It's common knowledge that students tend to consume large amounts of alcohol when going to college. The problem has spiraled out of control over the past few years, with young adults engaging in alcohol abuse on a regular basis. This behavior opens up the way for a host of other problems, such as for example driving under the influence. The vast majority of students who crash their cars are drunk or otherwise intoxicated, statistics show, and so colleges are becoming increasingly aware of the necessity to implement recommendations to reduce college student drinking habits.

But this is not an easy task. Many institutions have failed in spite of taking active steps towards implementing such measures. A group of investigators from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health has just released a new report on how these efforts are coming along, and the conclusions are not very encouraging. The campaigns have only registered limited success, the scientists who conducted the work say. Colleagues from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) say that alcoholism remains a major health issue in spite of their warnings about the problem.

“In 2002, there was a great deal of research available to show that heavy drinking was a problem on college campuses. The NIAAA recommendations were designed to help colleges and college communities address that problem. Unfortunately, what we've found is that little progress in the implementation of the recommendations has been made since they were released,” explains the lead author of the new investigation, UM scientist Toben Nelson, ScD. He reveals that no more than 50 percent of the 351 colleges that received the guidelines managed to make at least minimal some efforts towards reducing the incidence of alcohol consumption.

Reducing the amount of alcohol students consume is essential, authorities say. Experts present statistics which show that no less than 600,000 students are injured in accidents related to alcohol consumption each year. All these people are aged between 18 and 24, and many of them are marked for life by their accidents. An additional 97,000 students fall victims to various forms of abuse – including date rapes – because of alcohol consumption. Under these circumstances, curbing the phenomenon should become a priority, scientists believe.