We knew New Jersey was a great place to live and raise a family but did you know it’s also one of the safest places to go to college? In a new study, SafeWise picked the top 50 safest college towns in America and two of NJ’s own made the top 10.
Sending your kid off to college is already an experience that can be fraught with worry, and now with COVID there’s even more to be concerned about. SafeWise picked the safest college towns by looking at statistics involving property crimes and violent crimes, choosing the ones with the lowest numbers per 1,000 residents to make their list.
“To be in the running, cities needed to exceed a population of 15,000 residents and be home to an accredited college that offered four-year degrees,” said SafeWise. “We excluded for-profit institutions, technical and vocational schools, schools that offer only two-year degrees, and those with fewer than 2,000 students enrolled annually.”
The top 10 safest college towns in America are:
- Milton, MA
- Rexburg, ID
- Madison, NJ
- Wellesley, MA
- Bristol, RI
- Durham, NH
- Lisle, IL
- Moraga, CA
- Princeton, NJ
- Berea, OH
Hurray for NJ for getting two of our great towns on the top 10 list!
Coming in at number three, Madison is home to Fairleigh Dickinson University where students were welcomed back this fall for remote, hybrid and in-person classes.
According to SafeWise, “This college town reported fewer than 80 total crimes in 2018—three were violent offenses, and 76 were property crimes.”
Princeton lands at number nine on the list this year. The Ivy League college town, home to Princeton University, dropped eight spots since last year, but still managed to stay in the top 10.
“Property crime numbers are the biggest contributor to the city’s lower ranking, with 224 reported in 2018—that’s the most total property crimes reported among the top 10 safest college towns,” said SafeWise.
Princeton University erred on the side of caution and kept instruction online only.
Montclair also made the safest list, coming in at a respectable number 44.
Wondering where the most dangerous places to attend college are? That would Hammond, Louisiana, Memphis, Tennessee and Birmingham, Alabama, which took the spots 1-3 for most dangerous, according to SafeWise.
“For the purposes of this report, the terms ‘safest’ and ‘dangerous’ refer explicitly to crime rates as calculated from FBI crime data—no other characterization of any community is implied or intended,” SafeWise noted.
Click here to see the full list of America’s 50 safest college towns.