The average Irish student living away from home spends more on alcohol than on any other item apart from accommodation, and buys more than £3 worth of contraceptives every month.
He or she is spending nearly 30 per cent more on alcohol than two years ago.
These are among the findings of a survey carried out by the Union of Students in Ireland.
The USI's 1997-98 National Poverty Survey of Third Level Colleges found that the average student living away from home spent £79.66 a month on alcohol, 60p more than he or she spends on groceries and college meals together.
This is a 29.9 per cent increase on the last USI survey in 1996, when students spent an average of £61.33 a month on alcohol.
The average student living at home spends £73.54 a month on alcohol, nearly £28 more than on the next-largest item of expenditure, clothes.
Intriguingly, students who live away from home spend nearly five times more on alcohol than they do on clothes.
They spend more than 21/2 times more on alcohol than on college books.
Students living away from home say they spend £3.12 a month on contraception.
Those still living at home - perhaps because they have fewer opportunities for sex - say they spend less than half this amount, only £1.33 a month.
The USI president, Mr Colman Byrne, said two types of students were emerging, the 50 per cent who are grant-aided and "a class of more affluent students who have more money and can get out more."
"I'm surprised at how many of them can even afford to take holidays during the academic year," he said.
"But they're not the ones we're worried about. We're worried about the ones you don't see in the pub, who are working 20-30 hours a week to try to get enough money to feed themselves."
The survey found that 57 per cent of students have to take a part-time job to help pay their way through college.
Fifty-nine per cent of these said that working had a negative impact on their studies.
Seventy-one per cent had no written contract of employment.
Fifty-one per cent of students living away from home and receiving a maintenance grant of £45.90 a week are paying more than £40 a week for accommodation.
Average accommodation costs have jumped from an average of £120.19 a month two years ago to £135.46 month.