Lower legal drinking age could increase high school dropout rate

Although there have been calls to lower the legal drinking age from 21, a new study raises the possibility that it could have the unintended effect of boosting the high school dropout rate. For example, the study reveals that underage drinkers on college campuses can acquire alcohol easily through legal-aged drinkers.

While changing the drinking age might create a healthier drinking culture in college, policymakers will have to consider younger students and whether the risk of a higher dropout rate is one we’re willing to take. At present, the legal drinking age in the United States is 21.

Additionally, Blacks are reportedly five to nineteen percent more apt drop out with a lower drinking age. However, he said, state drinking-age policies would likely be unrelated to the personal factors that put kids at risk of drinking problems or dropping out.

People in addiction-treatment programs are about two to three times more likely to smoke than other people, a new study finds. This leads to higher dropout rates.

And for certain vulnerable kids, that access might lower their chances of finishing high school. Experts here have always been debating possibly lowering the drinking age to 18, but new findings may effect their decisions.

Plunk and his colleagues looked at data from the 1970s and 1980s to see if there were differences in dropout rates.

When Plunk and his team went back through high school graduation records, they found that 17-year-olds were affected by their 18-year-old peers. In a situation where 18 was the legal drinking age, being legal was just within grasp but not quite. Still, he thinks a reduced drinking age could have an impact on minors, he says.