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Dear RKS,
The fact is that colleges have been fighting the battle of
student alcohol abuse since they were opened. Most college administrators
say that excessive, dangerous drinking is becoming too widespread
and even socially acceptable by students, especially by those
under the legal age of 21. Alcohol arrests of students have increased
by 10% in each of the past five years.
A Harvard School of Public Health study of drinking habits
of 17,000 students conducted a few years ago found that 84% of
them drank regularly during the school year. Nearly 44% admitted
to "binge" drinking-----downing five or more alcoholic
drinks one after another. Several studies conducted since then
consistently report that this type of intensive drinking is growing
and is at the root cause of many serious campus problems such
as date rape and even alcohol related deaths,
including five just at colleges in the state of Virginia during
the past year, also one at M.I.T., still another at Louisiana
State ...one avoidable tragedy after another.
Colleges across the country are cracking down and even are
winning some support from students like your nephew, but it is
also enraging others. Witness last May when hundreds Michigan
State University students rioted in response to a new ban on
drinking at a popular campus site. Police had to use tear gas
to scatter the crowd. At Washington State University students
pelted police with rocks and beer cans when they had to quell
drunken students rioting outside several bars near the campus.
Dozens of students were arrested for public drunkeness at a similiar
disturbance at the University of Akron.
No, RKS, the problem is not confined to your nephew's university.
If counting the number of campus arrests provides, any sort of
guide to measure the extent of the problem, then it appears to
be just as serious on some Ivy League campuses as it is at the
huge state universities. Last year Michigan State tallied 574
alcohol arrests, more than any other in the nation. The University
of California at Berkley, home to many academically elite students,
came in second. Dartmouth, with 73 arrests had a smaller number
but, because of its smaller size had the highest rate per student
in the country.
Many colleges are trying to respond to the problem; banning
beer kegs from campus functions, prohibiting alcohol in residence
halls, etc. Eight national fraternities have decided to outlaw
alcohol from their chapter houses by the year 2000, more are
following this example. College officials are spending more time
in orientation programs warning new students about alcohol abuse.
Many doubt that their pleas are making a difference. They say
too many students are being lured by their peers into an intense
culture of drinking that begins on a Thusday night and does not
end until Sunday.
In Virginia, a state task force is considering notifying parents
of students who abuse alcohol. Objectors argue that an 18 year
old student is an adult whose privacy should be protected. I
say that he who supplies the "roast beef" (tuition)
has a right to know! A college education is not a child's right,
it is a privilege, the continued financial support of which should
depend on the recipient's behavior |
