Studying college populations also has a number of limitations. College students are a selected population, which may limit the generalizability of certain findings. We believe that this will be less of an issue with respect to gene identification, as previous studies from the genetic epidemiology literature of substance use indicate that genetic influences are stronger in environments that promote alcohol use (Dick and Kendler, 2012), and the and the college setting has been demonstrated to be one such environment (Timberlake et al., 2007). However, findings about gene-environment-development pathways may be less generalizable beyond college populations. College students are exposed to some unique factors that may impact their alcohol use, such as Greek system involvement (Verges and Sher, 2012). However, these college-specific contextual risk and protective factors may still be informative about general etiological mechanisms. Another consideration is that on average, college students come from higher socio-economic backgrounds than individuals who do not go on to college (Lenk et al., 2012). That said, there has been a dramatic shift in the demographics of college student populations, with far more first generation,
