The State University of New York in Albany has worked out an agreement with off-campus tavern owners to stop happy hours and avoid selling to minors. The president called each student's parents to explain his actions. The University of Rhode Island at Kingston has banned alcohol at all campus activities. While booze-related incidents such as student brawls have not lessened, police say students are less aggressive toward authorities. The issue is becoming more urgent in the wake of recent alcohol-related tragedies, including the death this week of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student.
Some experts say the real solution lies in changing the culture of campuses and their host cities.
If MIT freshman Scott Krueger were the only student to die from overdrinking, his story would be an isolated incident of lost potential. But in fact, binge drinking has become a sad fact of life on most college campuses. This year alone, three students have died from alcohol poisoning, and more have died from injuries sustained while drunk. The scale of college drinking is immense. The rites of societal passage keep getting earlier, and very high numbers of college freshmen come to us with a drinking habit.