Evidence for an association between substance use/abuse/dependence and early school dropout and reduced lifetime educational attainment is mixed (see Townsend et al., 2007 for a review). Although some studies suggest that alcohol use during adolescence is associated with reduced educational attainment (Cook & Moore, 1993; Staff et al., 2008; Wood et al., 2000; Yamada et al., 1996), others have found that the association is not significant when additional control variables are included (Bray et al., 2000; Gotham et al., 2003; King et al., 2006; Koch & Ribar, 2001; Wood et al., 1997).
