Kristen Rein, USA TODAY College 6:03 p.m. EDT September 5, 2015

Auro Robotics shuttle on display in front of the Mission Church at the Santa Clara University on August, 21, 2015 in Santa Clara, California. SCU will be the beta test site for autonomous driverless shuttles - the company is called Auro Robotics based out of Sunnyvale, California. (Photo credit: Joanne H. Lee/Santa Clara University)(Photo: Courtesy of Joanne H. Lee)

1. Move over, Google — Santa Clara University is getting in on the driverless vehicle game. Beginning this fall, Auro Robotics — a Silicon Valley start-up located in Sunnyvale, Calif. — will be testing their autonomous shuttle on Santa Clara University’s campus. Dean Godfrey Mungal of the Santa Clara’s School of Engineering tells USA TODAY College that the university hopes that interested engineering students will have an opportunity to interact in the pilot program. "Since Auro is a startup they are under tight development deadlines, but they have indicated an interest in sharing and involvement with SCU students and faculty," he says.

2. A group of college friends in Idaho is hoping to make attending college more affordable, one pack of cigarettes at a time. StopTuitionHikes.com is proposing a 2016 ballot initiative which will raise the state’s cigarette tax by $1.50 — then using the money to lower the cost of higher education at universities and community colleges. In order for the group to accomplish their goal, chair and spokesperson Bill Moran says they’ll need over 47,000 signatures by April 30. “This is something (students) need to get involved in right away,” Moran says. “Your communities do care about you and want you to succeed. I want students to know there is a future, and there is a chance.”

3. The University of South Carolina has suspended 13 fraternities from participating in recruitment due to alcohol and risk management violations, according to a letter sent to fraternity presidents last Monday. The announcement comes after an emergency meeting held on Aug. 27 about the fraternities’ violations, to which Fraternity Council Vice President of Conduct Jonathan Withrow claims they paid no attention. “We have evidence that that 13 organizations held such events over the past several weeks and since many organizations clearly did not take the meeting seriously, more drastic measures must be taken,” Withrow wrote. Only after explicit permission is received may fraternities resume recruitment events.

4. The 2019 freshman class at The University of Michigan will be part of a new pilot program focused on alcohol violations. After receiving two or more alcohol violations — or one violation that results in medical attention or destruction of property — their parents will now receive a notification from the school. “We know that first-year students can be an at-risk population … as students are transitioning from home to campus for the first time,” says Mary Jo Desprez, the wellness director at U-M. “This is really designed to be about health and wellbeing. We know that any time you can do early intervention is the best when you want to get someone back on track.”

5. U.S. college students today smoke weed at a higher rate than at any time in the past 35 years, surpassing daily cigarette smoking for the first time in 2014. The Monitoring the Future study — an ongoing study out of the University of Michigan — shows that marijuana is big on collegecampuses. “Daily or near-daily” marijuana use was reported by 5.9% of college students in 2014 — the highest rate since 1980, the first year that complete college data were available in the study. That translates to one in every 17 college students who smoke marijuana at least 20 times each month.

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