Frequently Asked Questions About Federal Campus Crime Statistics

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights released a list of 55 "higher education institutions under investigation for possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints." This marked the first time a comprehensive list of schools being investigated for possible violations of Title IX -- a law that prohibits gender discrimination at institutions that receive federal funding -- has been made publicly available.

The list (see table below), along with a recent letter from members of Congress calling on U.S. News to include campus safety in the annual college rankings, has prompted a number of inquiries. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about this complex issue.

How can parents and students learn if a school takes campus safety, particularly reports of sexual assault, seriously?

The only source for standardized campus crime statistics is the U.S. Department of Education's Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool. Using that tool, one can look at each college's last three years of crime statistics that schools are annually required to submit to the U.S. government under the Clery Act. The site also has a glossary of terms defining what each type of crime means.

U.S. News plans to publish these same statistics on each school's online profile page in our Best Colleges directory later this year. As better data become available, we will continue to evaluate what additional resources we can make available to parents and prospective students visiting our site.

In addition, parents and students can also look at the newly released list of colleges under investigation for possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints. The government said this list will be updated regularly and made available to the public upon request by contacting OCR.

Some of the highly ranked U.S. News Best Colleges have mixed track records with reporting campus crimes, including sexual assault. How can they be considered top schools?

U.S. News does not factor in overall campus life or culture, whether positive or negative, including campus crimes or reporting of sexual violence, in the Best Colleges ranking methodology. The U.S. News rankings use quantitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality, such as academic reputation and graduation and retention rates. We believe that the indicators we use to measure academic quality are independent from campus crime statistics and proper handling of crime reporting.

We also believe that the rankings should be used as just one tool in the college search process, and that many other factors, including some that can't be measured, should be considered.

Why doesn't U.S. News include campus safety in the Best Colleges ranking methodology?

Campus safety is very important for prospective and current students, faculty, staff and all others who are part of the campus community. However, it's not currently possible to compare the relative levels of campus safety among colleges.

The U.S. News ranking methodology is based on academic indicators that are directly correlated with undergraduate academic quality, such as graduation and freshman retention rates, faculty and financial resources, SAT and ACT scores, and academic reputation. Campus safety is not among the factors U.S. News believes is directly tied to academic quality, and we believe that it should not be part of our main ranking methodology, even if it could be measured.

Is there good data available that allows U.S. News to measure campus safety, particularly sexual assault?

Each college that participates in federal student aid programs is required to annually report its campus crime statistics to the U.S. Department of Education as a result of the Clery Act.

The data that are available on campus crime are not usable to measure relative campus safety levels among colleges. Some experts, such as Robin Hattersley Gray, executive editor of Campus Safety Magazine, believe that campus crime is significantly unreported at many campuses and the data are not accurate enough to use in such a comparative analysis.

In addition, comparing campus crime stats is problematic because there are too many variables, such as campus size, location (big city versus small town), number of students and campus security, among others, for such comparisons to be fair or accurate.

In terms of comparing how campuses report and handle sexual assault cases, at this time, there are no comparative data or standardized information to rate schools' performance and their campus culture of fostering safety.

Schools under federal investigation as of May 1, 2014 (listed alphabetically by state)