Underage Drinking at UCSB White Paper
I have decided to share some of my work with school, because I am doing a lot more writing now. Enjoy!
Binge drinking at Universities, specifically the University of California, Santa Barbara, continues to be a significant issue plaguing students' academic performance and well-being. According to the 2022-2024 Biennial Review of UCSB, 51% of students drank alcohol in the past 2 weeks, with 46% of those students becoming drunk the last time they drank (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2025). It is essential to be well-informed about the reasons students engage in excessive drinking before developing a plan to ensure the most effective methods to curb this issue. Occasional alcohol can be expected in any U.S academic institution; however, UCSB strictly stands out as a community in which excessive alcohol use is prevalent. According to University of California San Diego's 2018 Biennial Review, 40% of students in the past 3 months did not consume alcohol (University of California San Diego, 2018), University of California Davis reports in their 2020 Biennial report that 48.8% of students did not drink alcohol in the past 30 days (University of California Davis, 2020), compared to the 29.8% number of students in UCSB that did not consume alcohol in the past 3 months. This extensive amount of drinking in the student body can lead to many consequences for the alcohol drinker and those around. The 5 leading consequences reported by UCSB students in 2022-2024 were: doing something later they regretted, blacking out, browning out, having unprotected sex, and physically injuring themselves (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2025). These consequences are reported to exceed the national average in the 2018 Biennial Report (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2020).
A program to attempt to plateau the stats regarding alcohol has already been implemented at UCSB called ADP (Alcohol & Drugs Program). While it is hard to quantify the success of this program, it can be said that from 2009 to 2019, the number of people wanting to commit suicide after consuming alcohol has risen 1.41% (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2020). To pin down a specific reason that heavy drinking is taking place, it is vital first to be aware of where heavy drinking takes place. While drinking is universal in dorms, bars, fraternities, and off-campus housing, it is crucial to take into account the amount of drinking per location. In a study of mandated college students, who are students who previously violated the drinking policy, a regressive data model was created to predict the blood alcohol content of students depending on the location. According to the model, BAC was expected to rise significantly at off-campus locations and fraternities, whereas it would decrease in dorms (Miller et al., 2016). Since 61% of students at UCSB were living off-campus in 2022, a figure expected to rise due to the termination of the 2+2 program (UCSB Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation, 2023), it is easy to see how alcohol levels are highly impacted. Not only is it predicted that BAC will rise with drinking off campus, but it is the highest reported source of drinking location, with 26% of students at UCSB choosing it (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2025).
Binge drinking can and will lead to severe consequences for anyone partaking in it. College women aged 18-24 are 3 times more likely to experience sexual violence than the general population of women, and "studies have established a strong link between heavy drinking and sexual violence" (Mills et al., 2024). With this relationship in mind, it is important to note that "those who experienced sexual violence may be less likely to use drinking protective behavioral strategies" (Mills et al., 2024). Protective behavioral strategies are reduction strategies meant to reduce the odds of experiencing alcohol related consequences, which could include drinking water, not participating in drinking games, etc. It is not clear why this is the case; however, it is theorized that "individuals may use alcohol as an avoidant coping strategy" (Mills et al., 2024). This is critical to understand, as the more trauma someone may endure, the less likely they are to engage in healthy activities to reduce binge drinking, such as UCSB's program, ADP. It would be in UCSB's best interest to implement more catering programs to ensure that people who have struggled with internal trauma feel more welcome to reach out. If this were done successfully, they would most likely see an increase in performance from the students engaged with alcohol. A study done in 2015 found that there was a significant relationship with alcohol use increasing the number of classes skipped, a decrease in hours dedicated to school work, and therefore a decrease in first semester Fall GPA (Conway & DiPlacido, 2015).
To develop a successful plan to reduce binge drinking in UCSB, it is important to reframe how ADP is framed to a student who may have endured trauma previously. To do this, simple passive education opportunities need to be avoided and replaced with more engaging activities that feel rewarding to the student. A successful intervention model, called Brief Motivational Interventions, has already been developed. BMI included showing students an estimate of their BAC for the past month, showing how much, they spent on alcohol, and calories consumed from alcohol (Murphy et al., 2019). This program itself shies away from the typical passive learning already developed at UCSB by addressing the issues of drinking personally with each student. BMI combined with direct sessions with the student on how to manage stress, a significant decrease in drinks per day, depression, and anxiety was observed (Murphy et al., 2019). Because of this, UCSB needs to implement more proactive sessions for each student, encouraging them to see how their drinking affects them. If students see consistently over an extended time period how their decisions alter their life, they will be more likely to alter how much they drink, reducing sexual violence, unprotected sex, injuries, drunk driving, increasing academic performance, and improving their health.
Additionally, UCSB needs to address the off-campus housing crisis by letting more students take classes from home, building more dorms, and subsidizing rent. The overall budget for these solutions to adapt the ADP program would be minimal. Specialists in psychology can be hired to address the student's needs, while the housing situation would require a significant financial commitment. With all of these solutions in place, UCSB would see a dramatic decrease in binge drinking and the incidents that follow, greatly benefiting the university's culture and environment.
References
Conway, J. M., & DiPlacido, J. (2015). The Indirect Effect of Alcohol Use on GPA in First-Semester College Students: The Mediating Role of Academic Effort: The Mediating Role of Academic Effort. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 17(3), 303-318. https://doi-org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/10.1177/1521025115575705
Miller, M. B., Borsari, B., Fernandez, A. C., Yurasek, A. M., & Hustad, J. T. P. (2016). Drinking Location and Pregaming as Predictors of Alcohol Intoxication Among Mandated College Students. Substance Use & Misuse, 51(8), 983–992. https://doi.org/10.3109/10826084.2016.1152496
Mills, A. H., Canning, L., Fitzke, R. E., Davis, J. P., Clapp, J. D., & Pedersen, E. R. (2024). Sexual Violence Victimization and Pregaming Protective Behavioral Strategies Among College Students. Substance Use & Misuse, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2024.2383975
Murphy, J. G., Dennhardt, A. A., Martens, M. P., Borsari, B., Witkiewitz, K., & Meshesha, L. Z. (2019). A randomized clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of a brief alcohol intervention supplemented with a substance-free activity session or relaxation training. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 87(7), 657–669. https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000412
University of California Davis. (2020). Biennial Review of Alcohol and Other Drug Programs 2018-2020. https://clery.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk1761/files/files/page/DFSCA-UCD-201820-BiennialRvw.pdf
University of California San Diego. (2018). Drug Free Schools and Communities Act Biennial Review: Academic Years 2016-2018. Student Health Services. https://studenthealth.ucsd.edu/_files/about/biennial_review.pdf
University of California, Santa Barbara. (2020). 2018–2020 Biennial Review: Alcohol & Other Drug Prevention Programs. https://www.vcadmin.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/docs/2018-2020_Biennial_Review.pdf
University of California, Santa Barbara. (2025). 2022–2024 Biennial Review: Alcohol & Other Drug Prevention Programs. https://dsp.ext-prod.sa.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/2025-08/2022-2024%20Biennial%20Review%20FINAL.pdf
University of California, Santa Barbara Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation. (2023). Current state of crisis: Student housing at UCSB. https://www.blumcenter.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/sitefiles/Current%20State%20of%20Crisis%20Section.pdf