The Reflection of Grades and Use of Alcohol Among College Students

The Reflection of Grades and use of Alcohol among College Students

Whether students throughout colleges and universities across the country can handle a substance such as alcohol is never completely under their control. However, alcohol is a mood-altering substance. When abused, alcohol can become very dangerous to the student's academic career, especially in the cases of binge drinking habits. In an article entitled "Understanding College Alcohol Abuse and Academic Performance: Selecting Appropriate Intervention Strategies," written by Michael Sullivan and Ed Risler in an edition of the Journal of College Counseling in 2002, the authors focus on how alcohol affects a student's performance, the campus community, intervention, and prevention. Other articles by Mallie Paschall and Bridget Freisthler in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol, also the article by Amy Wolaver in the Contemporary Economic Policy were much more direct in correlation between the grades college students earn and the amount of alcohol intake. All of these authors point out the dangers and consequences of drinking, but also manage to show the difference of surrounding that can really effect a student's GPA.

Consequences may vary and the drinking level may vary at every school, but drinking causes other possible threats besides having an effect on a student's GPA. Some of these threats can include leading to binge drinking, becoming dependent on alcohol, higher risk of being more violent, committing more crimes, and violation of campus policies. College students are of different varieties, so their drinking habits depend on thing such as the alcohol content of a drink, their weight, and the time frame that they drink within.

In a "party school," which Sullivan and Risler acknowledge as being "institutes where students can binge drink with few consequences," the damage of heavily drinking can lead to a domino effect on other students residing on campus. A study done by Wechler compared "party schools" to non-party schools as having effects such as, "...assaults and property damage were approximately twice as high; arguments, quarrels, unwanted sexual advances, and sleep disruptions were significantly higher than at a low-binge colleges" (2). This just goes to show the dangers of alcohol abuse getting out of hand. Authority may be to blame for controlling as well as it should be, but a fair assumption is that the students bring it upon themselves. Some may think the social uniform plays a large roll, but surprisingly most college students have entered into college with some alcohol related problem or incident under their belt.

Intervention and prevention may be the best tactics to scare or even shun college students away from the idea of drinking, but it is within classroom walls that alcohol can become a major concern. Considering the Core Survey illustrated by Sullivan and Risler, one fourth of the respondents indicated that they performed poorly on a test or project because of alcohol or drugs and nearly a third has missed classes due to abusing alcohol. An overall grade is dependent on the effort put forth and the intelligence an has. However, many studies have been conducted with estimated average drinks per week and the alcohol amount consumed seems to be directly related to their letter grades. At a typical university there will likely be drinking and an "A" student that drinks, drank on average of three alcoholic beverages a week. The number of drinks increases as the grade decreases, usually by one drink, but a "D" student that drinks could consume more than ten drinks per week (2).

A study conducted at the University of Berkeley shows the transformation of a student in high-school becoming a college student at Berkeley and actually followed a random sample of about 1,250 of them into their junior year (Paschall and Freisthler 2). At the start they were given a survey to put them in to categories and estimate a cumulative GPA compared to their high-school GPA. These prospective college students were asked in the continued survey if they had come in contact with any alcohol related problems that were considered on 13 different levels and most had encountered an average of 29 during the first weeks of the first semester. "These problems included missing a class, falling behind in schoolwork, performing poorly on a test, having a hangover, getting in trouble with the police or campus authorities..." (3). Actually, the nine out of ten students surveyed had purchased or offered a drink by friends or at a bar. These drinking opportunities that came up in the freshman semester were considered against the last cross-sectional analyses in the student's junior year.

For the students who did provide information, there was no discrimination of any sort when it came to completing the data and analyzing it. "As expected, high school GPA was positively associated with college GPA" (3). However, contrary to popular belief, this was in the result that even throughout freshman, sophomore, and junior year GPA was based on environmental variables and not controlled by the student's overall consumption of alcohol. Alcohol may have definitely been one of these factors for college students, especially those who had very difficult problems with heavy-drinking or previous alcohol problems.

Obviously this is a huge controversy between academic advisors and researchers, but both sides of the argument must be told. Study hours and major choice have been also compared to alcohol consumption. Binge-drinking seems to be the largest problem of alcohol intake and academic performance. Higher grades have always been positively associated with earnings and the consideration of college and occupational choices. Both require effort and have a goal of achievement. Costs and benefits are always involved with rational and irrational drinking patterns. "If alcohol abuse is random, it can be treated as an exogenous variable in empirical work; if it is a behavioral choice variable, then it must be treated as endogenous" (Wolaver 2). Other studies show that becoming alcohol dependent has an effect on how long a person is willing to keep up with their educational efforts, but without directly effecting ones GPA.