Young women attending college face a dramatically higher risk of sexual violence than those who don't, especially if they live on campus, according to a new analysis of national crime data by Washington State University researchers.
The findings were stark: Between 2015 and 2022, the six-month risk of sexual violence was 74% higher for college-enrolled women ages 18-24 than for those not enrolled. Among college students, the rate among women living on campus was triple that of commuter students.
Those figures represented a sharp change from 2007-2014, when the risk of sexual violence was similar between college women and those not attending college — and they upend the trend from the years before that.
"To an extent, I was surprised," said Amelie Pedneault, an associate professor in WSU's Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology in Pullman and co-author of the report. "These comparisons had always shown that women who were not attending college were at higher risk. This was cited in multiple studies beforehand. Now it's the opposite."
The findings, based on surveys of 61,869 women from 2007-2022 in the National Crime Victimization Survey, were published in the Journal of American College Health . Kathryn DuBois, an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at WSU Vancouver, was the lead and corresponding author.
The highest prevalence of sexual violence was found among women living on-campus from 2015-22; during each six-month period during that range, on average, an estimated 1 in 100 women reported an instance of sexual violence.
Any sexual violence is too much, DuBois said, and college officials should redouble their efforts to make campuses safer for young women—especially given the many other benefits for young people living in a campus community.
"The university experience is so valuable," she said. "Especially the on-campus experience."
The National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, aims to capture the full impact of crime on society, including unreported crimes, by interviewing a representative sample of U.S. households about their experiences with crime every six months over a period of 3.5 years. Each year, data are gathered from a nationally representative sample of some 240,000 people, ages 12 or older, in 150,000 households; the sample includes people living in group quarters such as dormitories and boarding houses, but excludes those living in military bases or institutional settings.
"The real strength of our study is we're using this survey that's nationally representative," DuBois said. "It allows us to compare risks for college women with non-college women, and our results apply to all women attending college, not just those enrolled in high-end research universities."
Although NCVS data does not allow the study to explain the shift, it does note that it coincided with three major social developments: the campus anti-rape movement, culminating in the creation of a federal task force on the issue in 2014; the #MeToo movement, raising awareness around the pervasive nature of sexual abuse; and the rise of a misogynistic "manosphere" online, fueling hateful and toxic attitudes toward women.
The influence of these social forces on sexual violence isn't clear. It is possible that the prominence of the anti-rape and #MeToo movements spurred an increased awareness of sexual violence that resulted in greater recognition in the surveys.
However, if that were the case, they would have expected to see a larger increase in recognition of unwanted touching or threats, as opposed to rape and physical attacks, reflecting a growing awareness of the different forms of sexual violence. The NCVS surveys respondents about attempted or completed rape, attempted or completed sexual assault (defined as groping and other forms of unwanted contact) and threats of rape or sexual assault.
But the researchers found that even as the overall prevalence of sexual violence increases, the proportion of rape and violent assault remained the same, suggesting it was not a result of increased recognition. Also, if the greater awareness were leading to increased recognition, the researchers said they would have expected to see an effect on the non-college population as well.
The researchers note that certain components of college life—from the ways living spaces are organized to conventions around drinking—contribute to a "zone of vulnerability" for young women, and especially first-year students.
Pedneault also emphasized the need to focus on those committing offenses and their motivations—efforts that would need to begin before their college years. Beginning to teach boys about forming healthy relationships as early as middle school can be effective, she said.
