<p>There are two main sources for drinking rate data at US colleges.</p>
<p>The biggie is the Harvard School of Public Health surveys, now conducted three times (1993, 1997, 1999) by Henry Weschler et al. This is the definitive research on college drinking. Here are links to each of the three surveys as publich in the Journal of American College Health:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/rpt1994/CAS1994rpt.shtml[/url]”>http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/rpt1994/CAS1994rpt.shtml</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/rpt1998/CAS1998rpt.shtml[/url]”>http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/rpt1998/CAS1998rpt.shtml</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/rpt2000/CAS2000.shtml[/url]”>http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/rpt2000/CAS2000.shtml</a></p>
<p>There are links in each report to the key data, including breakdowns by race, gender, location of college, selectivity of college, residential fraternity, etc.</p>
<p>Wenschler is not allowed to publish the data for participating schools, but the information is available to the colleges and appropriate researchers. My knowlege of the general range of several schools comes from someone who has worked with the data. I do not have specific percentages, but I know that Swarthmore’s binge rate is somewhere around 30% – comfortably in Weschler’s “low-binge rate” category. Amherst and Williams about 15% higher – at or above the national average – and solidly in the Weschler’s “medium binge rate” category. This is little surprising because “highly selective” schools tend to have the second lowest binge drinking rates. There is a very strong correlation between binge-drinking in high school and college binge-drinking.</p>
<p>The second source of the data is the bi-annual surveys conducted by the COFHE member schools – 30 of the very top private universities and colleges in the country. Under their COFHE agreements, colleges can publish their OWN data, but not data for other schools. The percentages I mentioned in the previous post came from a Swarthmore publication. </p>
<p>You would have to ask the Office of Institutional Research at Amherst and Wiliams to provide the same COFHE data on alcohol at their schools. Since the Presidents of both Williams and Amherst have expressed serious concern about alcohol problems at their schools in the last few year, I am certain they have looked at the data. At Williams, the problem has been severe enough that the Board of Directors held a special meeting on the subject after last year’s homecoming. I believe that Amherst’s 2002 homecoming produced several serious alcohol related fights with students requiring medical treatment for injuries as serious as stab wounds and triggered some pretty strong comments from the President.</p>