Dry Campus Vs. Wet Campuses

    Students drinking on college campuses has been a cultural normality for generations. In order to combat this, many campuses have a “dry campus” policy that doesn’t even allow students that are of legal age to drink to have alcohol on campus. But do these policies really stop college students from doing it? The answer is no and because of this, most colleges have removed the ban for those of legal drinking age, but that still doesn’t get rid of the problem that no matter what, underage students are going to drink. Younger students have older friends that supply alcoholic beverages to them. This enables binge drinking within the underage community. Many parents have problems with their children going to colleges with “wet” campuses due to worries of drunk driving, fighting, sexual assault, and alcohol poisoning.

Most of these concerns are valid, proven by the statistics taken by Wechsler, Henry, and Toben F. Nelson in the study, “What We Have Learned From the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing Attention on College Student Alcohol Consumption and the Environmental Conditions That Promote It.” saying that with each alcoholic drink consumed, the chances of injury increase drastically (Wechsler and Nelson 2006). Universities that are promoting a dry campus have the intentions of reducing these injuries and removing the problems that involve alcohol consumption. While wet campuses feel that they should allow students to do as they please if they are of legal age because, well, they are adults. Making that decision is something that comes along with the responsibilities of being an adult.
But, what if we could come up with a compromise that allows both sides of the argument to be satisfied? We are proposing that campuses provide “wet zones” among college campuses for ages 18 & up. You can review our proposal here.

Should colleges be allowed to ban alcohol on campus?

Source: Gross, Jessica, and Mike Dang. "Should Colleges Be Allowed to Ban Alcohol on Their Campuses?" Unigo. N.p., 4 Mar. 2015. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

Summary: This article is a two sided argument about whether or not colleges should be able to ban alcohol on their campuses and also addresses important reasons why some campuses go dry.

The first half of the article, which is pro-allowing bans, compares college to a business and states that students can easily go somewhere else if these rules aren’t to their liking. The author also points out why some non-religious schools have a dry policy, such as campuses that just want to appeal to those who just don’t like to be around alcohol. Author Jessica Gross states, “Just as students should be able to pick a school with no alcohol ban, they should be able to pick a school with a dry campus. To say that no school ever should institute a ban on alcohol is to reduce the spectrum of applicants’ options to a segment of the market.” (Gross).

The second half however,compares the dry policy to the prohibition and believes that college students are going to drink anyway, so colleges should find other methods of keeping students safe. The author of this part of the article, Mike Dang, states,”College students drink—they just do….So rather than try to enforce a ban that clearly failed in our country 80 years ago on campus, colleges should be proactive in other ways to keep students safe…” (Dang). Furthermore, the author addresses the benefits of having a “wet zone,” on campus, such as how the profits from selling alcohol on campus could go to fund other programs, and how having alcohol on campus can create a strong campus community, at least from his perspective.

Quality: This article addresses both sides of the ban debate and gives supportive reasoning behind both of the points. This article is also a newer source of information that is coming straight from students instead of an outside party or study.

Issues: Author Mike Dang is a little unprofessional in some of his statements. For example, he states,” Luckily, our government learned that banning alcohol was stupid…”(Dang). The use of the word, “stupid,” feels childish, leaving room for readers to discredit his opinion.

Key words:

Dry policy

on-campus bar

Prohibition

underage drinking