National survey results on drug use, 1975-2000. Vol. II: College students and young adults ages 19-40

The follow-up samples in Monitoring the Future provide very good coverage of the national college student population since 1980. College students tend to be a difficult population to study. They generally are not well covered in normal household surveys, which typically exclude dormitories, fraternities, and sororities from the universe covered. Further, the institution-based samples must be quite large in order to attain accurate national representation of college students, because there is great heterogeneity in the types of student populations served in those institutions. There also may be problems getting good samples and high response rates within many institutions. The current study, which in essence draws the college sample in senior year of high school, has considerable advantages for generating a broadly representative sample of the college students to emerge from. each graduating cohort, and it does so at very low cost. Further, it has "before" as weil as "during" and "after" college measures, which permit the examination of change. For comparison purposes, it also has similar panel data on the high school graduates who are not attending college. The young adult sample, on which we report here, includes the college students and comprises representative samples from each graduating class from 1986 to 1999, all surveyed in 2000. Since 18 is the modal age of high school seniors, the young adults covered here correspond to modal ages 19 through 32. Because the study design calls for annual follow-up surveys of each class cohort (though not each individual) through age 32, and then surveys at five-year intervals beginning at age 35, the graduating classes of 1976 through 1985 were not surveyed in 2000. The two exceptions were the classes of 1978 and 1983, members of which were sent the special "age 40" and "age 35" questionnaires, respectively. (Extract of the publication.)