When you inquire about Greek life on college campuses in the United States, the big, southern fraternal organizations often come to mind; however, Greek life at the University of Minnesota, like many schools in the northern United States, has quite a few differences and varying opinions on its importance.
Of the University of Minnesota’s student population, roughly 3,000 out of over 50,000 students are members of Greek life. This is a significantly different environment compared to many academic institutions in the lower United States, where as many as 12,000 students are involved in fraternal organizations at other universities similar in size to Big Ten schools.
A Greek life organization has lots to offer students: networking, academics, philanthropy, leadership skills, housing, post-grad benefits, and tradition are all alluring factors to undergraduate students while going through the rush process.
The primary reason for joining a sorority or fraternity for many students is the social life that accompanies it. As an out-of-state student or an individual attending a huge school, it can be very challenging to branch out in an ocean full of new and unfamiliar people. Sororities and fraternities enable you to meet supportive and diverse groups of people, giving individuals a place to call home on a college campus.
Although all of these elements exist, a recent survey at the University of Minnesota stated that 65.9% of students believe that Greek life is not worth the time, money, and responsibilities tied along with it. In this study, many people opposed Greek life because of stereotypical reasoning and arguments.
While many people are quick to jump and say that sororities and fraternities are full of “dumb drunks,” it seems to be quite the opposite on our campus. From my experience, this is usually said by people who haven’t been in a Greek life organization and don’t know how the culture is on our campus themselves. With this survey, most of the people opposed to Greek life had vague and biased things to say with the survey based on little to no experience with these organizations themselves.
According to the University of Minnesota Fraternity and Sorority Life webpage, the average GPA of students in fraternities and sororities is actually a lot higher than most people would expect, or at least higher than what I would expect from someone based on the stereotypes that exist. The average fraternity GPA in Fall 2022 was 3.27, which ironically was the exact same as the all-campus men’s undergraduate average of 3.27. Similarly, the average sorority GPA was actually higher than the all-campus women’s undergraduate average of 3.37, while sororities had a 3.42 GPA average in Fall 2022.
As far as drinking within Greek life goes on the University of Minnesota campus, I’ve found the drinking culture of Greek life to be quite different than what I would have expected from fraternities and sororities based on movies I’d seen or stories that I’d heard from other schools. Sure, there is still drinking that happens, but what else would you expect from students on a college campus? In my short time in a sorority, there were surprisingly a lot of rules against drinking underage and things that the Greek life councils did to ensure safe drinking on campus, such as promoting only canned drinks at social events opposed to cups with hard, mixed alcohol.
Despite the main attractions to rushing, it, like many other things, isn’t for everyone. I will be one of the first people to stand behind how excessive the cost is to rush and pay membership dues. These dues help cover a lot of the expenses of sororities and fraternities, but the amount of money required deters many people from joining at the University of Minnesota and helps contribute to the idea that they aren’t worth it and fosters false perceptions.
