May 8, 2019

Pre-college drinking may predict retention, citation rates

Pocket Science: Exploring the 'What,' 'So what' and 'Now what' of Husker research

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Scott Schrage / Shutterstock

Scott Schrage / Shutterstock

Welcome to Pocket Science: a glimpse at recent research from Husker scientists and engineers. For those who want to quickly learn the “What,” “So what” and “Now what” of Husker research.

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What?

The risks of drinking heavily in college are well-documented: missed classes, sub-par grades, legal troubles and health problems, among others.

To address the issue, some universities and colleges — including Nebraska — now administer so-called brief alcohol interventions to incoming students, asking about prior alcohol use and other risky behavior. But no research has specifically investigated whether this data on pre-college drinking might predict alcohol-related problems in college.

So what?

Nebraska’s Duane Shell, Ian Newman and Lok-wa Yuen examined web-based responses from roughly 5,300 students who enrolled at Nebraska in 2011 and 2012.

They found that students who reported abstaining from alcohol before college were between 12% and 23% less likely to drop out, even when accounting for ethnicity, gender and residency status. Those students also received between 40% and 73% fewer on- and off-campus citations for drinking alcohol. Respondents who binge-drank prior to college were between 79% and 254% more likely to receive those citations after enrolling.

Now what?

The findings suggest that health centers and student-service offices could use responses from incoming freshmen to identify and focus on those most susceptible to alcohol-related risks. That data might also help customize intervention programs based on students’ prior experiences with alcohol, the researchers said.