Three beers, a can of Red Bull and a large espresso: no big deal, many college students might say. Three beers, a can of Red Bull and a large espresso times three or four, and they still might tell you they’re not intoxicated. Therein lies the danger of caffeinated alcoholic beverages, whose popularity has grown in recent years among college-aged drinkers, drawing the attention of concerned health officials, politicians and college administrators. Experts say that even one is a recipe for disaster, and so do officials at Ramapo College : they banned alcoholic energy drinks on campus this month. Peter Mercer, president of the New Jersey college, said students referred to the above concoction when describing the effects of drinks such as Four Loko, which is particularly popular around the campus. Four Loko is one of a few flashy, canned drinks that take the mixing out of the equation, making it that much easier for students to get dangerously intoxicated, faster. Mercer said concerned students told him the inexpensive 23-ounce, 12% alcohol energy drinks were “all of a sudden very popular,” and Four Loko was involved in a couple of incidents of excessive drinking. Since the start of fall semester, 23 people have been hospitalized with alcohol intoxication. ON THE WEB: Why do students take so long to grow up? MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Are prescription drugs “cheating”? Mercer called Four Loko a “cynical product” whose only purpose is to get the drinker intoxicated quickly. Others agree: Glen L. Sherman, co-chair of the Alcohol and Other Drug Knowledge Community for NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, said the drinks are dangerous because of their apparent targeting of underage student consumers and their high alcohol content — drinking one can of Four Loko is the approximate equivalent of drinking four beers, according to an informational page NASPA recently posted on its website. “These beverages are of great concern to us,” Sherman wrote in an e-mail. “Each campus must decide what specific steps make sense to best educate students about and try to protect them from these risks, and to encourage students to make good decisions when they are confronted by them.” Ramapo’s ban is part of a “multi-pronged approach” addressing excessive alcohol consumption, Mercer said. Other measures the college has taken include increasing after-hours security measures in residence halls, tightening visitor policies and holding student focus groups. Those additional steps may be crucial for the ban to have even a shot at success. Kathleen E. Miller, a research scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions at the State University of New York at Buffalo, has studied college students’ use of energy drinks, both with and without alcohol. She said that if the college can’t ban drinks like Red Bull and vodka from local bars, it won’t be able to stop consumption of caffeinated alcoholic beverages. But the college can send a signal. “A college ban will make people take a second look and maybe they’ll be more aware of what they’re drinking,” Miller said. “It’s inherently potentially dangerous to mix caffeine and alcohol because you’re sending your body mixed signals.” The caffeine stimulates the system while the alcohol depresses it, making students feel less drunk than they actually are. Through her research, Miller found that students who consume energy drinks with or without alcohol are more likely to engage in risky behavior like drug use, smoking or binge drinking. That doesn’t necessarily mean the energy drinks cause the behavior, but there is a correlation. Energy drink consumption “isn’t necessarily a gateway behavior, but it is what you might call a red-flag behavior,” she said. In a June 2008 study published in the Journal of American College Health, Miller found that 26% of surveyed public university undergraduates reported consuming energy drinks mixed with alcohol in the past month, while about half said they’d done so more than once. Efforts at Ramapo have curbed and will continue to curb consumption of alcoholic energy drinks, Mercer said, but “it’s unrealistic to assume that it’ll be totally eliminated.” That’s not stopping him from trying, though: At the next meeting of the New Jersey Presidents’ Council, Mercer plans to make his case to other college and university presidents. “The risk for their students is just as high as the risk for mine,” he said. “I’ll tell them what I’ve done and hope that they may want to follow suit.” States such as New Jersey and New Mexico are considering banning the drinks entirely. The drinks are also on the federal government’s radar. Last November, the Food and Drug Administration threatened to ban the drinks if manufacturers could not prove they were safe for consumption. No regulations have been issued yet, but an FDA press officer, Michael L. Herndon, told Inside Higher Ed on Friday that the agency has received 19 responses from 27 manufacturers and distributors, and plans to evaluate those submissions and other scientific evidence “as soon as possible in order to determine whether caffeine can be safely and lawfully added to alcoholic beverages.” Herndon said the decision is a high priority but “could take some time.” But Mercer doesn’t need FDA regulations to deem the drinks unsafe, especially when it comes to students. “I don’t accept that it’s a rite of passage to collegiate life that people put themselves at risk,” he said. “I can’t accept that.”

