College students are smoking tobacco at the lowest rate since 1980, but that decline will not necessarily continue, according to a report released today by the American Lung Association.

About one in five college students smoked in 2006, compared with almost one in three in 1999, the report says. That record high, however, came after a decade-long rise starting with a rate, in 1989, almost as low as it is now.

The report attributes the recent decline primarily to the increased price of cigarettes and expanded smoke-free laws and policies. But many students still smoke to control stress or depression, the report says, and tobacco companies’ marketing continues to take aim at 18-to-24-year-olds. White students and members of fraternities and sororities report particularly high smoking rates, it says.

Colleges’ smoke-free policies, cessation groups, and other programs, like a social-marketing campaign at Texas Tech University, are crucial to reducing students’ smoking rates further, the report says. Nationally, it says, the gap between how much students think their peers smoke and how much they actually do has narrowed.

To help students stop — or not start — smoking, the report says, colleges should prohibit the use and promotion of tobacco products, refuse to accept partnerships with the tobacco industry, and continue to develop education programs. —Sara Lipka