In college heavy drinking is a continuously growing problem because freedom is given to a college student, and it should be used more wisely. In the United States approximately 70% of students had problems with drinking because of different fraternities' and sororities events that occur on college campuses (Doumas 150). In a cohort study, researchers found that 49% of students in different colleges are "binge" drinkers at the beginning and end of college (Mota et al., 2010). Although, the majority of college students "binge" drink, In Nayara Mota research, she found this would also affect the student's ability to perform well in their academic opportunities, because college students who "binge" drink tend to put themselves at risk for an unsuccessful education career. According to Nicole McBride, Blake Barrett, Kathleen A. Moore and Lawrence Schonfeld (2014) students with an "A" GPA drink less than the students with a "C" or lower GPA. Therefore, heavy drinking affects a student's academic performance by slowing the reaction times, decrease memories, and leads to college dropouts.

College students are thought to drink at a higher rate than any other time in their life. Nicole McBride et al. (2014) argued that first year college students do more drinking in school than any other student, which affects the student's academic course work. For example, "60.8% of full-time college students aged 18-21 admitted to abusing alcohol" (Mcbride 370).  More than half college students academic are put at risk for failure of a test because of "binge" drinking. In general, some of the consequences of students that abuse alcohol are a student's ability to learn. As Dr. Liguori and Dr. Lonbaken (2015) state, "problematic drinking can have a negative effect on an institution, including reducing retention rates" (70). "Binge" drinking causes failure, class dropout, and low retention rates for first year students. However, "binge" drinking from college students leads to failure in classes and 1,865 unintentional deaths (McBride 2014). Students are drinking without knowing the major effects, which are physically dangerous and mentally dangerous. John Iadarola, in the video "40% of All College Students Are Alcoholic," focuses on the statistics of students in college that binge drink. He explains that students who are heavy drinkers in college are more likely to not graduate, and the students who are diagnosed as alcoholics are the ones who have the most trouble in college. "Binge" drinking and alcoholism impacts the student's academic performance and graduation. 

The majority of freshmen students are at a higher risk of "binge" drinking because they have not experienced different options that help promote prevention of "binge" drinking. According to Dr. Gary Liguori and Dr. Barb Lonbaken (2015), "Freshmen, or first-year students, are at particular risk for problematic drinking and its associated consequences" (69). These consequences involve student performance in school, which impairs their capability in learning and decreases concentration of many students. The misuse of alcohol causes academic impairments, which leads to failure in class and increases college dropout rates (Liguori & Lonbaken 2015). College students have lack of focus, trouble attending class, and may not care about their academics as much. Males are more likely to "binge' because they do not have much to worry about and may feel safer drinking in their environment. Liguori and Lonbaken (2015) surveyed 820 students about alcohol consumption to figure out if the alcohol and dropout rates were the same for each gender. The students were tested by online assessment tests, which found that male students have a higher "binge" drinking level than women; the males that drink had a lower retention rate than females (Liguori & Lonbaken 2015). However, freshmen male students are likely to dropout more than females because of the involvement in "binge" drinking. Men are more likely to drop out of school due to having a higher drinking rate than females, which shows that drinking affects academic success in college. 

Diana Doumas, researched that people who "binge" drink may not perform well in academics and more than half the students are proven to be first year college students. Nicole McBride found that students in college who are "binge" drinkers do not realize that they are heavy drinkers (McBride 2014). As Doumas (2014) states, "This high-risk status afforded to 1st-year students has been attributed to the increase in freedom, decrease in social control, and increase in stress they experience in higher education compared with high school" (Doumas 151). The majority of the students who are involved in "binge" drinking tend to not realize their addiction and how it affects their academic performance. 

The student drinking affects not only their education, but also affects their relationships with "peers and teachers, reducing school attendance and students' capacity to complete homework, and influencing student engagement in other problem behaviors such as antisocial behavior," as Sheryl A. Hephill (2014) clarifies.  Nonetheless, alcohol may affect a student's ability to learn because it delays the next day's learning in class or studying for a test prior the day it given (Howland 2010). Jonathan Howland (2010) collected statistics on the college students who were "binge" drinking, to gain insightful information on how alcohol affects a student's testing performance in the class. However, Howland believed that alcohol has negative consequences on a person's life and may change the thought about the outcome of drinking.

