Continuing the recent torrent of effort to take away shift focus away from Penn State’s #1 Party School Ranking, LateNight Penn State is talking about expanding. They want to have double the amount of programs next year. They cite how the recent Motion City Soundtrack drew a big crowd, and how attendance has fallen off to about 50,000 students per semester (vs. about 60,000 in LateNight’s prime 8-10 years ago). Putting its money where its mouth is, LateNight is asking for more money for its $350,000 budget. Whether this will actually reduce student drinking remains to be seen.

I have never been to LateNight, and I don’t personally know anyone who has been to LateNight. Most of the crowd there doesn’t drink, which is the point, but there doesn’t seem to be a huge trend of drinkers electing LateNight over drinking on a weekend night, and I don’t see that trend reversing in any major way, apart from maybe a few drinkers here and there going to one particular LateNight event they are really interested in.

I’m not denouncing LateNight at all – I think it’s a great idea so that people who don’t drink have stuff to do. But if it already serves the needs of those who at least semi-routinely attend, and, with the budget increase, doesn’t extend into the other group and make a dent in PSU’s drinking statistics, that seems to me like a pretty big waste. On the other hand, more concerts would be pretty excellent, and the added budget could bring some pretty sweet acts to Penn State. Let’s just hope they can get some quality.

But that’s just my opinion. Do you think a budget increase will be effective?

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