To the surprise of many, the approach has produced marked declines in the number of students who say they drink heavily. The premises of the new strategy are that binge drinking has been exaggerated and that, by harping on it, colleges have pushed students into thinking that heavy drinking fits the model of the American college student. Under the new strategy, though, rather than scare students about the dangers of drink, the colleges are introducing campaigns that cite statistics indicating that, in fact, most students drink in moderation.
Proponents admit that the data is limited to a handful of campuses.
But the declines at those colleges have been enough to prompt several hundred institutions, from Dartmouth and Cornell to the Universities of Washington and Arizona, to adopt the same tactic. The federal department of education is paying for a more comprehensive study of the effects of the strategy. The new campaigns have opened a bitter debate about the difference between heavy drinking and youthful experimentation. Those who first sounded the alarm about binge drinking dismiss the new campaigns as Pollyannaish and doubt statistics saying that students overestimate the amount they believe their peers drink. Marketing, they say, will only gloss over the problem.