College often brings significant change to the family dynamic. Communication between students and parents/guardians can be an essential component to navigating this intricate and exciting transition. Students will be faced with many choices as they explore and establish their own values, manage life within a new academic setting, establish new friendships, and integrate into a new living situation. Students are acclimating to a new level of freedom, responsibility, and accountability, while parents/guardians are witnessing their emerging adults leave the nest and embark on new journeys away from home, which requires patience and practice. Fortunately, our students and parents/guardians are now part of Loyola’s supportive environment, a place that is known for making these changes as seamless as possible. Student Support and Wellness Promotion has created important conversation topics for you and your new student with “Keys to Important and Meaningful Conversations.”
Please refer to the Information and Partnerships page for the most up to date information about trends in alcohol and other drug use, behaviors, and characteristics of our newest generation (Gen Z) of college students.
Fall Semester—A Time for Parents to Discuss the Risks of College Drinking
Get a jump on the conversation with your student!
Did you know...
Prevalence of Alcohol Use Behaviors
According to the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH):
53.6 percent of full-time college students ages 18 to 22 drank alcohol in the past month
34.8 percent engaged in binge drinking (5 or more drinks on a single occasion for men or 4 or more drinks on an occasion for women) in the past month
9.7 percent engaged in heavy alcohol use (binge drinking on 5 or more days in the past month). These rates are higher than those for their non-college-attending peers.
Marijuana and College Parents Patter: Have the Conversation
The Maryland Collaborative to Reduce College Drinking and Related Problems
Consequences
Researchers estimate that each year:
1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor-vehicle crashes.
696,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking.
97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 report experiencing alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape.
Roughly 20 percent of college students meet the criteria for an AUD.
About 1 in 4 college students report academic consequences from drinking, including missing class, falling behind in class, doing poorly on exams or papers, and receiving lower grades overall.
References
Blanco, C.; Okuda, M.; Wright, C. et al. Mental health of college students and their non-college- attending peers: Results from the National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Archives of General Psychiatry 65(12):1429–1437, 2008. PMID: 19047530 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2734947/
Hingson, R.W.; Zha, W.; and Weitzman, E.R. Magnitude of and trends in alcohol-related mortality and morbidity among U.S. college students ages 18–24, 1998–2005. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (Suppl. 16):12–20, 2009. PMID: 19538908 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2701090/