College by the Numbers

10: Number of years since the National Institute on Alcohol and Alcoholism identified college binge drinking as a serious threat to students

32: Number of schools partaking in the National College Health Improvement Project’s Learning Collaborative on High Risk Drinking, a comprehensive approach to harm reduction

34: Percentage of colleges that have banned alcohol since the NIAA announcement

136: Number of Amethyst Initiative signatories

747: Number of college presidents surveyed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The survey found that most colleges had implemented some form of alcohol education.

1800+: Number of college students who die annually after binge drinking.

100: Percentage of preventable alcohol related deaths on college campuses


2 Responses to “College by the Numbers”

  1. Edwin Bonilla Says:

    Almost all alcohol related deaths on college campuses would be be prevented if the drinking age was lowered to 18 and if there are better laws and rules to encourage alcohol responsibility. It’s horrible that 1,000+ young women and young men who are in college die from binge drinking every year. Fortunately, universities are doing something else than enforcing the drinking age because hundreds of colleges have an alcohol education program. Universities and colleges should not ban alcohol because they should focus on enforcing rules that regulate drinking. Universities may ban drinking during the first month of the academic year to reduce binge drinking.

  2. Ajax the Great Says:

    One very good example of a college with a great alcohol education program is Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS). Their award-winning Alcohol Education Project has had tremendous success over the years. So why hasn’t every college followed their lead?

    As for banning drinking on campus (“dry campuses”), it is highly unlikely that it solves any problems since it merely forces drinking off-campus and underground. In fact, some of the wildest party schools in the nation have been officially “dry” campuses, such as SUNY Albany in the 1990s and early 2000s. I almost went there in 2002 but ended up going to SUNY New Paltz for undergrad and Penn State for grad school. Interestingly, New Paltz was wet and rather lenient, but not nearly as wild as Albany. Yet both college towns had at least one off-campus bar that knowingly let 18-20 year olds in (if they “chalked” their IDs of course). Penn State, of course, is the #3 party school in the nation, despite being rather strict about “underage” drinking. They were a wet campus until last year, when they banned drinking in the dorms, and so far there is no evidence that Penn State is any less wild than they were in previous years.