Excessive consumption of alcohol among third-level students may be causing the alarming dropout rates in some colleges, the chairman of the Higher Education Authority has said.
Dr Don Thornhill said information from campuses indicated that students were spending "a significant proportion of their time and money" on alcohol.
Speaking at a HEA conference in Dublin on non-completion rates, he said the Republic's consumption of beer, the drink most favoured by young people, was the highest in the EU.
He said figures from the World Health Organisation showed that Irish people generally consumed 142.5 litres of beer a year, almost twice the EU average.
While dropout rates in Ireland are in line with international trends, some colleges have serious problems.
NUI Maynooth, for example, has a dropout rate of almost 28 per cent, according to an HEA report earlier this year.
The HEA is examining several projects from universities on how alcohol could be a contributory factor to such rates.
A HEA spokesman said students now had unprecedented income and some used the funds to drink to excess.
He said others were forced into part-time work to get money for their social lives, often centred on drink and pubs. Dr Thornhill said this could limit a student's involvement in social, cultural and sporting activities. He was speaking at a HEA conference on non-completion rates in Dublin.
At the same conference, Mr Colm Jordan, education officer with the Union of Students in Ireland, warned of "scapegoating" students. He said excessive alcohol consumption was a problem for Irish society generally.
He said there was more "per capita drinking" in the Dail bar than in student bars.
While there was a serious problem, he said politicians should adopt a "calm and reasonable" approach to student drinking.
"It's easy to say `students are drinking all the time and I'm not going to increase their grant', but we have to be careful not to make snap decisions," he said.