<p>It can permeate a school, and then you can choose not to go to that school. If it is not the style you want, don’t go to UVA, Dartmouth, Alabama, etc. I’m not saying the schools shouldn’t control the activities (especially if the university owns the fraternity property). A school like UVa has a large Greek participation, with 60 houses (national and local). Many people choose UVa because they want the very active Greek life. </p>
<p>At my daughter’s school, Greeks are only 5% of the student population, but a huge part of the activities. The houses are in a horseshoe around a park, closer to the classrooms than the dorms. Most of the student government are Greeks (much more than 5%). The school wants something done, they ask the Greeks - Halloween trick or treating for the community, tailgate clean up at games, tour guides, volunteers for events. Because most of the Greek houses are on University prop, the University has a lot more control than at some schools where the houses are independent.</p>
<p>@twoinanddone I think there can be a lot of advantages to Greek life, but colleges need to somehow get the drinking and fraternities under control at least to the extent that students are not dying, and getting raped. </p>
<p>Maybe beer and wine need to be legalized for college students, so it can be regulated, and students will consume less hard liquor? With that change, and a real commitment from colleges and fraternities to encourage students to report real crimes, perhaps this problem can be solved without banning fraternities.</p>
<p>I know that people think that lowering the drinking age will cause students to drink less, or to drink less hard liquor. I’m sorry to say that there is no evidence for that proposition other than people’s fervent belief. It’s true that in the college years of many posters here, the drinking age was 18 AND students drank less hard liquor. But that does not mean that changing the drinking age will make it 1975.</p>
<p>I think lowering the age for beer would help tons. You get drunk much slower on beer and you feel it slowly. It would probably take a few years for those that have fake IDs to grow out of it but I think it would help </p>
<p>When I went to college the age in that state was 18 for everything, and we drank beer. Sometimes shots, but usually beer because it was so much cheaper. It takes a lot of beer to get really drunk. And we were happy. I then switched to a school where it was age 18 for 3.2 beer, and 21 for everything else (3.2 beer was in separate restaurants that had to serve food). It was fine until my friends turned 21 and then I wanted to be with them at the real bars. Mostly I still drank beer (except on Bahama Mama night).</p>
<p>I think most people, even college kids, will take the legal alternative of beer/wine if it is offered to 18-21 year olds. It’s just easier to follow the laws and rules than to get hard alcohol, store it or have to drink it all in one night. </p>
<p>I do think it would go a long way to controlling the big binge drinking if beer/wine were legal for 18-21 year olds. College kids like ‘easy’. </p>
<p>People think binge drinking and drunk driving couldn’t get worse for kids under 18, but it could. And it would, if high school seniors could buy beer legally.</p>
<p>As to making beer and wine legal for 18-20 year olds, maybe that would discourage hard liquor use, especially if hard liquor were taxed a lot. But the appetite for more taxes on alcohol is not high.</p>
<p>Frats do not have a monopoly on the college alcohol black market. They are the place to get FREE beer et al. Students buy vast amounts of alcohol to drink in dorms. That is why “pre-gaming” by drinking multiple shots of vodka before going out to parties is so common.</p>
<p>As long as frats are not letting everyone in, there is a cost. It is not free. They are not providing alcohol to be generous. </p>
<p>For many underage students, frat parties are the only way they know how to get alcohol. That should not be the case. They either need another avenue, or they need to keep the fraternities dry, or both.</p>
<p>Where my DH went to college, the frats and sororities are not allowed to live in their houses. They are called “lodges” and have no bedrooms. They are very nice buildings designed for large group gatherings, but no sleeping. When I visited DH’s fraternity’s newish lodge several months ago, I had the thought that it would make it far less likely for a sexual assault to occur on premises, without the cover of privacy. Of course that wouldn’t be an issue for frats inclined to gang rape, I suppose. </p>
<p>“People think binge drinking and drunk driving couldn’t get worse for kids under 18, but it could. And it would, if high school seniors could buy beer legally.”</p>
<p>Make the legal drinking age for beer (or near beer) and wine the January 1 that occurs after your 18th birthday. Or the later to occur of (i) 18th birthday and (ii) the September 1 of the year of your 18th birthday. For the vast majority of kids, now you have HS illegal and college age legal (except maybe for first semester). Done!! </p>
<p>You might also consider making the 18 drinking age only for on premises consumption in a licensed establishment. The rathskellar of the student union is a good place for kids to have the inevitable bad night.</p>
<p>It certainly is free for non-members, such as girls of any age. At my S’s college, any student–male or female–with a college ID was welcome in the house. Your third sentence implies some other motivation than the desire to be good hosts. When YOU give a party, is it BYOB? Do YOU have some ulterior motive when you serve drinks to your guests?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nonsense. For what seems like the 90th time, undergrads ROUTINELY pre-game in their dorms, usually, one gathers, using vodka or other hard alcohol. The is why an expression was invented to describe it. Since the majority of those kids are probably too young to buy vodka legally, obviously someone is buying it for them. So they have found that “other avenue.”</p>
<p>And, of course, schools with no Greeks at all have plenty of underage drinking.</p>
<p>And at S’s school, you have to show proof of an invite (typically via text) to be let in. But then Greeks are exclusionary and that’s bad. Make up your minds! </p>
<p>“The rathskellar of the student union is a good place for kids to have the inevitable bad night”</p>
<p>All this means is that the guy(s) up to no good have to escort the drunk girl they are taking advantage of 50 more yards to a dorm versus upstairs to a bedroom. Hardly solves the problem. </p>
<p>What all these posts indicate and no one wants to admit, is that as a society we have a huge alcohol problem. It is compounded by 18-21 year olds who are inexperienced in many facets. Lowering the drinking age or distinguishing between beer and hard alcohol do not address the fundamental problem of alcohol. And before anyone brings up the failure of prohibition, no one could have envisioned the stigma attached to cigarettes 40 years ago. Until we recognize we have a national problem all these proposed measures are just band aids. </p>