CU has always (at least back to the early 90s) had the perception on the west coast of it being a year-round blizzard.
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I have said in the past and will say again, I dislike these types of posts because they are completely speculative. With 38,000 students, there will be some doing drugs. Most will not.
If you want your child to be in a completely drug free environment, there are few colleges around that provide that. Some students and administrators at some colleges are more relaxed than others about drug and alcohol use. Regarding Greek life, for men especially, it is very difficult to find a fraternity on any campus that hasnât been subjected to disciplinary action for alcohol violations, at some point in its history. Some get booted off campus for more serious violations and are unofficial.
Any colleges that participate in federal student aid programs are required to provide a Clery Report. There you can find actual data that can at least provide numbers of arrests and offences due to drugs, alcohol, sexual crimes, robbery, etcâŠ
Bear in mind that numbers alone are only part of the picture. How vigilant are campus police? How strict or lax is the administration? Is there an atmosphere at the college that encourages students to report offenses, or does the college try to sweep them under the rug? Is there a large commuter population? What percentage of students live on campus? Is the Clery report differentiating on campus vs off campus, where many parties, etc⊠happen, and where a lot of students live? Bottom line, these numbers are not definitive on their own and provide basic information.
I compared colleges with similar populations.
Look at page 30 of the report for CU Boulder: https://www.colorado.edu/clery/2024-ASFSR
Looks pretty bad.
Now look at CSU Fullerton, where 97% of students live off campus because it is primarily a commuter school. https://hr.fullerton.edu/documents/risk-management/Annual-Security-Report-2024-3-14-2025-ati.pdf
Wow, so safe!
Indiana, scroll about 1/3, no page numbers: https://protect.iu.edu/iu-police-department/campus-security-reports/annual-security-reports/annual-reports-html/asfsr.html
A lot of a particularly heinous crime, unfortunately.
Page 54-55, Kennesaw State, 87% commuters: 2024 Annual Fire and Safety Report - Page 54-55
Another safe school.
Alabama, page 40: https://police.ua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-University-of-Alabama-Annual-Security-and-Fire-Report.pdf
Looks like some partying going on at Alabama.
Page 120, UCSD: https://www.police.ucsd.edu/docs/annualclery.pdf
Better lock your cars there!
You get the idea. Some numbers are worse than others. Think about why. If you just google colleges with worst crime, UC Berkely and Michigan come up, as does Alabama. Most college crime stats are due to alcohol.
Make decisions based on as much research as you can find, and donât trust that rumors are definitive. Temple University, long a whipping boy for the âmost dangerous collegeâ mantra, doesnât feature in the list of most dangerous colleges. Nor does Boulder. Other famous names do:
https://www.degreechoices.com/blog/most-dangerous-college-campuses/
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Excellent post.
I will add that walking around a campus- if you can- is often revealing. Colleges invest tens of millions of dollars in enhanced security systems. And then you see the fire door of a dorm propped open with a cinderblock, because âitâs too hardâ for guests to swipe an ID every time they want to visit a friend- so they enter through the back, an unlocked and unsecured entrance.
Well- how else is a college going to prevent non-students from wandering the halls of a dorm and grabbing a wallet, a laptop, etc. unless they have a security system?
Or your kid does an overnight and observes empty or near-empty security vans driving through, across, around campus all evening. That either tells you that the campus is so safe that everyone walks everywhere. Or it tells you that students have a false sense of security, that the culture discourages using the omnipresent blue lights, vans, guards, walking escorts, etc. even when students SHOULD be using them.
Is there a âmotherlyâ Dean who says things like âif you press charges, this will haunt you for the rest of your time on campusâ, or does the administration support students who want to report a sexual assault when they were too inebriated to give consent? Does the college make sure that it is following local laws (some municipalities have banned sales of kegs in addition to liquor laws) or are there events where the grad students can pour for undergrads? And my least favorite tactic- the college âagreeingâ with local law enforcement that campus is off-limits except for a mass casualty event or natural disaster. So the campus police are in charge of campus. This both distorts the crime statistics (if a kid is mugged walking from the chem lab to the dorm, but itâs on a main road which âcountsâ as the town, not campus, is it really a mugging?) AND makes it harder for prosecution. There will be zero effort made to follow protocol w/r/t chain of evidence, securing a physical location, interviewing eyewitnesses, etc. So cases get dismissed which would have been successfully prosecuted because the ârent a copsâ arenât in the business of criminal justice. Campus police and security guards do many things well. But they arenât trained the way a local police force is.