Every year, the scene plays out in classrooms across the nation. A child clings to his mother, tears welling in his eyes as he pleads with her to stay a few moments longer. The first day of kindergarten is an exciting time for parents and children, but it can also be stressful, especially for kids who have never spent significant time away from Mom and Dad. The good news is that psychologists say separation anxiety is generally short-lived and there are time-tested methods to help reduce everyone’s tension. The root of the problem Experts say separation anxiety can be spurred by biology and environment. “What’s known about separation anxiety is there’s not really one single cause for it,” said Wendy Bravo, a marriage and family therapist based in Reno “If the child tends to be more anxious, you know, anxiety-prone, there are certain things in the environment that will trigger it.” In other words, there are certain children who simply are born anxious. “Different kids have different strengths and weaknesses,” said Kristen Davis-Coelho, a psychologist for Renown Behavioral Health in Reno. “Some are much more adventurous, really like new experiences, and other ones are a little more tentative. Sometimes it can surprise a parent.” Biology or not, family psychologist and syndicated columnist John Rosemond said he believes parents almost always play a significant role in the problem. “When you find a child of school age, kindergarten, first grade, it is almost always associated with parents and specifically a mother who has had difficulty separating from the child from day one,” he said. The good news? In most cases, separation anxiety is quickly reversible. Davis-Coelho said only about 5% of children suffer from separation anxiety disorder, a severe form that lasts longer than a few weeks. Advance planning Bravo said children who are prone to anxiety tend to do better when they know what to expect each day, so she suggests getting them settled into a predictable schedule early. “The child would have their time to eat, their time to go to sleep,” she said. “Maybe a couple of weeks before they start school, they can start a new routine that won’t change when school starts.” Davis-Coelho agreed that advance parental planning can make a big difference. She said parents can do other little things, too, like drive their child to school before classes even start. “Show them where you’re going to be dropping them off, where they’re going to get to play at recess,” she said. “Or pretending. Playing school. Actually getting the toys, having the kid be the teacher and the parent be the teacher. Playing school bus if they’re going to be riding the school bus, where they walk down to where their bus stop is and the parent pulls up in their car and pretends to be the school bus.” The goal, she said, is to make school feel familiar, so the transition is less difficult. Rosemond said his approach to treating separation anxiety is unorthodox because he actually recommends against prolonged conversations about a child’s issues. “Most professionals are going to tell parents to reassure the child and sit down and talk to the child,” he said. “I am absolutely convinced, and my experience confirms this, that the more you talk to the child about the problem, the worse it gets.” So, who’s right? Davis-Coelho said she believes different strategies work with different children. Ultimately, it’s up to parents to decide what approach is resonating with their child. Crying fits One thing everyone agrees on is that parents should nip meltdowns in the bud. That means the best thing a parent can do if their child is crying is leave. “The parents have got to say, ‘We’ve talked about this, and we’re not going to talk about it anymore. You’re going into class, and I’m leaving,’” Rosemond says. “It’s got to be very, very short and sweet.” Bravo and Davis-Coelho agree. “Keeping the amount of time that you let that go on to a minimum is important,” Davis-Coelho said. “The longer the child is feeling that level of panic and upset, the more the memory is getting burned into their head at how awful it is.” Planning an exit Although it’s difficult to leave a child in tears, Rosemond said parents need to be tough. “These parents have this anxiety that this reflects some deep-seated psychological issue that has to be resolved,” he said. “I say to parents, ‘No, there’s no deep-seated psychological issue here at all. It’s just that this child has never learned to comfortably separate from you because of your anxieties. You have to be the actor here. You have to suck it up. The minute the child sees that you have no anxieties whatsoever, the child’s going to be fine. Even if the child cries … it’s no problem. The schools are used to dealing with these things.’” Experts say that most anxious children will stop crying within 15 to 20 minutes of their parents’ departure, and they will then join the class. “Eventually, they’ll calm down,” Bravo