Dangerous Education: Michigan Campus Ranked Most Violent in US

Degreechoices.com, a company that helps those looking for educational opportunities find the right situation, recently combed over data reported by colleges and universities to find out which campus was the United States most dangerous.

The data was taken from reporting required for all higher educational facilities since the passage of the 1990 Clery Act. Named for Jeanne Clery, who at the age of 19 was raped and murdered on the campus of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1986.

Related: Why More and More Michigan Teens Are Saying College Not Worth It

Clery's parents sued the institution, stating had they been aware of the area's crime rate, they wouldn't have sent their daughter there. This wasn't an isolated incident either, Clery's rape and murder was the 38th violent crime that had been committed on that campus over the preceding 3 years.

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If a college or university accepts or takes part in federal aid programs, according to the Clery Act, they must report all crimes that happen on or around their campus. The data is easily accessible to anyone at the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education Campus Safety and Security tool, found here.

The 25 Most Dangerous US College Campuses Based on Reported Violent Crimes

Before we count down to a Michigan university that topped the list, here's how these institutions were ranked by Degreechoices to determine the country's most violent campus:

We 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. We selected colleges with a minimum institution size of 500 students with or without on campus housing.

Because we want this article’s focus to be on the most dangerous college campuses, we omitted violent crimes that were considered non-campus and public property.

Here's the ranking from Degreechoices.com:

More from Degreechoices on the findings of this study:

Sexual abuse committed by university physicians

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.

Full legal investigation reports:

1. Sexual Abuse Committed by Dr. Richard Strauss at the Ohio State University
2. Allegations of Sexual Misconduct Against Robert E. Anderson at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Although these egregious acts happened decades ago, they were only properly investigated and reported in the past few years. In both cases, there is evidence that university personnel had been informed of the abuse and had failed to act at the time.

Because of the gross negligence on the part of both universities, and the hundreds of students who suffered abuse, the schools will remain on the list of most dangerous universities.

We reached out to OSU and UMich for comment.

We received the following statement from OSU:

“Richard Strauss was a university-employed physician from 1978 to 1998. He died in 2005. Ohio State is a fundamentally different university today and over the past 20 years has committed substantial resources to prevent and address sexual misconduct. These actions include new policies, programs, staffing, and tools throughout the university, including athletics and the medical center. They are summarized here.” – Benjamin Johnson, Director of Media and Public Relations, Ohio State University

At UMich, we spoke to Melissa Overton, University Deputy Chief of Police and Public Information Officer, who pointed us to the school’s Annual Security and Fire Safety Report. According to the report, of the 199 rape numbers recorded on campus in 2021, 182 were attributed to Robert E. Anderson; of the 1,212 rape numbers recorded in 2020, 1,194 were attributed to Anderson.