It's no secret that college kids drink. Still, a recent study has found that few universities are doing much to combat excessive alcohol use.
According to USA Today, instead of attacking binge drinking through community programming, colleges are attempting to control the issue on a case-by-case basis.
Toben Nelson, an assistant professor of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota, analyzed 351 college administrators' answers to an online questionnaire. When respondents were asked whether they had complied with the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's 2002 recommendations on how to reduce student drinking, the results were surprising:
...Nelson and colleagues found that only one-third of college communities performed compliance checks for illegal alcohol sales, only 15% mandated server training, only 7% restricted the number of alcohol outlets, and only 2% raised alcohol prices.
The study also found that there was "very little action on the task force recommendations and very little implementation."
Another recent report highlights another aspect of binge drinking. According to the New York Times, University of Texas-Arlington assistant economics professor Jeffrey S. DeSimone found that binge drinking leads to a higher instance of promiscuous sex among high schoolers and thus, STD infection and pregnancy.
What do you think? What can colleges do to limit incidences of excessive drinking?