"DON'T THINK," says a sign tied to a traffic light near the campus of

Birmingham University, "JUST DRINK".

It's a flyer for a bar out here on the edge of the city where the campus

operates like a small self-contained, party-loving suburb. The streets are

busy with students eager to take the poster's advice, now Friday night has

come and the week's thinking time is up. Maybe some of those huddled

together in the smoky, golden lamplight of the Goose, a renovated Victorian

tavern only a stumble away from the University buildings, are discussing the

metaphysical poets or pondering quantum theory but not the small lad in a

shiny grey shirt next to me at the bar.

"She was gorgeous", he says, managing to leer and swallow a pint of lager

at the same time. His mates nod, swaying in on their private circle, eager

for more details but it is clear he has only admired his "uberbabe" from afar.

That seems unlikely to change tonight. Next to the boys but way out of

their reach a pair of Gothic females debate whether to catch the free bus to

a club called God's Kitchen.

Many of the drinkers in the Goose are fresh-faced first years whose hair has

not yet grown out and whose clothes still looked pressed. Only a month

away from home and not too much of a worry to their parents yet. But there

are others, like the young man with the wispy goatee who is slumped half-

awake against the wall at the back of the pub, who are already, clearly,

creatures of the night.

Mike Tresham frowns. He is drinking a pint of Diet Coke and talking about

why, he decided to stop boozing completely after his first term.

The 20-year-old commerce student from Surrey did not like what was

happening to him. "There was a lot of pressure from my friends in halls to

go completely overboard. A heavy drinking lifestyle is handed to you on a

plate at university and if you do not go out clubbing with the group you lose

mates. It all got too much for me."

Students love to drink, everyone knows that. Some then fall down in the

street, throw up outside a kebab shop, or wander about with traffic cones on

their heads. These are rituals as old as our centres of learning but lately the

traditional undergraduate binge has been the subject of much attention.

Academics at Newcastle University have been paid by the Government to

examine who goes where, and why, and who is making money from them.

The nightlife economy is worth around pounds 22bn a year they say. The

majority of Britain's 4,700 "style bars" and branded pubs are owned by the

same five operators.

The divides between the social lives of town and gown, rich and poor, are

becoming wider as the big chains open identikit bars across the country.

Anyone who looks like a scruffy student will not get in. Some even ban

certain designer names, believing that people who wear them are more

likely to cause trouble.

Smaller bars and quirky clubs are being pushed out of city centres,

according to the study, which reveals a social apartheid. You can see it in

Birmingham. From Monday to Thursday the students, who live in halls or

rented rooms in the terraced streets around Selly Oak, go into the city

centre to visit clubs and bars where the entrance fee is reduced and drinks

are cheap. But on Friday and Saturday they stay away.

Places that charge pounds 2 on student nights suddenly cost pounds 10 to

get in and the beer is a fiver.

The clientele changes. Working girls and boys who dared not come out to

play during the week take over the city centre. The bars in Broad Street are

their territory now.

Britain's young people are among the heaviest drinkers in the world and

alcohol use is still on the increase, particularly among young women, says

the market analyst Datamonitor.

That will come as no surprise to anybody in Cambridge, where the dean of

St Catharine's College chose last week to rail against the "silly drinking

games" sending his establishment "sinking to the bottom of academic

league tables". Despite the hue and cry, the only thing new about all this

was that the errant students were girls, as several female academics

pointed out.

Ali Coverdale would not approve. The 20-year-old psychology student is

probably one of those who helped Birmingham come out as the most

studious campus in the country, in a recent survey. She goes clubbing but

never drinks, and is happy to talk about why she is staying a virgin. Like

Mike Tresham she has taken solace in the Christian union, whose

members go up to strangers in bars and ask what they know of God.

It is easy for fellow students to dismiss their views - and those who heard

the president of the union say what he thinks of homosexuals might want to

do more than that - but Mike and his friends have resisted great pressure to

conform.

"Four pints in an evening was my limit," says Mike. "That was fairly

minimal. People could have 10, 15 or more than that. Some could go out

drinking all night, get up for breakfast and a full day of lectures. But not me.

So I chose to give it up completely. There was a price to pay, because

people think you are mad but it was worth it."

After closing time the Christians go off for coffee at someone's house. I hail

a taxi, but a young woman tries to get in with me and orders the driver to

take her to God's Kitchen. Her friends haul her out, laughing themselves

hoarse. She can hardly stand up. They're having the time of their lives.