Binge drinking is a huge part of college social life, and the severity of it has only been on the upswing recently. Binge drinking has been shown to have many negative effects on college students, but these proven effects have not stopped students from engaging in it. Most colleges and universities have policies in place that are meant to stop drinking, especially binge drinking. At Elon University, the policies for drinking are meant to make students who are in trouble to have safe ways of helping others. Many policies at colleges are meant to reduce the amount of tragic events related to alcohol use, but as we have seen, deaths and serious injuries continue to occur across the nation at different campuses. Of course, some schools have more policies and stricter policies, but the lack of intense enforcement lets the binge drinking continue. Realistically, enforcing the policies that universities put in place is beyond challenging, drinking could be occurring pretty much anywhere on campuses, and there is no way for campus police, or the town police to know where to target specifically.

College students are entitled to a fair amount of privacy, so being able to intervene and catch students in the act of binge drinking, or prior to drinking is difficult. Drinking while at college has such a huge culture built around it that seems to make students want to drink more. There are a lot of factors that lead into this drive of binge drinking, and it seems as though it will not decrease anytime soon. Policies at universities and colleges could absolutely become harsher, but new policies will not lead to a decrease in binge drinking. Students when caught drinking in residence halls are often just written up and have to write a short essay, and face minor fines, the lack of intimidation of this is displayed on this College Confidential forum. When the United States had prohibition, a law from the federal government not allowing consumption of alcohol, people did not stop drinking. Putting in policies to completely stop the use of alcohol would likely only make the consumption of alcohol more dangerous. It would become more dangerous because students would not want to call for help when something goes very badly. So, creating policies to eliminate drinking entirely will not reduce binge drinking, and will make it more of a secretive and dangerous thing for students to take part in.

Another thing to account for when creating policies to reduce binge drinking is that there are so many students at college that are of legal age to purchase alcohol. Access to alcohol is extremely easy on college campuses, underage students have little trouble getting alcohol from older students, purchasing it themselves, or getting it when they are at a party. In order to reduce binge drinking, access to alcohol needs to be way more challenging for students. Policies that would be able to do this are nearly impossible to create because there is nothing illegal about a 21 year old student purchasing alcohol.

Binge drinking in college has been occurring for a very long time. A culture of drinking has been built for so many colleges across the country. This culture is not an easy thing to just stop, many universities have been fighting back against it for numerous years and have gotten nowhere with it. The culture of drinking if practically embedded into your years at a college as this research from Harvard shows. Another huge factor that adds to this is Greek Life on campuses. A lot of greek life has been built up around partying and the consumption of a lot of alcohol. Binge drinking is effectively endorsed by greek life at many colleges. To change the policies to reduce binge drinking, a college would have to work against a lot of what greek life is all about. The faculty would have to deal with students that are both a part of greek life and not a part of greek with new policies created. At many schools greek life is very powerful and a challenge when they are not getting what they want. Sections of greek life here at Elon University face probation and other actions taken against them that are meant to not allow them to have parties, but the parties still continue along with the binge drinking. Greek life already is so challenging to stop, even when they are facing consequences through current policies.

Focusing more on the culture of drinking that has been built at schools, students use binge drinking as a way to destress. As ridiculous and un-intelligent as it is to be said this way, it is a way that students can get away from the stresses and pressures of their academic lives. Creating new policies to make it more challenging for students to use binge drinking as a de-stresser will make a lot of the student body very unhappy with the faculty. Even though the terrible health effects have been proven over and over for students, binge drinking is so common for students to participate in, in order for them to try to escape their stress. Taking away a way for students to reduce their stress can ultimately begin to cause more anxiety and difficulties for students.

Campus policies will simply not be sufficient enough to reduce binge drinking. There are far too many factors that are a part of why extreme binge drinking occurs at colleges. Policies will not stop students from engaging in binge drinking, new policies will only create more problems on campuses from a multitude of different groups.