Social and economic costs of alcohol use on college campuses

Excessive alcohol use is the 3rd leading cause of death in the United States annually and its economic impact is estimated at over $150 billion. College students engage in high rates of excessive alcohol consumption and suffer consequences associated with alcohol use, including crime, injury, and other social problems. However, no studies to date have examined the social and economic costs related to college student drinking. We referenced the International Guidelines for Estimating the Costs of Substance Abuse to estimate alcohol-related social and economic costs linked to student responses from the 2001 Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (CAS) – a study of 119 4-year colleges in the United States. Campus-specific factors that contribute to alcohol-related costs included campus-related crime/incidents and health-related costs (i.e., treatment for alcohol overdose, alcohol-related injuries, counseling or treatment, and mandatory alcohol education). We projected student self-reports of specific harms to weighted population estimates to obtain total cost estimates. The primary drivers of costs associated with college student drinking were campus enrollment size and current prevalence of drinking. Health-related costs associated with student alcohol use accounted for the majority of estimated economic costs. However, this estimate does not include expenditures related to staff training (e.g., campus police/security, resident advisors, health professionals) and alcohol prevention programming. In addition, student self-reports of the frequency of given harms were capped at an occurrence of 2 or more times per harm resulting in a conservative estimate of costs. Student alcohol use is associated with significant social and economic costs.