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Underage Drinking and Academic Performance

Research shows that drinking alcohol impairs brain function and adolescent memory

Studies indicate that alcohol-dependent teens showed impaired memory, altered perception of spatial relationships, and verbal skill deficiencies.¹

It takes less alcohol to damage a young brain than to damage a fully mature one, and the young brain is damaged more quickly.²

Drinking alcohol negatively affects students’ academic performance

Students with high truancy rates were far more likely than students with low truancy rates to be drinkers or to get drunk.³

Heavy drinkers and binge drinkers* ages 12 to 17 were twice as likely to say their school work is poor than those who did not drink alcohol in the past month.⁴

High school students who use alcohol or other drugs frequently are up to five times more likely than other students to drop out of school.⁵

Among eighth graders, students with higher grade point averages reported less alcohol use in the past month.⁶

Students drinking alcohol during adolescence have a reduced ability to learn, compared with those youth who do not drink until adulthood.⁷

In a national survey of over 55,000 undergraduate students from 132 two- and four-year colleges in the United States, 24 percent of students reported performing poorly on a test or assignment, and 33 percent said they had missed a class due to alcohol use in the previous 12 months.⁸

College students who were frequent binge drinkers** were eight times more likely than non-binge drinkers to miss a class, fall behind in schoolwork, get hurt or injured, and damage property.⁹

¹Brown SA, Tapert SF, Granholm E, et al. Neurocognitive functioning of adolescents: effects of protracted alcohol use. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 24(2):164-171, 2000.

²Swartzwelder HS, Wilson WA, Tayyeb MI. Age-dependent inhibition of long-term potentiation by ethanol in immature versus mature hippocampus. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 19(6):1480-1485, 1995.

³O’Malley PM, Johnston LD, Bachman JG. Alcohol use among adolescents. Alcohol Res Health 22(2):85-93, 1998.

⁴Greenblatt JC. Patterns of alcohol use among adolescents and associations with emotional and behavioral problems. Office of Applied Studies Working Paper. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2000.

⁵The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Malignant Neglect: Substance Abuse and America’s Schools. New York: Columbia University, 2001.

⁶O’Malley, et al. Alcohol use among adolescents.

⁷Swartzwelder, et al. Age-dependent inhibition.

⁸Core Institute. 2000 Statistics on Alcohol and Other Drug Use on American Campuses. Carbondale Il: Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 2000.

⁹Wechsler H, Dowdall G, Maenner G, et al. Changes in binge drinking and related problems among American college students between 1993 and 1997: Results of the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study. J Am Coll Health, 47(9):57-68, 1998.

*They have five drinks in a row at least once in two weeks.

**They binge drink three or more times in the past two weeks.

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Center for Substance Abuse Prevention www.samhsa.gov