Drinking alcohol is a large part of college life for many students. The problem is that many times this drinking can be taken to the extreme—which can lead to tickets, alcohol poisoning and public disruption. The University of Wisconsin­­­­-Madison thinks it has the answer to this problem. The school has created a new program that requires students who have gotten an alcohol citation to pay for sessions with a professional counselor. While I applaud these efforts to use alcohol education as a way of dealing with excessive drinking, the university is going about it in the wrong way by making students pay for these sessions.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, along with the roughly $260 ticket, students will have to pay $78 for two group sessions for first offenses or $200 for two one-on-one sessions if the problem persists. The program mainly targets underage drinking. Yes, it makes a lot of sense for students who have gotten out of control enough that they have run into legal issues to have to speak to someone about the consequences of alcohol. But what does "out of control" mean?

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's website, "About 90% of the alcohol consumed by youth under the age of 21 in the United States is in the form of binge drinks." The website also notes that the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines "binge drinking" as alcohol consumption that brings one's blood alcohol ontent to 0.08 grams or more.

The fact of the matter is that those students who are forced to pay for the group sessions will probably tune it out the minute they walk through the door. Everyone's heard the statistics before, and most people understand what they're doing to their bodies. Hearing this in a group of eight to 12 people probably won't reinforce the message any more than getting a ticket probably could.

A one-on-one session with a counselor could be effective—there would be no way for the student to tune out because it would be painfully obvious to the counselor if they did. That said, if the session turns out to be simply the counselor lecturing to the student, the effect will probably be the same as if the student went to a group session. What might actually have an impact is a real, deep discussion between the counselor and the student, where the student is forced to reevaluate his or her relationship to alcohol and the alcohol-infused social scene.

Yet the University of Wisconsin has withheld the possibility of real progress by indirectly encouraging students to tune out the facts and continue to have legal problems. Maybe if the students weren't headed off on a path toward problems with alcohol, they wouldn't get to the stage where one-on-one intervention was necessary.

That said, I think the much larger problem is not the format of the sessions but the cost. If students have to pay for the sessions, it will reinforce the idea that the sessions are a punishment and not a second chance. If the university is really worried about the cost, they should factor it into everyone's tuition and then fine those who do not show up to their sessions. Yes, not everyone would use this service. But, for an example using our own campus, even if I don't go to the Health Center at all during the year, I still have to pay for its services to exist, in case I need them. This is the same idea. It's better to have the service be there rather than have a problem later on.

Additionally, the University of Wisconsin has recently implemented "Responsible Restriction Guidelines," which state that a student will not get in trouble for helping in an emergency situation, particularly when it's in the context of alcohol use. While protecting other underage drinkers who try to help out is a great step forward for the university, it's not enough when it is counteracted by other policies. In my opinion, while students are going to be worried about getting themselves in trouble, they're also going to be worried about getting their friends in trouble of any kind, including financial. The cost could discourage people from calling for help, completely undermining the purpose of the "Responsible Restriction Guidelines."

The University of Wisconsin-Madison should be applauded for creating a newly consistent approach to binge drinking," but they should rethink the ways in which they are doing so. This new policy, while valiant in its efforts, will effectively do nothing to truly commit change.