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Wouldnât it matter whether the campus security is an actual police department (or branch of one) or not?
Yes. But thatâs why I was agreeing with Linda that the âstatisticsâ donât tell the whole story. Campus police are well trained in the use of Naloxone, mediating, helping a student who lost their phone and ID get back into their dorm room, crowd control at events, being a visible presence to discourage petty theft, etc. They are not well trained in criminal or civil procedure to understand what does or does not hold up in court or before a grand jury.
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If it is an actual police department, why would they not be reasonably trained in these things that are expected for police?
Thank you, I appreciate the honest feedback. One of our older kids goes to a nationally ranked âtop party schoolâ and does not have nearly the coke rep that CU B has, so I am just looking for the inside scoop. I appreciate the west coast perspective.
I think you have the fullerton link where the KSU link should be. KSU has grown to be quite a big, and they have build housing but many live in nearby apartments or commute.
Disagree, particularly with regard to the CU Police.
I clerked for a Boulder judge and we did the preliminary hearing for a case where an ex-husband murdered his ex-wife, in Married Student housing on the CU campus. Campus police did an excellent job as first on the scene - kept a log of everyone in and out of apt, secured suspectâs hands in paper bags, found his car parked 2 blocks away with rubber boat and cinder blocks in it, etc. The Boulder Police took over. Hmm, not such a good job AT ALL (and charges later reduced 2 second degree manslaughter I think when there was a TON of evidence that this guy did it - he was found IN the apartment with the dead ex-wife and 3 year old).
In Boulder the CU police do some nearby off campus things, especially on âThe Hillâ where there are several fraternities and a large sorority house.
Again, pot is legal in Colorado for those over 21, just like liquor. It is not a 24/7 rager.
Most living in dorms on campus are freshmen. Upperclassmen live in houses and apartments surrounding campus. All sororities are off campus but are student groups so follow some university rules, and National PanHell rules do not allow parties with alcohol in any house in the US. Most of the frat houses are not campus groups and answer to their national organizations or answer to no one; there are a few frats that are recognized as student groups and they may or may not have houses.
But the campus police are trained. They do respond to some calls from off campus (student) locations, and those would be included in a cleary report.
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I fixed it.
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There is reality, likely mixed, and perception. As an employer, my perception about students who choose U.C. Boulder is that they do so for one of two reasons: One, a love for the beauty of the area and the outdoor activities, or two, a love for pot and worse drugs. I would want to find out which it might be for any applicant who graduated from the school.
Well youâd only get one of those two answers in an interview 
Can you please clarify? You think people only choose the school for drugs or the outdoors and nothing else? And how would you find out which reason they chose a college? Surely a good GPA is more important? Or the major they chose?
It ranks in the top 100, top 50 for publics. There are a lot of really strong majors there and a lot of recruiting. Are you saying you simply wouldnât hire a Boulder grad?
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What about those who are in-state and go because itâs an affordable flagship? What about those who go because itâs strong in their intended major? What about those who might want to relocate to Colorado and go because itâs easier to tap into in-state professional networks from Boulder than from elsewhere?
Or â what about those who go for a variety of reasons on your list and mine? I donât know too many people who go to Boulder just because they are potheads (or cokeheads?). You can do that anywhere.
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Top 10 in aerospace engineering and highly regarded in other engineering too.
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I would be hesitant to hire a Boulder grad, yes, unless I could tell they were very into the outdoors and seemed âgoody goody.â
Thatâs a you problem, not a Boulder problem. And Iâm sure they wouldnât want to work for you either.
Newsflash: Kids at Harvard do drugs too. Shocking, I know.
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In fairness to the poster, there are hiring managers all over that prefer or discard certain schools for varying reasons. Much of the IB industry. And thereâs a poster on here that always says their friend wonât hire Michigan engineering grads.
I donât agree with the perspective but many do discard certain schools for really perception and not reality.
A younger colleague of mine who went to a certain selective, highly regarded LAC said there wasnât much to do in the evenings /on weekends other than smoke potâŠ
Perhaps some reality can change your perception:
The next two articles are from the last couple of days:
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