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(Psychology Today)
Key points
- Large nationwide longitudinal studies have shown fewer high school and college-age adults are abusing alcohol.
- Media coverage around spring break 2025 seems to imply extensive use of alcohol by young adults.
- Risky drinking is down among college students but still happens.
Spring break is a wild time for some college students nationwide. It can also be an extremely dangerous time, because some students engage in reckless behavior, taking drinks from strangers they just met, drinking to excess, and losing control over their own behavior. On the plus side, the news among high school students is mostly good, and many report avoiding alcohol altogether, including in very large nationwide studies. In 2024, 14% of teens reported consuming alcohol in the past 30 days, marking a 43% decline since 2015 and a 69% decrease since 1991. Approximately 22% reported alcohol consumption in the past 30 days, a 39% decrease from 35% in 2015.
But does this newfound caution “stick” for students when they go off to college? It might; for example, recent research showed 21.9% of college students engaged in binge drinking in 2023. This was significantly lower than the 27.7% binge-drinking rate in 2022, a year earlier. The rate also was the lowest since 1980 for college men (24.4%), and a significant decrease among college women. In addition, alcohol use in the past 30 days reached a new historic low of 55% in 2023, down from 62% in 2022.