As many 2020 Democrats push to make college "free" for everyone, a recent study finds that nearly one-third of students were influenced by the prospect of parties while deciding to attend college.

The study, conducted by Niznik Behavioral Health (NBH), surveyed more than 1,000 college graduates on what influenced their decision to attend college. Twenty-seven percent of survey participants stated that a motivating factor was partying. NBH ultimately defined partying as “a social gathering with friends where excessive drinking or drug consumption was present.”

"I don’t want my tax dollars to fund such wasteful activities"

Twenty-nine percent of survey respondents reported having a fake ID, allowing them to purchase alcohol while underage. More than half of the respondents who said that partying was an influential factor in their college decision also reported having fake IDs. This news may not come as a surprise, as the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) finds that 60 percent of teens have had at least one drink by the age of 18.

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NBH discovered that both the frequency and intensity of partying increased for students transitioning from high school to college. Seventy-one percent of survey participants claimed that their partying increased at college.

“I got hungover before a final, and I went from an 'A' in the class to a 'C,' since I did so badly on the final because I had been drinking the night before,” one of the survey participants recalled. Another respondent reported having “stay[ed] out so late and being so hungover the next morning that” she had “missed a final and failed the class.”

Not only can partying affect the quality of your education, but it can also be very costly. NBH calculated that women on average spend $20.85 on alcohol each week, while men spend $24.84.

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The cost of education already is not cheap, and prominent Democrat figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have been advocating for free, taxpayer-funded college. Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also called for the government to step in to alleviate $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.

“It’s unfortunate that so many of my peers attend higher ed institutions solely for the purpose of binge drinking,” Rachel Carroll, a student at Brigham Young University and intern for Campus Reform’s parent organization, the Leadership Institute, said. “And to think that politicians have been proposing free college tuition plans -- I don’t want my tax dollars to fund such wasteful activities.”

While nearly a third of students were influenced to attend college by the potential parties, this factor ranked behind advancing one's education (90 percent), influence exerted by parents (49 percent), a school boasting a program the respondent wanted to study (37 percent), and getting away from home (35 percent).

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @ethanycai