Presidents from some of the nation's most well known colleges and universities have created quite a stir with the Amethyst Initiative, a declaration of sorts that the national drinking age should be reviewed and discussed. Academia says underage binge drinking is the result of keeping the age limit at 21, while politicians, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention have retorted with multiple studies claiming that the current limit saves lives.

Both are right and both are horribly wrong.

Indeed, the intoxicating combination of newfound freedom, newfound friends (some of which are naturally a catalyst for bad behavior in their own right) and alcohol does lead to binge drinking for many college students. This can and often does lead to serious consequences for those involved - consequences far beyond a hangover. Alcohol poisoning, road fatalities, unwanted pregnancy and other societal ills can and often are caused by underage drinking. The bad news is, lowering the legal age to 18 isn't going to solve those problems.

On the other side of the coin, advocates of the current drinking age indicate that keeping the tap turned off until 21 has saved lives, and indeed it has. Making alcohol harder to obtain has reduced alcohol related fatalities. What the studies fail to note, however, is that there are plenty of kids who still obtain it, act irresponsibly with it, and even die as a result of it. Their argument is the lesser of two evils.

In truth, you don't see a lot of binge drinking in Europe, where alcohol laws are only upheld at bars and liquor stores, people are rarely "carded" and where many young children learn of the danger and responsibility associated with alcohol at an early age. It's often at the dinner table, and used in moderation with the family present. While this may not seem ideal, the rates of binge drinking and alcohol related fatalities are substantially lower in countries where the stigma of alcohol is demystified and brought out into the open. The reason the drinking age of 18 never fared better (and in fact, caused more fatalities) in the U.S. than 21 is because it fails to solve the problem. 18 is far too late in the game to teach responsibility, and by that age, kids can drive and often have the means to be alone or in private with their friends. Put enough 18 years olds (or even 1) together with a dangerous substance, away from adult supervision, and there will undoubtedly be problems.

Until we, as a society, take the 5th Avenue advertising shellac of fun and forbidden fruit away from alcohol through responsible interaction at an early age and in the right environment, binge drinking and all that goes with it will continue to be a problem. It will be a problem not only at frat houses and dorm rooms on college campuses, but within the entire widespread ranks of our nation's youth long after that youth has passed.

Not that there aren't several negative aspects to the nation's higher education system, but a new study by the National Research Consortium of Counseling Centers in Higher Education paints a grimmer picture than rational thinking would allow. The study, an Internet based poll of more than 26,000 students at 70 colleges and universities, found that over 50% of those who participated had suicidal thoughts "at some point in their lives".

Let me get this straight...a poll of college kids on the backside of adolescence, with a probable mean age of 20, have at some point in their short lives overblown their emotional trauma and had thoughts of ending their own life? You don't say.

Suicide is certainly a serious topic, and something not to be taken lightly, but the age range in question combined with the phrase "at some point in their lives" doesn't inspire the greatest confidence that this study has any real merit or has any relation whatsoever to higher education. I wonder what percentage of non college students in the same age range would also answer affirmatively when asked the same question. My guess is the numbers would be strikingly similar.

No doubt you've heard the expression, "Youth is wasted on the young". There's a reason for that expression, and the reason is that most of us couldn't find our collective asses with both hands until we've been out in the world for a while and learned what really constitutes a hard time. No matter what the issue is, time and age have a way of putting a more realistic perspective on loss and failure.

Ask an adult, divorced, working parent of two how they feel about love and you'll probably get a more sympathetic and reasonable answer than you would from a college freshman who just broke up with his or her high school sweetheart. Ask the outlook of a person who just lost their job after 20 years with the same company and you'll probably get a more favorable response than from a kid who just failed to make the track team. The point is that everything is a big deal when you are young. Most young people don't have the worldliness to understand what's really important and what's not. Unfortunately for some, that will continue on into adulthood. Still, it doesn't mean that a large portion of our nation's college students are risks for suicide.

The American Association of Suicidology's most recent statistics are from 2005, a year in which 32,637 Americans took their own lives. The age range from 15 to 24 accounted for 4,212 of the suicides, or 12.9% of the national total. This demographic represented 14.2% of the population. By contrast, the elderly represented 12.4% of the population but accounted for 16.6% of the nation's suicides. The rest of the population (73.4% of us) accounted for 70.5% of all suicides. Statistically, suicide rates for the "young" (15 – 24) age range were the lowest of all the age ranges.

Again, I'm certainly not trying to downplay the seriousness of suicide, just to point out that a poorly conducted study such as the aforementioned is misleading and casts an unnecessary, negative light on higher education. There are plenty of issues that need to be dealt with when it comes to our nation's educational system. We don't need to invent more.