For that subset of the USNWR top 50 National Universities and National LACs that are classified as “highly residential” or “primarily residential.” On-campus arrests for alcohol violations for 2014-2016, per College Navigator, expressed as arrests per thousand undergrads per year. I interpret the differences as being related to enforcement, not to level of student drug / alcohol use, so the schools with zero arrests aren’t schools where no one drinks; they’re schools where underage drinking on campus won’t end with an arrest record.
Private schools with zero on-campus arrests for drug or alcohol violations, sorted by ranking:
Wellesley College
Bowdoin College
Claremont McKenna College
Smith College
Vassar College
Brown University
Harvey Mudd College
Soka University of America
Barnard College
Macalester College
Mount Holyoke College
College of the Holy Cross
Union College
Pitzer College
Whitman College
Thomas Aquinas College
Trinity College
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Private schools with zero on-campus arrests for alcohol violations, sorted by drug arrests per thousand students from lowest to highest:
New York University
Harvard University
Columbia University in the City of New York
Georgetown University
Washington University in St Louis
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tufts University
Brandeis University
University of Chicago
University of Southern California
Northwestern University
Williams College
Hamilton College
Pomona College
Centre College
California Institute of Technology
Skidmore College
Colgate University
Occidental College
University of Rochester
Private schools with on-campus arrests for alcohol violations; the number is arrests per thousand undergrad students per year:
Tulane University of Louisiana 0.05
Princeton University 0.06
Boston College 0.07
Wesleyan University 0.12
Middlebury College 0.13
Case Western Reserve University 0.13
Connecticut College 0.19
Duke University 0.20
Pepperdine University 0.20
Oberlin College 0.24
Emory University 0.25
University of Pennsylvania 0.29
Scripps College 0.31
Amherst College 0.36
Bates College 0.37
Wake Forest University 0.59
Rice University 0.60
Yale University 0.64
Boston University 0.69
Cornell University 0.72
Vanderbilt University 0.73
Washington and Lee University 0.91
Northeastern University 1.16
Franklin and Marshall College 1.18
Davidson College 1.66
Grinnell College 2.41
Denison University 2.59
University of Notre Dame 2.84
Villanova University 3.12
Colorado College 3.35
Carleton College 4.38
Lafayette College 5.75
Kenyon College 5.82
Sewanee-The University of the South 6.13
Bucknell University 6.79
Stanford University 8.02
University of Richmond 8.68
Colby College 9.22
Dartmouth College 9.56
Bryn Mawr College 9.56
Carnegie Mellon University 9.63
Swarthmore College 14.62
Gettysburg College 15.11
Haverford College 22.41
Public schools with on-campus arrests for alcohol violations; the number is arrests per thousand undergrad students per year:
University of Wisconsin-Madison 0.01
University of California-Riverside 0.14
University of California-Santa Cruz 0.20
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 0.21
University of California-Los Angeles 0.28
University of California-Irvine 0.40
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 0.45
University of California-Berkeley 0.60
University of California-Davis 1.49
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1.51
University of Virginia-Main Campus 1.71
College of William and Mary 2.74
University of California-Santa Barbara 2.95
University of Georgia 4.19
University of California-San Diego 4.40
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 6.72
I suppose this tells us that some schools are more welcoming of police enforcement on their campuses than others that likely prefer to handle such matters internally. There has to be a story behind the Haverford stat. For small LACs an isolated incident (an out-of-hand party maybe) could dramatically skew these results and in many cases these results indicate that fewer than 1 arrest per year. My guess is that the arrests are a result of more than simply underage drinking in many/most cases.
Haverford has a very strict alcohol policy, and explicitly states that they will and do request local police arrest students who violate it. It’s in consortium with Swarthmore (12/35/22) and Bryn Mawr (12/14/12).
It certainly doesn’t mean that students don’t drink. It may not mean that the school is lax in enforcement. It almost certainly means that the school doesn’t encourage local police to arrest students for underage drinking or for furnishing alcohol to minors.
