A recent study published by The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs shakes its finger at what it called "heavy drinking colleges" -- schools with more than 50 percent of students reporting participation in binge drinking -- for possibly not doing enough to prevent underage drinking.
Penn State, reporting at a high-risk drinking rate of 54 percent in a 2009 Penn State Pulse study, fits the study's definition of a heavy drinking school.
A co-author of the study, Toben Nelson, suggested that some schools do not take the right approach dealing with the alcohol issue and that educational efforts are mostly ineffective compared to tightening enforcement.
In Penn State's case, we don't think the university or its approach can take too much blame.
As one university official pointed out, the "100 businesses within five miles of Old Main that sell alcohol" are not something the university can actively govern.
Alcohol education programming is really all the university has. We see Penn State as being pretty vigilant and reasonably tight when it comes to its alcohol policies and education courses.
And the students are the ones who truly govern their culture.
It's fallacious to warrant blame to the university if there is nothing it can do to curb the level of underage drinking off campus and little it can do on campus without converting the area into a police state. This would be a drastic consequence for any student, sober or not, to deal with on a daily basis.
Even when looking at the bars in the downtown area, many are quite austere when it comes to checking the IDs of everyone who enters and cutting off someone who appears to have had too much to drink.
Restaurants often observe regulations that prevent those under 25 years of age from drinking if another person at the table is under 21.
It seems that this study makes an overgeneralization about "heavy drinking" schools and what can be done to adjust their students' cultures.
While the fact may be true that Penn State students have a binge drinking and underage consumption problem, it boils down to the students primarily, not just the university, to adjust the culture. We think Penn State does reasonably well addressing this issue, and it's one that truly rests with the personal responsibility of students.
