<p>"Why does a 44% binge drinking rate sound good to you? Is that place SOOO much better than a place that has a 52% rate? And why do you treat these surveys like they are science. I've done surveys for years and you have to be VERY careful about how you interpret the data. Different measures are used - sometimes different size sample populations."</p>
<p>These surveys, using exactly the same questions, repeatedly tested for reliability and validity, have been around since 1975. They utilize very large sample sizes. The numbers are not at all "squishy".</p>
<p>But I'll have a go at that question, noting of course, that a college's drinking environment would be only one of many considerations I would ever use in the calculus of choosing a college. For some students (and I would think a non-religious medically required total abstainer) it would be an extremely important factor, for others not so much.</p>
<p>On virtually all non-religious residential campuses, the total abstainer rate is somewhere between 15-25%. Take 20% as a given. If you use the 40% bingeing in the past two weeks as the median, it would mean that 40% drank moderately (if they drank at all in that two-week period), and certainly 20% not at all. So 60% of the campus found other things to do.</p>
<p>Now add 10% to the bingers, and all of a sudden, moderate drinkers are in a distinct minority (in fact, if you believe the W&L article, students say they tend to disappear). The total abstainers are still there, but the feel of the campus begins to change. In any 50% bingeing campus, binge rates for white male students will be substantially higher, and for better or for worse, they tend to set the social patterns in most environments. So it's likely to feel different. Whether you like it or not is simply a matter of personal preference.</p>
<p>Now take it 10% the other way. Half the campus is now made up of moderate drinkers (some of whom may not have drunk at all in that two-week period), with 20% abstainers. The cultural pattern of the campus is likely to be quite different. Again, whether or not you like it is a matter of personal preference. </p>
<p>The association of high binge environments with sexual predatory behavior (as the W&L stats portray) is particularly strong. You'll tend to see significantly less of that in low-binge environments, coupled with the fact that, on the whole, women are less likely to binge - so campuses with a female majority have a built-in non-binge (dis)advantage. For whatever reason, binge drinking too often turns otherwise healthy college-age males into potential (or actual) felons.</p>
<p>But notice that the swing in what the culture might feel like would occur with differences of only 20% or less. I imagine there are many students that are attracted to a "work hard, play hard" environment, and I have no problem with it if that's what they choose. And there are lots of excellent colleges with superb academic faculties and facilities like my alma mater where at least a strong plurality are happy with the environment the way it is (though clearly the administration isn't, since they are spending millions trying to change it). </p>
<p>Transparency is still the key. I happen to think, like ID, that the binge drinking rate is at least as important as alumni giving for purposes of USNWR - that is, aiding students and parents in decision-making, but for that we'd wait until hell freezes over.</p>
<p>Professionally, I see too "acute consequences" - many deaths, too many injuries, too many sexual assaults and rapes, too many hospitalizations resulting from binge drinking. Clearly, if this is an accepted form of "socializing", it is a dangerous one, though I understand young people well enough to know that many like to live dangerously.</p>
<p>However, binge drinking by itself is not directly linked to alcoholism or serious alcohol problems among adults. Heavy drinking (repetitive binge drinking, or near daily drinking is). Roughly 60% of those who are or who become heavy drinkers in college will become alcoholics or develop serious problems related to alcohol as adults. (Some of them, by the way, will be very "successful" in their careers - alcoholics and addicts are not stupid, they are just alcoholics and addicts). It's just too many, and I wish educational institutions would see it as part of their calling to educate.</p>
<p>But overall, as a parent, I'm less concerned with students who enjoy drinking, and more concerned with students who would like other options.</p>