Well stated. In 2021, my college cancelled my study abroad semester for winter 2022 due to "covid". (Reminder that this is after 2 doses of the vaccine, and the semester would have almost been at the time of the booster for me.) No way to decide our own risk tolerance to travelling, just a complete ban because the college knows better than it's students.

> why the fuck is the college managing what they do off campus at all?

It’s not. Stanford’s campus is huge, and almost all undergrads live on it. The parties in question were generally held on campus, often in university-owned and managed buildings and often on the front lawns. The university had insurance (I don’t remember the precise details).

And, to be clear, the university was generally fairly supportive. You could host a party in university space. You could coordinate with student who were not part of the hosting group to throw genuinely interesting parties. You were allowed to serve alcohol on university property under a fairly uniform set of rules, and guests knew what to expect. If the police showed up, the hosts wouldn’t get in trouble if they followed the rules. If an out of control guest set of the fire alarm, the host would generally be treated quite favorably. If a guest was out of control and the host needed to call the police or medical services, they would come and not bust the host. (And hosts were strongly encouraged to send excessively drunk people seek medical care if needed.)

Part of the point of preregistration was to make sure that everyone was prepared. If you’re going to buy wristbands, post flyers, etc, filling out a quick web form is not a great hardship.

Of course there were obnoxious parts of the policies, but overall I think the university did fairly well here.

The PARENTS are paying for the college, so I'm not surprised that the college is taking a parental role...

When the students themselves are coughing up the $80k/year then you will see a permissive atmosphere. Or you'll find them reallocating their resources to $40k colleges and the rest on alcohol?

TulliusCicero says >"College students are adults, why ... is the college managing what they do off campus at all? ... That Americans have become increasingly okay with colleges being surrogate parents for literal adults is just bizarre."<

Well, college students are mostly not adults. They are young, inexperienced and incompletely developed intellectually and emotionally. This is nothing new and colleges know much more about this than HN does.

It was the same way when I was in college and it will remain so as long as we have colleges. Colleges have always had to keep an eye on students and rein in problematic behavior.

College-aged students are called young adults. And they definitely are. Infantalization of young adults is not good for their development in my opinion and experience.

    They are young, inexperienced and incompletely developed intellectually and
    emotionally.

College is supposed to be the place where they can gain that experience and develop intellectually and emotionally by doing things, including things that result in negative consequences. Instead, what Stanford is doing is infantilizing its students in a manner that will make them incapable of displaying personal initiative and handling disputes like mature adults. God forbid that a Stanford student actually demonstrate that they've grown, in terms of social skills and emotional maturity, by doing something as adult as inviting a bunch of people over for a party.

> It was the same way when I was in college and it will remain so as long as we have colleges. Colleges have always had to keep an eye on students and rein in problematic behavior.

Except we know this is not true, because plenty of other countries don't expect universities to micromanage their students' personal lives.

Your comment is a great example of, "well this is how it currently works in America, therefore it must be this way universally for all time." Please try to account for other countries existing before issuing sweeping generalizations about human nature. There's more to the world than just the US.

Do not put words in my mouth.

TulliusCicero says >"Your comment is a great example of, 'well this is how it currently works in America..."<"

Yes, this is part of what I was saying. Another part (also implied) is "that is how it was when I went to college (in USA)...". There are many underlying unspoken implications in speech, I haven't the time to tell you all of them for this particular sentence nor do I think that you would be interested.

>"...therefore it must be this way universally for all time.'"*<

No, this is NOT what I was saying. YOU implied this and YOU said this.

You are more eloquent and communication speeds up when you speak for yourself. Do not speak for me.

In what world are adults organized in fraternities with arcane rules everyone has follow? In what adult world are adult women not allowed to host parties with alcohol while having to rely on male friends to host such parties in their dorms? That literally mandate going to parties for members?

The above are all features of greek life at Stanford. You know why sorroties dont allow alcohol parties? Because adults who finished college long time ago run the larger organization and these are rules they impose. This has nothing to do with spontaneous self organization of students.

In what adult world do adult throw temper tamptrum for years because salamander took precedence over sand hill build during drunken party years ago? In what adult world is "social life" equated with fraternities? Like, in adult world, lakes on institution property do get sometimes close for public for whole host of reasons, without that being framed as "war on fun".

Unimportant side not is, if you go to university primary for education and do not want have large part of life mandated by institution, you stay out of greek life (as majority of students do).