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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

> They are adults, and if there are no reasonable venues for being able to do regular adult things, for intentional reasons or not, they will create venues somehow, someway.

Yes, it's called an off-campus apartment. Students have been drinking in them for centuries.

America's pathologies around student drinking are ridiculous. But let's not pretend like the path of least resistance doesn't already exist, and isn't in wide application by just about every other college in this country. The only reason we're talking about Stanford is because it hits all of the culture war hot-topic buttons (elite college, bureaucracy, "coddling," &c.). Nothing about the actual state of affairs is remotely unusual or controversial.

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Have you ever lived in the area? I'm 100% sure you have't because of how you're framing this. Off campus housing is extremely expensive. Stanford doesn't really provide any affordable options off campus because they have all the housing they need in campus. The only students who live out of campus are local students and MBA students.

Do you expect undergrads who fly come from Missouri to start paying 2k/month for housing? I'm sorry but your solution is an imaginary one that doesn't apply to Stanford. NYC is completely different because you can practically live anywhere there and use the great public transportation network to get to where you want to go. If you live in East Palo Alto (cheapest area), good luck getting to class.

> Yes, it's called an off-campus apartment. Students have been drinking in them for centuries.

Agreed as a generality. But we are discussing Stanford in particular and you were replying to this:

> Sure, there are just very few Stanford undergrads who live off-campus. And most Stanford undergrads would not choose to live off-campus in order to be able to party more.

The local effectiveness and externalities of rules, no matter how widespread or time honored, still depend on their local context.

So many takes on here prove that this really should not be elevated to a national discussion. You simply do not understand the context at Stanford.

95% of undergrads live on campus. There is not enough housing for them to live off-campus irrespective of the cost. There is not enough parking for that many students to commute. Freshmen aren’t even allowed to have cars. Off-campus housing is not an option.

At least up until 2016 there was an “open door policy” where underage drinking was not policed when done indoors, ironically for safety, so that students would not be afraid to ask for help or support when necessary.

If you don’t know the context at Stanford, you really can’t understand the “war” aspect and I don’t blame you. That’s why this shouldn’t be national news.

> 95% of undergrads live on campus.

Sure, but also most undergrads are not of drinking age, so a no drinking policy is not exactly the end of the world for them. They shouldn’t be drinking anyway.

> underage drinking was not policed

Not policing underage drinking is one thing. But chartered school organizations, throwing school approved events, on school property, with school funds is absolute something Stanford must police. You don’t need to have attended Stanford to understand why.

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