said. “Some kids will be different than others if they have a different temperament. … The parent has to be really firm and just leave and let the teacher take care of it. Many times, just 10, 15 minutes later, they will go away and the child will slowly get used to the new environment.” The day after Often, the first day is the toughest, but Davis-Coelho said parents also can take steps to make the rest of the week go smoothly. “The first strategy you can use is developing what I call a special ritual in the morning between you and your child,” she said, “a particular way of saying goodbye. A phrase that you both repeat to each other about seeing each other later. A special handshake. Some sort of ritual in the morning. … Every morning you say goodbye in that particular way.” Pay attention Most children will have conquered their separation anxiety within a month, experts say. If the problem drags on, there might be a broader problem. “If it’s interfering with their functioning or with the family’s functioning, if it’s causing a lot of stress or interfering with them going to school, making friends, probably at that point therapy should be sought,” Davis-Coelho said. In the unlikely case that it comes to that, Bravo said parents should consider a family appointment because the child could be reacting to something unexpected. “Look at if there are any major changes going on in the family, for instance divorce, moving to a different neighborhood, different school, someone who died recently,” she said. “If the parents think that this is a problem, you know, the separation anxiety is becoming a problem, I would recommend they seek treatment that includes family therapy because many times the child is just reflecting something else that’s going on in the family.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LAS VEGAS — The annual convention of the Career College Association was just gearing up for the day Thursday when word started circulating that the U.S. Senate’s education committee planned to start this month a series of hearings on the increasing flow of federal student aid money to for-profit higher education . It was a stark reminder — in case anyone here really needed it — that the rapidly growing college sector faces a level of federal scrutiny probably unmatched since the early 1990s, when Congress approved a set of changes to the Higher Education Act aimed at reining in perceived abuses of the financial aid programs by what were commonly referred to as “fly-by-night trade schools.” Just how much today’s environment felt like d?j? vu from 20 years ago depended on whom you talked to here. To many financial analysts, investor types and others who focus on stock prices or otherwise take a short-term view, the mood was one of steady-state alarm, focused on the cloud of intensified federal regulation that has loomed over colleges for the last year. Those in this group believe that the for-profit sector has a target on its back, with a coalition of consumer advocates, short-selling investors (who profit if stock prices fall), and ideological government bureaucrats pushing an aggressive, activist agenda. To some observers who’ve worked in and around the industry longer, though, the current round of federal scrutiny (in the form of potentially tough new rules) — while unfair in their eyes — is a far cry from the ’90s, for a few reasons. First, they argue, for-profit colleges are too embedded in the fabric of higher education, and too essential to meeting President Obama’s goals for increasing the country’s college completion rates, to be dealt with in a way that would seriously damage their ability to contribute to that effort. FOR-PROFIT: Sector leads way in e-textbook use COLLEGE BLOG: New student group support for for-profit association Second, during the purge of the early 1990s, for-profit colleges were singled out for scrutiny, with policies put in place that focused specifically on reining them in. This time around, while some federal policymakers clearly have special concerns about for-profit colleges, higher education leaders in all sectors are feeling (and in many cases bristling at) heightened scrutiny from federal, state and other policymakers who see higher education as underperforming and costing students and taxpayers alike too much. “I don’t know anybody in our sector who doesn’t think that the ’92 amendments, and all the trauma they brought about, ultimately had a positive outcome and changed the nature of quality assurance in this sector for the better — though it was clearly something we resisted at the time,” said Elise Scanlon, a Washington lawyer who spent nearly 20 years as an accreditor of for-profit colleges. “Right now it’s hard to see what could come out of this round that would make things better for us, but it is clearly part of a push for better information about quality in all of higher education, at a time of increasingly scarce resources.” Mood of the meeting By many measures, the advocates for for-profit (or “private sector,” as they prefer to call it) higher education who gathered here for the annual meeting of the sector’s main advocacy group could be feeling good. Enrollments in the institutions have grown to nearly 10% of all