Ways Colleges Are Coping With Underage Drinking
Underage drinking is a seedy but inescapable part of college life and college culture. After all, for many young adults, going to college is the first time that they have been granted freedom from the watchful eyes of their parents and other authority figures. Unfortunately, this means that many college students engage in less than admirable behavior, such as binge drinking and partying until the late hours of the night. Universities are not blind to this trend of underage drinking. In fact, many explicitly state their policies in dealing with underage students caught illegally consuming alcohol. Virginia Tech, for example, has a policy in place where every time a student under the age of 21 is caught in possession of alcohol, drinking alcohol, or intoxicated, the student’s parents are notified. The school hopes that this measure will help prevent young students from developing alcoholism and curb the incidents of underage drinking as students are typically "more concerned about their parents being notified than they are of the legal consequences" of drinking, Edward Spencer, the vice president for student affairs at Virginia Tech, told the Washington Post.
However, despite these novel ways of punishing those who are caught drinking, underage drinking continues to exist on college campuses. In fact, a 2001 College Alcohol Study found that 44 percent of college undergraduates reported that they participated in binge drinking at least once in the two weeks prior to being surveyed. Binge drinking is the type of drinking common to college parties where men have five or more drinks in one night and women have four or more drinks in one night. The scenario is not atypical of college party scenes where large gatherings of college students chug down beers and cocktails. This rate of college binge drinking has held steady despite an increase in alcohol education and prevention programs. This does not mean that the programs are ineffective, but rather that other measures must be put into place to deal with underage drinking.
Some schools have taken a different approach to the situation by not focusing on punishing intoxicated students but on simply ensuring that they are safe. Texas Tech offers its students a free cab ride from anywhere in Lubbock to an on-campus residence with no questions asked. This encourages students to get home safely after a night out rather than trying to drive home intoxicated because if students are drinking anyway, the school would rather those students stay safe while doing so. Whatever approach schools take to cope with underage drinking, it remains clear that this is one college trend that will be difficult to eradicate.
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