Forty-nine percent (3.8 million) of full time college students binge drink and/or abuse prescription and illegal drugs, according to Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America 's Colleges and Universities, a new report by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. The study also finds that 1.8 million full-time college students (22.9 percent) meet the medical criteria for substance abuse and dependence, two and one half times the 8.5 percent of the general population who meet these same criteria.