Alcohol use among college students has been a topic of intense interest in recent years. Without question, excessive use of alcohol is associated with a wide range of deleterious outcomes among students. It is well known that heavy drinking increases the likelihood of committing a litany of crimes, including vandalism and physical assault, and non-drinkers routinely suffer the consequences of other students’ irresponsible drinking (Wechsler et al., 2000).
The more a student drinks the lower their overall GPA is likely to be (White et al., 2002). More than ½ of students in one nationwide survey report having their studying or sleep disrupted by someone else’s alcohol use (Wechsler et al., 1995; Wechsler et al., 2000). In addition, as in the larger population, drinking and driving is a problem on many campuses (Wechsler et al., 2003). Traffic crashes claim more lives than anything else among young adults, and alcohol is involved in a significant proportion of these crashes. In the end, alcohol kills more kids than all other drugs combined (NIAAA, 2003).