USNWR Top 100-ish where on-campus arrests for liquor law violations were lower than 1 per thousand dorm room beds per year; this also captures smaller schools where there were 1 or fewer total per year:
Agnes Scott College
Allegheny College
American University
Amherst College
Austin College
Bard College
Barnard College
Bates College
Bennington College
Berea College
Binghamton University
Boston College
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Brigham Young University-Hawaii
Brown University
California Institute of Technology
Case Western Reserve University
Centre College
Claremont McKenna College
Clark University
Clarkson University
Colgate University
College of the Atlantic
College of the Holy Cross
Columbia University in the City of New York
Connecticut College
Cornell College
Drew University
Duke University
Earlham College
Emory University
Fordham University
Furman
George Washington University
Georgetown University
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus
Goucher College
Hamilton College
Hanover College
Harvard University
Harvey Mudd College
Hendrix College
Hobart William Smith Colleges
Hollins University
Howard University
Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Wesleyan University
Johns Hopkins University
Kalamazoo College
Knox College
Lewis & Clark College
Loyola University Chicago
Macalester College
Marlboro College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
Millsaps College
Mount Holyoke College
New College of Florida
New York University
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Occidental College
Pepperdine University
Pitzer College
Pomona College
Princeton University
Reed College
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rhodes College
Rice University
Rochester Institute of Technology
Saint Louis University
Saint Mary’s College
Sarah Lawrence College
Scripps College
Skidmore College
Smith College
Soka University of America
Spelman College
St John’s University-New York
St Lawrence University
St Mary’s College of Maryland
St. John’s College (MD)
St. John’s College (NM)
Stevens Institute of Technology
Stony Brook University
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Syracuse University
Thomas Aquinas College
Trinity College
Tufts University
Tulane University of Louisiana
Union College
University at Buffalo
University of California-Irvine
University of California-Los Angeles
University of California-Riverside
University of California-Santa Cruz
University of Chicago
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Maryland-College Park
University of Miami
University of Pennsylvania
University of Puget Sound
University of Rochester
University of San Diego
University of San Francisco
University of Southern California
University of the Pacific
University of Tulsa
University of Vermont
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Wake Forest University
Washington College
Washington University in St Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Westmont College
Wheaton College (IL)
Wheaton College (MA)
Whitman College
Whittier College
Willamette University
Williams College
Wofford College
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Yale University
Yeshiva University
USNWR Top 100-ish on-campus arrests for liquor law violations per thousand dorm room beds per year:
Boston University 1.0
St Olaf College 1.1
Marquette University 1.1
Washington and Lee University 1.1
Franklin and Marshall College 1.2
Juniata College 1.3
Cornell University 1.5
University of Iowa 1.6
University of Denver 1.7
Northeastern University 1.7
Virginia Military Institute 1.7
Davidson College 1.8
University of California-Berkeley 2.0
Luther College 2.1
The University of Tennessee-Chattanooga 2.3
Linfield College-McMinnville Campus 2.4
The College of Wooster 2.4
Southwestern University 2.4
Drexel University 2.5
Dickinson College 2.6
Denison University 2.7
Duquesne University 2.7
Rutgers University-New Brunswick 2.7
North Carolina State University at Raleigh 2.7
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2.7
Beloit College 2.9
Grinnell College 3.0
Elizabethtown College 3.0
University of Connecticut 3.1
Purdue University-Main Campus 3.5
College of William and Mary 3.7
University of Notre Dame 3.8
University of Virginia-Main Campus 3.9
Colorado College 4.2
Colorado School of Mines 4.5
Texas Christian University 4.5
Villanova University 4.7
Carleton College 4.9
Hope College 5.4
Washington & Jefferson College 5.5
DePauw University 5.8
Kenyon College 5.8
University of South Carolina-Columbia 5.9
University of California-Davis 6.1
Sewanee-The University of the South 6.1
Transylvania University 6.1
Lafayette College 6.2
University of California-Santa Barbara 6.3
Ohio Wesleyan University 6.5
Bucknell University 7.2
Lawrence University 7.7
Stanford University 8.0
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 8.5
University of California-San Diego 9.0
Ohio State University-Main Campus 9.3
College of Saint Benedict 9.4
Colby College 9.7
University of Richmond 9.8
University of Delaware 9.9
Bryn Mawr College 10.0
Southern Methodist University 10.1
Muhlenberg College 10.3
Augustana College 10.5
Dartmouth College 10.9
Saint Anselm College 11.1
Wabash College 11.2
University of Massachusetts-Amherst 11.4
University of Georgia 11.7
Gustavus Adolphus College 13.0
Lake Forest College 13.5
Carnegie Mellon University 14.6
Swarthmore College 14.7
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 15.7
Gettysburg College 15.9
Miami University-Oxford 16.3
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus 17.7
Baylor University 18.0
Hampden-Sydney College 18.6
Indiana University-Bloomington 18.8
Ursinus College 21.3
Clemson University 21.6
Haverford College 22.4
Saint Michael’s College 25.9
Michigan State University 29.7
University of Colorado Boulder 38.9
Lehigh University 39.6
University of New Hampshire-Main Campus 45.0
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 50.1
From what I have heard from my kids, campus police at a few of the “zero arrests” schools will bust up a party and the student(s) may or may not be reported to the disciplinary committee, but no arrests are generally made.
Seems kind of harsh to report underaged dorm room beer drinking to the cops, but I’m sure others will disagree.
Underage drinking is a civil offense in Wisconsin, not a criminal offense, so that probably explains some of the seemingly low arrest numbers, but disciplinary referrals (basically school issued tickets) are much larger. On page 9 of the 2018 Clery Report it shows that on-campus there were 2,190 liquor law disciplinary referrals (first two columns combined) and only 1 arrest, and 729 drug disciplinary referrals (13 arrests). The Clery Report (federal law requires all higher ed institutions to complete annually) does standardize reporting across schools, yet even then there are differences in how arrests and violations are recorded and captured. Then, one has to do the math to get an incidence rate per 1,000 students. Clery report also captures other crimes such as rape, burglary, assault, domestic violence, etc.
Difficult to make assessments about on campus drug & alcohol activities. From the first two listed groups, MIT & Trinity College are both pretty active campuses. My point being that these stats can be misleading.
I’m indifferent to activities and school disciplinary actions, myself. I’m very much not indifferent to, for instance, a kid getting a minor in possession charge for a roommate’s alcohol.
I’ll take a look!