Underage drinking is a deeply embedded part of college culture and is a contributing factor, if not the principal cause of, a host of problems in campus communities ranging from the college drop out rates to the frequency of violent crimes, such as assaults and rapes. No longer willing to accept the social costs of underage drinking, many Texas colleges and universities have begun to fight back, both by stepping up enforcement of the state’s underage drinking laws on their campuses and by supporting efforts to change cultural norms within the campus community.

To aid these efforts and to promote nationally recognized best practices, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC), Texans Standing Tall, Texas Municipal Police Association, the Texas Sports Coalition, and other Alliance members have sponsored a series of symposiums and team training opportunities for participants from the state’s college and university communities. In its role as the administrator of the state’s federally funded EUDL (Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws) Block Grant program, TABC has also provided grant support to a limited number of projects that target underage drinking on or around specific college and university campuses.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), another Alliance partner, is organizing student chapters (UMADD) at a number of the state’s colleges and universities. MADD encourages its college chapters to plan and implement campus and community wide prevention projects and provides on-going technical assistance to support those projects.