Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Reynolds: Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Drink

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704641604576255161172364474-lMyQjAxMTAxMDEwMjExNDIyWj.html

The "old enough to fight, old enough to drink" argument has force. In fact, 18-year-olds in America are old enough to do pretty much everything except drink. Along with joining the military, 18-year-olds can vote, marry, sign contracts, and even take on a crippling lifetime burden of student loan debt in pursuit of an education that may never land them a job. Yet we face the absurd phenomenon of colleges encouraging students to go into six-figure debt—which can't be discharged in bankruptcy—but forbidding them to drink on campus because they're deemed insufficiently mature to appreciate the risks.

To be fair, over 130 college presidents, as part of something called the Amethyst Initiative, have called for an end to the drinking age of 21.

Posted via email from The Blue Pelican

No comments: