Eastern Washington University has achieved the highest campus safety rating among state colleges and universities, according to a website that compiles college information. EWU moves up to the top spot after being ranked number two last year by StateUniversity.com. The rankings are based on incidents of campus crime as reported by campus safety officials.
As part of its second annual Safest Schools ranking, StateUniversity.com analyzed crime statistics for 450 colleges and universities nationwide, and assigned a safety rating to each school. Safety ratings are determined based on the number of occurrences of aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, theft/larceny, motor vehicle theft, forcible rape, and murder on campus, and then are weighed based on the probability of each incident happening to each student since naturally larger campuses would be expected to have a higher number of total incidents. Violent crime is given more weight in the ranking system, and has a greater effect on the safety rating than non-violent crime such as theft.
You can view the 2012 Safest Schools rankings here.