I’m not understanding the objection here. The claim is that about 1800 students a year die from alcohol related causes. And apparently, that is true. Most of the deaths are car crashes. The Washington Post gives some evidence that, maybe, the car crash estimate is a little high. But there is no vast overstatement here.
If you read the other articles that cite those numbers they imply binged-drinking is the reason. Few of these cases even tie to that and the extrapolations are dubious.Many in college do not need to drive to drink at all. They walk to bars parties or cab it. Most not in college lack that option.
In my neck of the woods, a handful of students are lost to alcohol related drownings and freezing to death every year. A lot of college campuses here are in small towns with rivers running through them. Happens a few times a year that a student leaves a bar late at night alone, never gets back to their dorm, and their body is found in the river a week or two later. Same thing a few times a year with students getting lost on a winter night and not making it back, and freezing to death. Just saying there are a lot of ways drinking can contribute to deaths of college students, certainly not all of them are alcohol poisoning at a frat party.
As it probably is in most cases. The students who die of car crashes, falls, drownings and freezing die because of binge drinking. They were very drunk, and then they crashed the car, fell to their death, drowned in a freezing river, or froze to death because they were so drunk they couldn’t find their way home.
The article from Rutgers College says that 1800 students a year die from alcohol poisoning, which is clearly untrue. But the other two articles say 1800 students a year die from alcohol related causes, and they do.