postsecondary students, and the economic downturn of the last year has enrollments booming. The exhibit hall at the meeting here was bristling with companies of all sorts seeking to sell their services to the institutions, a reflection of their steady and sturdy growth. Bottom line (as it were), business is booming. And yet, that very same enrollment growth — and the fact that it is driven in significant part with Pell Grants and federal student loans — has given new and added urgency to consumer advocates, federal regulators, and others who believe that the for-profit institutions are charging students too much for an education of inferior quality. (A series of critical news media stories have focused on dubious practices.) Those concerns have been at the forefront of the Education Department’s push since last winter to consider a new mechanism for ensuring that vocational programs are helping their graduates find “gainful employment,” among other rules aimed at bolstering the “integrity” of the federal financial aid programs. The department’s favored approach, which would judge programs based on a ratio comparing the incomes of graduates to their monthly payments on their student loan debt, has been vehemently opposed by many career college officials, who say that instituting such a policy could force the closure of many programs and potentially cut off access to college for tens if not hundreds of thousands of students. Lobbyists for and leaders of the colleges have been feverishly opposing the gainful employment regulation (as well as some of the department’s other expected rules), arguing that department officials do not have sufficient evidence and/or justification to support the approach, urging the Obama administration to reconsider. COLLEGE: What if higher ed just isn’t for everyone? OBAMA GOALS: Community colleges like new attention They appear to have made at least minor advances in slowing down the department’s progress in recent days. On Friday, the Office of Management and Budget placed a cryptic note in the Federal Register concluding that the department’s proposed program integrity rules could have a major economic impact, a designation that requires the Education Department to strengthen the evidence it must provide to justify the need for the regulation. In announcing a June 24 hearing (and “a series” of others to follow) by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the panel’s chairman and long a critic of corporate higher education, cited on Thursday the rapid expansion of for-profit colleges and of the federal student aid funds flowing to them. “Students at for-profit institutions are borrowing more, and more frequently, than their peers at nonprofit schools, and according to the Department of Education, one in five students who left a for-profit college in 2007 defaulted on their loan within three years,” the committee’s news release said. “We need to ensure for-profit colleges are working well to meet the needs of students and not just shareholders,” said Harkin. “We owe it to students and taxpayers to make sure these dollars are being well spent.” For-profit college leaders said they welcomed the chance to tell their story. “Nontraditional students are the new tradition in higher education, and federal student aid is helping millions of working adults get the skills and abilities they need to compete in a global workforce,” Harris Miller , president of the Career College Association, said in a statement. “For these students to be successful, however, change is needed. Private sector institutions are bringing important innovations to postsecondary education, and we welcome the opportunity for a full and open exchange with the committee. These hearings will give our inclusive educational institutions an opportunity to address myths with facts and figures.” To critics of the colleges who see them as under siege from federal policymakers and others, that may sound like bravado. But it’s a view shared by some others who’ve seen for-profit higher education survive previous tough scrutiny, as in 1992. “Back then, lots of people said, ‘Oh my god, the world’s going to end, it’s going to put us all out of business,’” Nancy Broff, a Washington lawyer and former general counsel of the Career College Association, said of the 1992 renewal of the Higher Education Act. “The reality is that this is a very adaptable and resilient group of people and institutions, and they have learned to adapt. And they will this time, too.” Leaders in the sector express confidence that even as federal policymakers seek greater oversight of the institutions, they will avoid steps that could severely impair the colleges’ ability to meet Americans’ demand for higher education, especially at a time when many public institutions are cutting their enrollments because of budget gaps. The country cannot come close to President Obama’s college completion goal without help from the private sector colleges, they say. “The long-term trend is that we need more [higher education] capacity,” said Daniel Hamburger, president and chief executive officer of Devry, Inc. “In the end, I’m confident that smart people will generally find solutions that are in students’ best interests.”