REPORT: Minnesota Is Home To One Of America’s Most Dangerous College Campuses
When you're selecting a college to attend, a lot of factors come into play for both the student and their family. Things that are considered can include the educational reputation of the school, the location, the extracurricular activities that are available, and more.
Another thing most people consider is the safety of the campus since a lot of students will be out on their own. With that in mind, Degree Choices conducted a study to determine the 27 most dangerous college campuses in 2023.
For the study, they used Campus Safety and Security data reported to and published by the U.S. Department of Education to analyze violent crimes on campus at public, private, and non-profit universities. They next selected colleges with a minimum institution size of 500 students with or without on-campus housing.
The colleges that made their list had the highest numbers of violent crimes on campus between 2019 and 2021 (3 years). They note that in 2019 alone, a total of 27,300 criminal incidents were reported to police and security agencies.
You may be wondering what constitutes a violent crime. A violent crime involves the use of force or threat of force against a person. The FBI says the following qualify:
- Rape
- Murder/manslaughter
- Aggravated assault
- Robbery
Furthermore, these crimes are defined as follows by Campus Safety and Security:
- Rape: The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus, with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.
- Murder/non-negligent manslaughter: The willful (non-negligent) killing of one human being by another.
- Negligent manslaughter: The killing of another person through gross negligence.
- Robbery: The taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.
- Aggravated assault: An unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. This type of assault usually is accompanied by the use of a weapon or by means likely to produce death or great bodily harm.
It's important to note that because many universities own and operate properties around their main campuses, their study focused on violent crimes committed on campus only.
When it was all said and done, their study determined the most dangerous campus to be the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which had 1,468 violent crimes reported during the aforementioned time period.
That is a significantly higher number of violent crimes than the other campuses on their list, as Ohio State University finished #2 with 583 violent crimes reported. A sad sidenote to this study, both the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Ohio State University have the highest rates of violent crime because of historic sexual abuse at the hands of university physicians.
Unfortunately, you don't have to scroll too far down the list to find a Minnesota school. The University of Minnesota campus in the Twin Cities finished at #10 with 114 violent crimes reported.
You can follow the link below to get complete details on the criteria that Degree Choices used for this study and to see the 27 college campuses that made their list. They also have a separate list showing the most dangerous campuses per 100,000 students.
Here's hoping students everywhere have a great, beneficial, and safe school year!
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