 Nayara Mota and her team (2010) tested students from different universities to determine the effect of "binge" drinking on the brain and vulnerability of the brain to alcohol's neurotoxic effects. Mota et al. (2010) determined that "binge" drinking affects verbal memory and leads to monitoring difficulties.  Dr. Samuel Balls, Columbia president and CEO, suggested in the video "How Alcohol Affects Your Brain And Body" that alcohol affects the central brain cells of a human body which are different from "marginal" brain cells. Dr. Balls researched different studies of students who drink alcohol and found related evidence that these toxins affect different parts of the human brain depending of the amount that a person is drinking and how often a person drinks. The students who are positively affected by drinking also tend to have a lower Intelligence Quotient (IQ) than a low-to-moderate drinker (Muller 2013). Mario Muller (2013), a public heath professor, argues that one's IQ level is affected by how much alcohol a person consumes and if a person drinks at a middle level then they will have a higher IQ. Muller looked at how much a person drinks throughout a lifetime and looked at the control of variables that may affect a person's IQ. This suggests that alcohol consumption correlates to a decrease in the intelligence of college students who "binge" drink.

The intelligence score of a student shows the quotient and the amount of alcohol a student has consumed (Muller 2013). Although the tests that were given to the students tested for education, parent's addiction and mental health to determine if students are raised in the environment of alcohol substances or do they have some kind of addiction of why they are binge drinkers (Muller 2013). Not only is the ability of the students work affected, but also the psychophysiological responses to cognitive tasks of a human's ability to think (Mota 2013). Nonetheless, Howland research shows that drinking a night before an exam does not affect the person's grade, Jonathan Howland et al. (2010) found that even though drinking a day before the a test may not affect the score,  it will affect  how a person takes the test or depending on a person it could affect the grade outcome.

The reaction time of a student is also affected by binge drinking. If the student's reaction time is slow then it will affect the ability of how fast or slow the student could react to taking notes in class or maybe even a timed test. The reaction time of a student could lead to other problems such as impacting their ability to learn and function like an average student (Johnson 2013). Binge drinking affects the judgment of a student's knowledge. Alcohol gives a bad understanding on what type of situation they are in, and how to handle the particular problem (Mcbride 2014). Increased alcohol use affects the reasoning of thinking, which makes it hard on college students who miss class and perform low on a test.

College students who "binge" drinks are giving up their chance to graduate. Elizabeth Grimaldi, Benjamin O. Ladd, and Kristen G. Anderson's (2015) research showed that the use of alcohol in college leads to consequences and a lack of education performance that prevents students from graduating which leads to higher dropout rates. In thought of alcohol, Grimaldi et al. (2015) focuses on the alcohol related and motives that connects them with the use of alcohol. The consequences that involves student performance in school impairs their capability in learning and lacks the concentrations on different students. However, Dr. Gary Liguori and Dr. Barb Lonbaken (2015) argues, "Given the consequence of academic impairment associated with problematic drinking, alcohol misuse may contribute significantly to failure and dropout rates" (70). Alcohol can addiction and changes the focus from school to alcohol, which leads to a student dropping out. Grimaldi et al. (2015) find that of the decrease of learning and concentration may impact a student's failure and dropout rates. Alcohol is taking away a student's ability to graduate and have a successful career. 

"Binge" drinking is going to affect a student's ability to think right, make right decisions and to focus. Mota (2013) uses logical experiments or previous research that has been collected periodically as a way to determine how alcohol affects a person's brain. Lisa Schrader, focuses more on the affects that alcohol have on a student's reasoning ability, judgment, and reaction time and how they impacts their academics. The author, the director of health promotion at MTSU, expands on previous research and uses statistics to support her argument. Binge drinking impacts academic performance due to memory loss, a decrease in reaction time, and decrease judgment, and a decrease in one's reasoning ability. Drinking impacts a student memory loss by lack of concentration and affects the ability of how a student should learn. However, binge drinking affects the way of how a student learns and the amount of drinks a student drinks determines their GPA score (Schrader 2010). If students tends to drink more than their GPA are more likely to decrease because of their loss of memory. 

