Ithaca, home to Cornell University, ranks 5th among the least safe college towns
When students think about what makes a great college city, safety is often an important factor. You might picture walkable streets, coffee shops packed with students, and a strong sense of community. The fact of the matter is that not every college city offers that kind of peace of mind and those safe environments.
To help students make informed choices, Wasatch Defense Lawyers took a deep dive into the data, looking at which towns are truly safe and which ones might raise eyebrows. They analyzed publicly available crime data from May 2023 to May 2025 across college towns shaped by major universities.
To make fair comparisons, they scaled the crime rates per 10,000 residents and built a safety ranking using data from the FBI and local sources. Each city’s indicated score is a reflection of the number of reported incidents across nine categories: aggravated assault, homicide, robbery, rape, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny, drug violations, and weapon law offenses. These following cities and universities were identified as the most dangerous and the safest across the United States, with the number in parentheses being the crimes per 10,000 people).
THE 10 MOST DANGEROUS COLLEGE CITIES
- Gainesville, Florida – University of Florida – (179)
- Tuscaloosa, Alabama – University of Alabama – (149)
- Tempe, Arizona – Arizona State University – (136)
- New Haven, Connecticut – Yale University – (126)
- Ithaca, New York – Cornell University / Ithaca College – (120)
- Logan, Utah – Utah State University – (112)
- Iowa City, Iowa – University of Iowa – (109)
- Cedar City, Utah – Southern Utah University – (91)
- East Lansing, Michigan – Michigan State University – (90)
- Bloomington, Indiana – Indiana University – (85)
THE 10 MOST SAFEST COLLEGE CITIES
- Berkeley, CA – University of California at Berkeley (1)
- Princeton, NJ – Princeton University (4)
- Amherst, MA – University of Massachusetts-Amherst (15)
- Pullman, WA – Washington State University (42)
- Chapel Hill, NC – University of North Carolina (44)
- Ann Arbor, MI – University of Michigan (48)
- Cambridge, MA – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (51)
- Corvallis, OR – Oregon State University (64)
- Madison, WI – University of Wisconsin (67)
- Morgantown, WV – West Virginia University (70)
To see detailed crime data on these cities, click here.
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