A new survey conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire revealed underage drinking is widely abundant across the Eau Claire campus, which many fear is turning into a major problem across the UW System.

Results of the survey show 83 percent of students under the legal drinking age had consumed alcohol in the past month. The survey also found 61 percent of students surveyed engaged in what it called “binge-drinking,” consuming more than five drinks over the course of an evening, in the two weeks prior to the survey.

The survey, given last spring to 1,000 students, or approximately 10 percent of the study body, is the first of many that will be distributed across the UW System. The UW System Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Work Group will be administering the standardized surveys to all other Wisconsin campuses in March, according to UW-Eau Claire associate dean of students Robert Shaw, also a member of the UW System group.

“This is a benchmark in a long-term effort to try to reduce underage drinking,” Shaw said.

The work group was created to ensure efforts to prevent alcohol and drug abuse on UW campuses, according to the group’s website.

Shaw called these changes the “prevention component” of this effort. The changes involve increasing student awareness and alerting students to what Shaw called the “enormous risks associated with binge-drinking.”

Shaw also emphasized the financial difficulties for universities that finance education for students who later drop out due to excessive alcohol or drug use. Under increasingly small budgets, losing a student after their first year is costly, Shaw said.

“We need to focus and preserve resources,” he said.

Shaw admitted part of the drinking-reduction effort is a selfish one due to the primary and secondary costs it bears for the university. The primary costs start with vandalism and medical expenses and move on to any other instances under which a student would be responsible for paying some kind of fee.

The secondary costs deal with emotionally draining issues. Shaw described an individual forced to deal with his or her roommate throwing up all night in their dorm room because of a night out drinking, which he said would be a secondary cost no one should have to deal with.

Although many are expecting similar results from the system-wide surveys that will be given this spring, Shaw made sure to note that his AODA group is trying to work to prevent excessive drinking and make sure students are safe, not necessarily prohibit all alcohol consumption.

“Universities aren’t in the business of being anti-alcohol,” Shaw said.