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The Top 25 Safest Colleges
Following the Yale murder and The Daily Beast’s ranking of the most crime-ridden campuses, we crunch the numbers again—this time to determine America’s safest schools.
In the aftermath of the murder of Yale doctoral student Annie Le, The Daily Beast conducted the exercise of attempting to discern how colleges stack up against each other safety-wise, and then highlighted the 25 schools—out of 4,000 measured—that performed the worst, based on statistics they provided the federal government plus our own methodology. Our rankings last week attracted a lot of attention, and in doing so led us to this natural follow-up: Rather than just focus on campuses where crime is an issue, why not also try to determine which schools are the safest?
Click Image Below for the School-by-School Rankings
Hence, the list we have assembled here, the 25 safest colleges in America. Unlike the Top 25 in football or basketball, this contest was open to any and all schools with a few caveats. First, we increased our minimum enrollment threshold for consideration to 6,000 students, because there are thousands of very small colleges that don’t have the same set of issues as larger schools (that a 275-student bible college has less crime per capita than a major state university yields no discernable lessons). Second, we knocked out graduate-only and two-year schools, again searching for more apples-to-apples comparisons. And finally, we excluded commuter colleges. It turns out that many of the safest schools in America are urban universities, but our methodology holds that it’s hard to compare schools that host students a few hours a day, versus those responsible around-the-clock. So our rule was firm: If you have dorms for at least some of your students, you’re in; if not, you’re out.
• Plus: The 25 Colleges with the Worst Crime Rankings We then looked at the numbers. Specifically, for the past two decades, most colleges and universities nationwide have been required under the federal Clery Act—named for a Lehigh University freshman raped and murder in her dorm before her parents discovered there’d been a slew of violent incidents at the university—to report annually to the U.S. Department of Education about crimes on and near campus, including murder, assault, sexual offenses and robberies.
The Daily Beast took the two most recent years of raw data from almost 9,000 schools and then further analyzed more than 4,000 (excluding two-year colleges, standalone graduate schools, etc.) over more than 50 different criteria, weighing different crimes against each other (murder carrying far more importance than, say, burglary), and factoring in incidents both on-campus and nearby (because modern colleges, as everyone acknowledges, don’t stop strictly at the gates of the ivory towers). Local FBI data was also used to make the statistics as up-to-date as possible. (See full methodology on the next page.) Schools were also judged on a crimes-per-capita basis so that large universities like Michigan State weren’t penalized when compared with small colleges like Amherst.
That many of these schools are located in rural areas or small towns isn’t surprising (though several schools from the New York City area, including one in Manhattan, made the cut). More telling are the techniques many of the winners are using to keep their campuses safe. Lessons abound.
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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gak001
I noticed my alma mater Lebanon Valley was not included on the list. I think the worst crime we had on campus was someone knocking over a trash can.
philca
My son is a freshman at Lebanon Valley College (LVC) and one of the reasons - of course besides the beauty of the school- was of course the safety aspect.
johnstafford
i think any discussion of campus safety can be useful and informative; but, it's important to point out that the list of "top 25" safest schools compares apples & oranges.
how can, for example, crime at the college of new rochelle--a
small, private, suburban women's college with many "commuter" students who don't live on campus and where even most "resident" students clear out on weekends--be compared with the university of virginia--a large, public,
co-educational, rural university where 90% of the students live on campus & remain there on weekends?
obviously, there are going to be fewer crimes against persons on an empty campus.
to be meaningful, therefore, crime rates at largely "commuter" schools (e.g., new york tech & southern conn state) and primarily residential colleges (e.g., ole miss & b.y.u.) should be compared with other colleges & universities in the same category.
sophia5
This kind of topic seems as relevant as
different magazines coming up with their
Annual "Best" and "Worst" cities to live in,
or raise their kids, or most business friendly,
because the same publications
seem to change their top 25 every year
. . . in order to just sell magazines,
to further reader interest.
Take an article like this with a grain of salt.
Virginia Tech wasn't listed in the recent
"Beast" article on "Most Dangerous" college
campuses category because they didn't FIT the
statistical parameters, even though NO
Campus has ever had a worse crime scene than the
murder of 32 people, and the wounding of 25 others
in one single day.
So perhaps it's best to read an article like this
with a bit of filtered skepticism.
mjprocko
I noticed something about all these safe schools.... they are mostly in places where God, guns and hicks go.... tells you something about the liberal utopias that don't make this list.
wiseone
A city with a population of 100,000 will usually have lest crime per capita than a city of 3,000.000. Smaller schools have minimum majors and little else to offer stuents. They usually don't embrace diversity. However the biggest myth is they don't have any crime.............they don't REPORT any crime.
bonobo
what is th epoint of this survey? One reaction I have is this is pointless and actually tasteless to publish on the heels of the funeral of Annie Le. Did The Daily Beast really have to publish today???? Tacky Tacky tacky...and really something to be expected of a sordid British braod sheet...Tina Brown are you listening????
Also, lets get real here....you think kids with perfect SATs are going to attend some of these schools? I even wondered were some of them actually accredited 4-year schools...LOL future middle managers of America, your future is safe because you won't be attacked at a mediocre school. yes Yale is in New Haven and it has a reputation for not being a safe city but the tragedy of Annie Le's death was an isolated horrific workplace accident, or at least thats what we know to date and may never know the truth of that senseless murder. I never heard of half of these "colleges", no wonder they are considered safe.
Lets hold off on listicles of safe campuses and let that poor grieving family and her fiance mourn in peace!!
UBStudent
It should be noted that the information provided about Buffalo State College and the University at Buffalo is incorrect.
Buffalo State College and the University at Buffalo are both members of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. Buffalo State College's enrollment is dwarfed by that of it's neighbor and is no where near the largest SUNY school. The University at Buffalo which has over 19,000 undergraduates and a total enrollment of approximately 28,000, making it the largest SUNY school. It is one of New York's "University Centers" and considered by many to be the flagship SUNY school. It has been a member of the SUNY system since 1962.
Clearly the information and statistical analysis used here should be questioned seeing that not even basic facts about the schools being evaluated are correct.
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