For parents sending their children away to college, as well as for young adults heading out on their own for the first time, campus safety can be a major concern. Whether you’re a college student yourself or the parent of one, you want to be confident the college or university where you or your child attend does a good job of protecting its students and maintaining the campus as a safe and secure learning environment.
Niche.com recently released its 2017 rankings for the safest college campuses across the country, including the top 31 safest college campuses in Georgia. Here’s an overview of the state’s safest schools, as well as some information on the methodology Niche used to determine its rankings.
Methodology for Determining College Campus Safety Ratings
In determining its rankings for the safest college campuses in each state, Niche looked at a number of different factors, including relevant crime and safety statistics for each school and its surrounding location, as well as information from student reviews of the school. All in all, they considered seven different factors related to campus safety:
- Campus Crime Rate, or the rate of nonsexual crimes on campus per 1,000 students, as reported by the school to the S. Department of Education.
- A Local Crime Grade determined by Niche’s own Crime & Safety Grade for particular locations, which involves a variety of factors to determine a location’s safety.
- Student Surveys on Safety, which are self-reported statistics from users on Niche’s website and which rank a school’s safety on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the safest.
- Residence Hall Date Violence Rate, assessing the incidents of date violence per 1,000 students on campus as reported to the U.S. Department of Education.
- Residence Hall Rape Rate, which is specific to the reported rape cases on campus per 1,000 students and based on data from the DOE.
- Alcohol-Related Arrests, or the number of alcohol-related arrests on the school’s campus per 1,000 students, as reported by the school to the DOE.
- Drug-Related Arrests, based on the rate of drug-related campus arrests per 1,000 and recorded by the DOE.
The Top 5 Safest Schools in Georgia
Niche’s college campus safety ratings for 2017 list safety ratings for 31 colleges and universities in Georgia. The top five safest colleges are all quite small (Piedmont, at just over 1,000 undergraduate students, is the largest) private schools. Many of these schools have excellent overall ratings on Niche and offer quality academics as well as safety.
- Piedmont College. Located in Demorest, Piedmont earned the distinction as the safest college campus in Georgia. The campus boasts a crime rate of 0 incidents of reported nonsexual crimes per 1,000 students, and an A+ grade from Niche for its local crime statistics.
- Toccoa Falls College. This small school in Toccoa Falls also has a campus crime rate of 0 per 1,000. It ranks below Piedmont mainly due to a lower local crime grade; Toccoa Falls earned a C compared to Demorest’s A+ for local crime.
- Emmanuel College – Georgia. This is another Georgia school with a 0 per 1,000 campus crime rate, as well as an A- for local crime. Niche’s student safety survey respondents did give Emmanuel a lower safety rating than students at Piedmont and Toccoa Falls, scoring it 3.6 out of a possible 5 for safety.
- Brenau University. Brenau, located in Gainesville, features a campus crime rate of 0 per 1,000. Like Toccoa Falls, it suffered in the rankings from its local crime grade, which is a C+.
- Thomas University. Like all of the other top 5 schools for safety in Georgia, Thomas University in Thomasville has a campus crime rate of 0 per 1,000. It dropped to number 5 on the list due to a C+ local crime grade and a student safety survey rating of 3.8 out of 5.
In the event that you or a loved one suffers a serious injury at a college campus – and that injury was due to the negligence of another individual – contact a Macon personal injury lawyer from Roden Law today. Your initial consultation is free.