#FactCheckFail

In response to a recent drug bust at Columbia University, The Daily Beast decided to create a list of what was, in their research, the 50 druggiest universities in the nation.  A noble endeavor!  What caught my eye was how my school (soon to be alma mater) Northeastern University pulling in the #2 overall ranking as a hilariously drugged up school.  Woohoo!

Except for one iiiiitty-bitty problem....


One look at the profile of Northeastern that the Daily Beast put together made me think about things a bit.  These are the stats for drug use at Northeastern.

Drug use grade: C-
Percentage of 18-25s statewide using drugs regularly: 24.41
Percentage of 18-25s statewide using marijuana regularly: 35.72
Percentage of 18-25s statewide using cocaine regularly: 6.36
2009 on-campus arrests for drug law violations: 75
Student population: 9,239 

See that last one in red?  I'm not quite sure exactly which year the Daily Beast is referencing here, but the population at Northeastern is a tad larger than 9,000 students.  How much larger?

Try triple that number.

In Fall 2009, the school's total student population, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, was 27,537 students, a little less than triple the number the Daily Beast gave.  Even if you only include undergraduates, the population of the school is 18,782, double the figure cited by the Daily Beast.  Even if you only use the full-time student figures, found right on Northeastern's website, the population is still 19,856 students, with 15,699 undergrads.

This got me thinking, "Just how did they come up with these rankings?"  Let's take a quick look sat the Daily Beast's methodology here, step by step:

To rank the colleges and universities, we first turned to College Prowler, the largest student review database, to see which institutions had “drug scene” grades, which illustrate how students rate the prevalence of drugs on campus. A high grade, i.e. an A+, indicates that drugs and alcohol are not noticeable on campus and there is no pressure to use drugs.

Ah, so they start with an outside source for their most noticeable stat.  And they certainly picked a good one, because all, what college ranking service is more credible than the one that has the dirt on which schools have the hottest girls!  (Apparently Northeastern ladies only rank a B+)  Interestingly, though, College Prowler lists 40 schools, including Northeastern, whose drug scene ranks at C-, as well as five schools who rank even worse, at D+.  So how does Northeastern beat all of those schools out?  Let's see...

We then considered the surrounding environment, using the most recent data on illicit drug, marijuana, and cocaine use by state for 18-25 year olds, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2009 National Survey on Drug Abuse. 

Ah, so statewide stats come into the equation.  The thinking is, because Massachusetts loves to get high, obviously, Northeastern loves it too!  There are three stats here - 18-25 year old's a) using drugs regularly, b) using marijuana regularly, and c) using cocaine regularly.  So Massachusetts must be near the top, right?

Well.....

To start with, the stats aren't even used right - stats quoted from the survey studied drug/marijuana/cocaine are stats on drug use in the last month or year, not regularly, as the survey says.  It's not even consistent on the time frame - their general drug use stat references drug use within the past month, but their marijuana and cocaine stats are over the last year.

Second, even if we bought the Daily Beast's line about regular use, Massachusetts wouldn't alone be responsible for Northeastern's high rank.  From the data used by the Daily Beast (assembled in Access by me, because the hard data is listed alphabetically), Massachusetts ranks 11th in drug use, 7th in marijuana use, and 21st in cocaine use.  Not exactly the druggiest state in the union.

Okay, so the grade means nothing and the statistics mean nothing.  So, what's left is...

Lastly, we referred to U.S. Department of Education data for the number of on-campus arrests for 2009 for drug-law violations for each school. An arrests-per-capita metric was calculated for each school based on the Department of Education’s student population tabulations.

Bingo.  So it must come down to this.  Northeastern's #2 ranking comes from its arrests in relation to...hmm.

Those "student population tabulations" mentioned?  Those all come from the National Center for Education Statistics...the exact same site that gave me the schools actual population number, the one that was triple what the Daily Beast had cited.  There's a slight difference between 75 arrests (the correct number, as can be found on the annual report for Northeastern's Pubic Safety Division) out of 9,000 students and 75 arrests out of 27,000.

And all this information?  This could be found in a single night of research - it took me literally an hour or so out of my day to prove how wrong this ranking was, and I don't exactly have a newsroom working behind me.  The Daily Beast should have put a lot more work into this, but from the glaring mistakes, it's obvious they didn't.

I'm not saying Northeastern doesn't have an active drug scene - I'm not a drug user myself, so I don't know just how widespread drugs are on campus - but calling us one of the drugged-up schools in the nation without bothering to do the proper research isn't right.  It makes me wonder if the Daily Beast staffers were high when they wrote it.