Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities

Consequences of substance use on college campuses included the following:

• More than 1,700 deaths from unintentional alcohol-related injuries in 2001, up 6 percent from 1998.
• A 38 percent increase from 1993 to 2001 in the proportion of students injured as a result of their own drinking.
• A 21% increase from 2001 to 2005 in the average number of alcohol-related arrests per campus.

Additional key findings included the following:

• 97,000 students were victims of alcohol-related rape or sexual assault in 2001.
• Also in 2001, 696,000 students were assaulted by a student who had been binge drinking.
• Nearly 38 percent of college administrators said that the major barrier to more effective prevention was the public perception that substance use by college students was a normal rite of passage.
• 37% of college students feared social stigma attached to substance use, which kept them from seeking help.

For college administrators and other policymakers:

• Work to change the culture of substance use on college campuses.
• Set clear policies and enforcing them in consistent and predictable ways.
• Ban smoking on campus.
• Ban alcohol in dorms, in most common areas, at on-campus student parties and at college sporting events.
• Sharply restrict all tobacco advertising, marketing and promotion on college campuses.
• Step up evidence-based prevention and cessation efforts, including counter-advertising programs and targeted help for high-risk students.
• Enforce laws restricting sale of tobacco to minors and enacting indoor and outdoor clean air laws to limit exposure to secondhand smoke.

This report was based on a nationally representative telephone survey of 2,000 college students, surveys of approximately 400 university administrators, analyses of 6 national data sets, interviews with key researchers in the field, focus groups with college students and their parents, and a review of approximately 800 publications.