Did all that drinking you did in college really hurt your grades?
Yeah, it did. Especially if you were smart:
This paper examines the effect of alcohol consumption on student achievement by exploiting the discontinuity in drinking at age 21 at a college in which the minimum legal drinking age is strictly enforced. We find that drinking causes significant reductions in academic performance, particularly for the highest-performing students. This suggests that the negative consequences of alcohol consumption extend beyond the narrow segment of the population at risk of more severe, low-frequency, outcomes. Thus, our results indicate policies that combat drinking—particularly binge drinking that occurs around age 21—may well have large positive effects that are broader than previously known.
Source: "Does Drinking Impair Student Performance? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach" by Scott E. Carrell (UC-Davis and NBER), Mark Hoekstra (University of Pittsburgh) and James E. West (US Air Force Academy)
If you want to learn more about what alcohol and other drugs do to you (without the standard moralizing) I recommend this book.
How do bar owners get you to drink more?
Did a thirst for beer spark civilization?
How often does country music refer to beer and mama?
