. According to Dexter M. Taylor, “Drinking and alcohol-related problems found on dry campuses were similar to national trends on wet college campuses” (Taylor). Alcohol related problems that occur on college campuses include injuries, unprotected sex, date rape, poor academics, and health issues. If alcohol was aloud on college campuses how could this help improve these statistics? Demographic and Academic Trends in Drinking Patterns and Alcohol-Related problems on dry College Campuses an experiment of two western universities who surveyed students ages 18 and older. Due to this experiment “dry campuses were similar to national trends on wet college campuses” (Taylor). According to Frances W. Oblander, “Alcohol abuse has become a major concern on campuses. With this concern, a variety of alcohol education activities ranging from awareness days to full-blown peer counseling and education centers has emerged” (Oblander). It’s time for colleges to start educating their students about alcohol and how alcohol affects the human body. Alcohol should be allowed on college campuses. College is about finding who

High school is over and it is your first time away form home, what are you going to do? The typical college student wants to party! Of the people that were surveyed over half believed that the legal drinking age should be lowered. [O’Kane 1] The legal age to drink in the United States is now 21 years old; college freshman, sophomores, and some juniors are not of the legal age to drink. This causes a problem on many campuses; several students are experiencing their first time away from parental care in a setting sinonomus with drinking and clubbing. Some feel pressure from family and friends to receive excellent grades while attending school, sometimes the pressure is too much and going out and

Bruffee unsuccessfully grabbed my attention because his persuasive ways were weak and ineffective. I find his persuasiveness to be imprecise with no correlation between binge drinking and loneliness to which he refers as due to the lack of friends and being unfamiliar to school grounds led him to join a fraternity. For instance, his claims are supported based on personal experiences and personal observations such as students having difficulty of making a new group of friends, desperate to belong and academic background. Unlike Weschler, Bruffee does not use scientific studies, real examples and realistic solutions to adequately connect binge drinkers and introverts; therefore, Bruffee is less successful because he failed to support many of his claims, and his conclusion is incomplete.

The consumption of alcohol as a habitual behavior has long been associated with the American collegiate experience, despite the many known negative consequences a student who partakes in drinking can encounter. Because of the danger drunken students pose to a college’s reputation and the safety of its surrounding areas, much research has been done concerning the collegiate party and drinking scenes. This research mostly studied the demographics of the student body, so strategies developed to curtail the illegal or overconsumption of alcohol could be targeted towards the specific groups that demonstrated the highest likelihood of participating in these acts. When the strategies were implemented, however, there was little decline in the number of college students who chose to party and drink (Vander Ven 2011). This failure did not point toward a flaw in the research data, but instead a lack of research into the benefits a collegiate drinker receives that are rewarding to the point he or she cannot resist. This is the topic of Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard by Thomas Vander Ven.

One of my youth pastors told the teens at church on a Wednesday night, “Don’t start a habit in your younger years that is going to control the way you live your adult years .” Whenever I heard this statement, I thought of teens binge drinking in college. College drinking has become a major issue for people under the age of twenty- one. Binge drinking becomes addicting, especially for people under the age of twenty-one. Understanding the problem and consequences of binge drinking will help to show that lowering the drinking age will not help the problem.

Environmental factors play a great role for determining the likelihood of students encountering alcohol, not necessarily consuming it or consuming it excessively (College Drinking: Changing the Culture, High-Risk Drinking in College). After comparing different universities with different demographic makeups, it was found that predominantly single ethnic or minority schools tended to have lower rates of excessive alcohol use among its students when compared to predominantly white, coeducational schools (College Drinking: Changing the Culture, High-Risk Drinking in College). Two of the most common and widespread campus organizations that have been shown to encourage student consumption of alcohol are emphasized athletic programs and Greek systems (College Drinking:

The results of this study proved that a majority of the students ended up having a “C” average with 35.8%, and more students came out with an “F” average versus an “A” average. (Thombs et al., 2009) This information just brings to light how important it is to succeed in college, and how students should be trained at a young age how to prevent falling behind in college in order to succeed in school, and in life. One intervention study done by Pennsylvania State University (2010) with parents and high school students was to see the effects of student drinking in college if parents were involved in the decision making early on in high school. This study proved to show that students that took part in the study were less likely to find drinking in college interesting. These sorts of programs can lead to greater academic success in college students.

On college campuses across America, the use of alcohol has been an topic in need of explanation for many years. The concept will be explaned with emphise on the negative effects of hooch. Alcohol in cardio-sport athletes is especially harmful. But at any rate the negative concepts apply to all student. Besides the fact that a large number of students are underage when they drink, alcohol can put students in dangerous situations and give them a headache long after the hangover is gone. The short and long term effects alcohol has can impair students physically and mentally, impacting their education and health.