Much-Higher Age Would Help Colleges

Chris Weiss: Set legal age for drinking at 25
Lansing State Journal August 31, 2008

“I have read of the list of college and university presidents urging reconsideration of the legal drinking age.

I was an undergraduate at Michigan State University in the '80s and saw the devastation inflicted upon the student population by alcohol. I saw brilliant students who could not handle the transition from rules 24/7 to the anything goes atmosphere of college life. Many college-age students are not ready to use alcohol responsibly.

The problem is, the drinking age of 21 is actually too low.

Older undergraduates buy for younger undergraduates, effectively negating the drinking age on most campuses. I know that was how I drank at MSU.

I think the better idea would be to raise the drinking age to 25, greatly limiting the number of legal buyers on campus.

By 25, most college students would either be out in the work force or in graduate school, where people are forced to act more responsibly than they are in college.

Most alcoholics start young; many start in college. It would seem that if we could postpone drinking until most people were out of college, we would lower the rate of alcoholism. Similarly, we should do the same for tobacco use, raising the legal age for the purchase or consumption of tobacco to 25.

We already know prohibition is impossible, but raising the legal age would hopefully help most people make better decisions.”

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