The problem may not be that alcohol is getting students in trouble, but it may be that intelligence will predict how much alcohol a student will drink. Miguel A. Diego argued that the GPA predicts the amount of alcohol a person drinks. He predicted as the GPA of student's went down as the amount of alcohol that student's drink increases. Although lower performing students used different substances, like tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine, the most common used products were alcohol and tobacco. The researchers used a questionnaire to examine 89 seniors to find out their GPA and the amount of alcohol they were drinking. The results showed that a student's GPA determines how much alcohol a student will consume rather than the popularity or depression affecting the amount of alcohol they drink. As Jenna Johnson (2013) states, "Alcohol is a common theme in nearly all student problems, including faltering grades [ ... ]" (1). This shows that drinking alcohol is the biggest problem for most campuses and need to be fixed.

Students that drink alcohol in the middle of the week are likely to fail an exam the next day. Jonathan Howland et al. (2010), a public health professor, researched the connection between test scores and binge drinking on the night before exams by using the placebo method. Howland et al. (2010) argues that binge drinking a night before exams does not affect the test scores but it affected a student's mood state and reaction time. Although, students may pass the test they are likely to be in a bad mood and spend more time taking tests. Sheryl (2014) researches more on the impacts of how alcohol would affect the students and the academic performance, however she suggests that many students with these negative impacts are likely the ones who fail and have low commitment levels. McBride (2014) researched the positive and negative expectancies of alcohol and how it relates to academic performance in underage binge drinkers. The author explored two different types of theories: cognitive learning theory and outcome theory to explain how student's academics are affected by binge drinking.  Each researcher shows that alcohol has a negative effect on student's academic performance. 

Prevention programs for college students are needed to stop the "binge" drinking and help academics. Jenna Johnson (2013) researched ways that colleges could minimize the about of students who binge drink and she provides statistics on how alcohol affects a person who binge drinks. Binge drinking needs to stop and colleges need to find a way to get rid of binge drinking. Johnson provides reasons to defend why colleges should minimize binge drinking but argues how binge drinking can affect the brain and the vulnerability of the brain of neurotoxic effects. Diana Doumas (2014), a professor and chair of counselor in education, focused on a web-based training that decreased the amount of alcohol related consequences of first year college students who are at risk than any other level in college. Different types of web-based activities that previous research has found will decrease the amount of alcohol activities put on from college organizations. Researcher Nicole McBride (2014) used surveys to test college students in order to determine whether they are "binge" drinking or not. The surveys helped to organize prevention programs for "binge" drinking in order to help students who are addicted to drinking. McBride (2014) expected to find the cause of college students "binge" drinking, but pre-existing intervention programs that focus on the negative causes lead to reducing the amount of "binge" drinking. Both researchers show that the alcohol prevention program helps colleges to decrease the amount of drinking and increase academic performance. The prevention program will help first year students to stay focused and continue to stay in school so that they can graduate. 

In the future, the majority of college students will continuously increase drinking, which becomes a bigger problem for college campuses. However, with help from many rehabilitation service, professors, and parents this could lead to preventing "binge" drinking problems to happen. For example, alcohol is showed to 40% of college academic problems and 28% of college dropouts (McBride 2014). With the prevention of "binge" drinking this could lead to academic success, great future opportunities and a higher graduation rate for each college, especially if students stop drinking alcohol then a positive effect will begin to occur such as, increase in reaction time; no loss memory increases graduation rates, no missed classes, and an increase in concentration. So if all the positive effects happen then research would begin to see students performing well academically. If students perform well academically, then colleges will have students to attend school and become a high standard school. 

