<p>Heh, I remember the first day I moved into a dormitory at my college. After my roommate’s parents finished setting up all of the assorted fixings – TV stands, bookcases, bunking beds, the mom and dad went out and returned with three cases of beer to store under his bed before they left.</p>
<p>This was AFTER the drinking age was raised to 21 by the way. What are the odds that this guy who was comfortable with drinking underage and has his parents open support is going to suddenly become a teetotaler just because a freshman orientation guide lectured him for a week about it?</p>
<p>We live in a culture where alcohol consumption is pretty commonplace. Most workplaces have happy hours, most parties – even adult parties – have moderate drinking and alcohol available, and drinking at/before/after events like games is commonplace. Binge drinking is a logical (but not inevitable!) outgrowth of that, but I am not surprised that college administrators are finding themselves unmotivated to enforce four years of teetotalism in a culture where it seems as if everyone drinks at least sometimes. </p>
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<p>The article talks about the low rates of colleges trying to enforce alcohol restrictions at outlets and events completely unrelated to the colleges, and I have a hard time being surprised by that either; why would a bar feel motivated to cut off its happy hours or raise its prices simply because a college dean asks them to??? That’s a classic “town and gown” relationship here. The bar isn’t going to tamper with its own business any more than the school is going to start having professors hand out Heinekens during lectures just because the bars ask them to.</p>
<p>What are colleges supposed to do to really prevent underage drinking?</p>
<p>Isn’t 18 years long enough to teach a kid what is good behavior and what is self destructive?</p>
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Agreed, I think it is quite clear what has been ‘taught’ in these cases (long before arriving at college).</p>
<p>How is an institution going to change what a family did or didn’t teach for the two decades of the young person’s “formative years?” Somehow, aren’t parents and families supposed to have a major role in how young people develop? Are kids too young to go off to college and is the college supposed to be “big brother” watching over all these impressionable young minds, who have never learned any common sense or moderation?</p>
<p>Exactly. You spend 18 years teaching (or not teaching) one set of values and you expect the school, at age 18, to radically brainwash the students into acting in a completely different way?? It’s crazy, and the NYT article tries its best but it can’t make the goals look even sillier and more quixotic if it tried. It’s common for political firebrands to label colleges as indoctrination centers but I think this is a case of folks believing in the hype to an impractical level.</p>
<p>colleges can’t stop binge drinking. The thing that would stop binge drinking is the legalization of beer and wine for 18 year olds, and a prohibitive tax on hard liquor.</p>
<p>Agree.</p>
<p>If parents can’t stop it while their HS kids are living at home, how do u expect colleges to stop it w even less supervision? </p>
<p>Colleges can start conducting random urine tests and on the spot expelling kids who fail.</p>
<p>^^^
Oh good heavens! Colleges are not going to start doing that. They don’t even know where many kids are between the hours of say 9pm and 2am when such drinking is likely going on. You think colleges would consider conducting random urine tests in the middle of the night? What? Wake kids up and demand that they pee on a strip?</p>
<p>LOL. Would they be conducting those “random urine tests” on Friday nights or would they wait until noon on Monday?</p>
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<still chuckling=“”>
In this cup…
And please mark your name and room number on it…
Oh, and your Greek affiliation. If you’re a dormie, just leave that place blank…</still></p>
<p>Agree that it would help to lower the drinking age. </p>
<p>I think the problem is complicated. All the public school programs, which start at a young age, try to indoctrinate kids with a simplistic “just say no” approach that leaves the kids vulnerable, frankly, to overdrinking and even alcohol poisoning. They don’t learn how to drink. It is not clear what the best way to prepare kids is, in regard to drinking. Some of the kids who have never had any alcohol before college are the most likely candidates for a trip to the ER with alcohol poisoning.</p>
<p>My kids told me that, in high school, binge drinking took place because it was hard enough to “score” alcohol in the first place, and since it was illegal and not allowed, the gathered youngsters had the option of finishing it up or disposing of it. I suppose they could hide it in a closet but that isn’t exactly healthy either.</p>
<p>Alcohol in and of itself is a benign substance that even has health benefits. I had my first little sherry with my family before holiday meals, at age 14. I told my kids it was a natural substance that had been used both constructively and destructively throughout human history. I also told them one drink an hour is metabolized. If they stick to that, and keep the number of drinks down, alcohol is fine. My three are lucky in apparently not having a tendency to overimbibe, but for many I think the illegality and demonization of alcohol has had the opposite of the intended effect.</p>
<p>College presidents have been trying to get the drinking age down to 18 for some time. It is quite a burden for college administrations to figure out how to deal with this, I am sure, and there must be legal concerns very weekend, about drinking itself as well as the accidents or assaults that can result.</p>
<p>One other thing: rather than looking at the surface problem of binge-drinking, we might look at the big picture and wonder what is driving kids to want to obliterate themselves. The high stress of life for college-aged kids, the uncertainty of the future, the hard work and academic pressure, hook-ups and unsatisfying relationships. And leaving home is harder than anyone admits: many new college kids drink to relieve the pain of the transition. For those who can’t handle it, maybe better to stay home longer and ramp down the pressure, perhaps.</p>
<p>Lower drinking age to 18 or 19, have zero tolerance for drinking & driving, enforce public intoxication and drunk & disorderly laws already on the books. </p>
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<p>After all this is asking kids to pee in a cup too much to ask for?</p>
<p>We’ve tried lowering the drinking age…it didn’t work. The issue isn’t whether it’s legal or not, it’s more of a Rite of Passage for 18-22 year olds. </p>
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<p>Kudos for a very well thought out and reasoned post. I cannot agree more. </p>
<p>we had a serious incident when son was home for Thanksgiving. I’m still quite pissed at him and his friends for not looking out for each other. also pissed at the parents who own the home where the drinking took place. wifey won’t tell me where they were. she is actually protecting the violators who were responsible for her son’s near death experience. he’s home for winter recess now and I’m not leaving it alone. I love him and like seeing him from time to time. I don’t want to bury him.<br>
He is not under stress, he has it easy. He lives in the present and is not worried about the future, his work and academics are not hard, he has a regular girlfriend and good long standing friendships and has had good success making new friends. His transition was easy and lives near home and we’ve seen him several times and he’s been home several times during the 1st semester. But still when out with friends he had 8 shots and 2 beers. That he admitted to.</p>