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HWN Suggests

Why Colleges Haven't Stopped Binge Drinking

Despite decades of research, hundreds of campus task forces and millions invested in bold experiments, college drinking in the United States remains as much of a problem as ever.

More than 1,800 students die every year of alcohol-related causes. An additional 600,000 are injured while drunk, and nearly 100,000 become victims of alcohol-influenced sexual assaults. One in four say their academic performance has suffered from drinking, all according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The binge-drinking rate among college students has hovered above 40 percent for two decades, and signs are that partying is getting even harder. More students now drink…

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Articles of Interest

College Women: Stop Getting Drunk

It’s closely associated with sexual assault. And yet we’re reluctant to tell women to stop doing it.

Drinking is central to college culture – and to sexual assault

Heavy drinking is one of the most significant predictors of sexual assault in college, according to the poll of 1,053 current and recent college students. Analysis of the results found that women who say they sometimes or often drink more than they should are twice as likely to be victims of completed, attempted or suspected sexual assaults as those who rarely or never drink.

How to Cut Student Drinking

Text messages and personalized feedback online can help.

Legal Drinking Age - Should It Be Higher or Lower?

Support for lowering the minimum legal drinking age comes from the most unexpected places, several American colleges. Does it makes sense?

Lowering the drinking age will have some bad effects. We should do it anyway.

For the first time in decades, the legal drinking age is back in the news, and nearly all the credit for that belongs to the Amethyst Initiative. Signed by 136 college presidents from across the country, the initiative calls on Congress to revisit the 31-year-old Uniform Drinking Age Act, which deducts 10 percent of the federal highway funds from any state that sets its drinking age lower than 21. For more than a quarter-century, no state has dared violate it.

No One Knows How to Stop Campus Alcohol Abuse

It's hard to put much faith in Dartmouth's ban on hard liquor.

Rapes Assisted By Drugs Or Alcohol Are All Too Common

Nine percent of women who had been sexually assaulted or experienced unwanted sexual contact suspected that they had been drugged immediately beforehand. Sixty-two percent of the women surveyed had been drinking before the assault or unwanted contact. That matches the results of study after study finding that alcohol is the most common substance found in drug-facilitated sexual assaults.

Should Colleges Get Rid of Fraternities?

Some schools have taken steps like banning hard liquor or expelling individuals for misbehavior. But some critics argue that those moves don’t go far enough. Individual incidents of misbehavior, they say, aren’t outliers—they are signs of a harmful culture that needs to be removed from higher education.

Sobering Up

Excessive drinking by college students can have major consequences. Each year: •A quarter of students have issues with academics as a result of drinking. They miss class, fall behind and suffer from poor and failing grades. •Roughly 600,000 students are injured unintentionally while under the influence of alcohol. About 690,000 individuals of college age report having been assaulted by someone who was drinking. •More than 1,800 college students die from alcohol related incidents and injuries.

The Dark Power of Fraternities

A yearlong investigation of Greek houses reveals their endemic, lurid, and sometimes tragic problems—and a sophisticated system for shifting the blame.

The Drinking Age Should Be Lowered, Fast

Bringing it into the light, rather than driving it underground, is the best way to solve bingeing and abuse. Doubling down on a bad rule, rooted in the idea that laws can change human desire, is not a workable solution.

Resources

Amethyst Initiative

Launched in July 2008, the Amethyst Initiative is made up of chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the United States. These higher education leaders have signed their names to a public statement that the problem of irresponsible drinking by young people continues despite the minimum legal drinking age of 21, and there is a culture of dangerous binge drinking on many campuses.

Choose Responsibility

CHOOSE RESPONSIBILITY is a nonprofit organization founded to stimulate informed and dispassionate public discussion about the presence of alcohol in American culture and to consider policies that will effectively empower young adults age 18 to 20 to make mature decisions about the place of alcohol in their own lives.

College Drinking

CollegeDrinkingPrevention.gov is your one-stop resource for comprehensive research-based information on issues related to alcohol abuse and binge drinking among college students.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

The problem with college drinking is not necessarily the drinking itself, but the negative consequences that result from excessive drinking.