3 California College Towns Ranked Among America’s Safest

CALIFORNIA – Planning for college can be a major headache. Parents and kids have to worry about everything from the quality of education to the quality of Greek life, not to mention the quantity of financial aid. But it’s actually safety that most parents seek, according to a survey of hundreds of parents. That’s right, while Mom and Dad say they are concerned with money and education, they’re still parents, and that means they want their kids to be safe from danger.

And we have good news for all the parents of college-bound kids out there — the folks over at SafeWise took the time to delve into FBI crime data and ranked the nation’s 50 safest college towns. Irvine is the safest college town in California, which saw three towns on the list.

Here is a complete breakdown of the college towns in California.

IRVINE

• Rank: 10
• Population: 266,663
• Violent crimes: 0.57
• Property crimes: 14.01

ROCKLIN

• Rank: 23
• Population: 62,006
• Violent crimes: 1.05
• Property crimes: 19.39

PALO ALTO

• Rank: 25
• Population: 67,317
• Violent crimes: 1.08
• Property crimes: 21.33

The safest college town in America is Brookline, Massachusetts, according to the study published Monday. Brookline, home to Newbury College and Hellenic College, has a population of about 59,000 and a violent crime rate of .24 per 1,000 residents. The town also had a property crime rate of 10.33.

“Brookline only saw fourteen total violent crimes in 2016, according to the FBI’s most recent crime report — and there were no counts of murder or aggravated assault,” the authors wrote.

Massachusetts as a whole performed very well on the rankings, notching three of the top 10 safest college towns and four in all. Illinois and Pennsylvania also had four towns make the list.

Among the study’s key findings: 7 of the top 30 safest college towns made last year’s list and 70 percent of the cities didn’t have a single murder in 2016. Every city on the list was at least three points below the national violent crime rate of 4.64, but just four states — Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire — had violent crime rates below two per 1,000 people.

Here are the top 10 safest college towns according to SafeWise:

1. Brookline, Massachusetts
2. Deerfield, Illinois
3. Rexburg, Idaho
4. Upper Dublin, Pennsylvania
5. Wellesley, Massachusetts
6. Princeton, New Jersey
7. Newton, Massachusetts
8. Alpharetta, Georgia
9. Smithfield, Rhode Island
10. Irvine, California

SafeWise is a professional, independent review and comparison website. The authors noted that the rankings are based on the violent crime rate, which includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Property crimes, such as burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson did not affect the final ranking.

The education site Noodle surveyed parents with kids in high school or college three years ago. About 75 percent of them rated a safe environment as highly important, more than any other factor, including “good fit,” affordability and top academic experience.

Patch national reporter Dan Hampton contributed to this article; Photo credit: Shutterstock