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# We Move What We Measure: Campus Safety Requires Reliable Data
- URL: https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/campus-sexual-assault-prevention-requires-reliable-data/
- Published: 2026-10-08T16:36:35.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T16:36:35.000Z
- Description: And right now, we have anything but.
- Author: Judd Kessler
- Tags: Campus Sexual Misconduct, Education, Crime

As the horrifying details in the recent allegations and reports of events at Cornell have highlighted, sexual assault on campus is a major issue, particularly for undergraduate women. 

[According to a large national survey](https://www.aau.edu/uploads/images/general/Revised-Aggregate-report-and-appendices-1-7%5F01-16-2020%5FFINAL.pdf?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) run by the [Association of American Universities](https://www.aau.edu/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) (AAU) at the end of the last decade, more than 25% of women had experienced sexual assault while in college. Such sexual assaults are associated with devastating outcomes for survivors in their [physical](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260519900335?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) and [mental health](https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1111%2Fj.1939-0025.2011.01089.x&ref=vitalcitynyc.org), [academic performance and dropout risk](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/15248380211030247?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) and [future labor market prospects](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EUHpwhSiX3Egz6lX%5FeQrTQnQpo2uJf-e?ref=vitalcitynyc.org). 

The threat of sexual assault looms large on college campuses beyond this direct harm to survivors. In the same [AAU survey](https://www.aau.edu/uploads/images/general/Revised-Aggregate-report-and-appendices-1-7%5F01-16-2020%5FFINAL.pdf?ref=vitalcitynyc.org), 92% of undergraduate women reported that sexual assault and other sexual misconduct on campus was problematic, with 45% saying it was “very” or “extremely” problematic. 

Given the scale of the harm, we should be paying close attention to anything that increases or decreases the prevalence of the problem. That's what drew us to a [new paper](https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=22977&ref=vitalcitynyc.org) by [Berkeren Büyükeren](https://www.linkedin.com/in/berkerenbuyukeren/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org),[ Alexey Makarin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexey-makarin-945b7067/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) and[ Heyu Xiong](https://www.linkedin.com/in/heyu-xiong-00588242/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) about what happened when Tinder, the dating app known for facilitating casual hookups, arrived on college campuses. 

The paper analyzes the rollout of Tinder during the 2010s to explore the impact of the app on college students. It analyzes responses on the [National College Health Assessment](https://www.acha.org/ncha/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) (NCHA), a survey of college students run each semester, to measure the app’s effect on sexual behavior and sexual violence. The researchers leveraged Tinder’s marketing strategy to compare students who were more likely to use the app to those who were less likely to use it. More likely app users reported an increase in sexual relations and more sexual partners. 

The finding that particularly struck us, however, was that more likely users of the app reported on the NCHA survey an increased rate of sexual assault over the preceding 12 months. Students more likely to be using Tinder experienced a two-percentage-point increase in the incidence of sexual assault after Tinder’s full-scale launch. With 9% of respondents reporting sexual assault on the survey, this represents approximately a 22% increase due to the introduction of the app.

A plausible story is that the increase in social and sexual interaction facilitated by the app produces more sexual encounters where consent is ambiguous, contested or violated. Indeed, research has found that other factors likely to increase social and sexual interaction also increase sexual assault on campus. Reported sexual assaults are higher when students are likely to be partying, including on [New Year’s Eve and Halloween](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4752638/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org), and around [football games](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working%5Fpapers/w21828/w21828.pdf?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) (at Division I universities). Administrators aiming to reduce sexual assault on campus need to be aware of the heightened risks posed by dating apps along with these other aggravating factors.

But the Tinder results were particularly striking to us not only because of their size, but also because they could be measured at all. The causal research design adopted by the authors was only possible because of the availability of data from the NCHA, which runs surveys each semester at schools that volunteer to participate (the [spring 2026 version](https://www.acha.org/ncha/data-results/survey-results/academic-year-2025-2026/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) of the survey involved 44,602 undergraduates from 86 different schools) and asks students whether they have experienced sexual assault.

In contrast, other campus sexual assault data is based on statistics reported to the government under the [Clery Act](https://www.clerycenter.org/the-clery-act?ref=vitalcitynyc.org), which only captures qualifying offenses reported to law enforcement or officials known as campus security authorities (including those in Title IX offices, which provide an alternative or additional civil channel to report sexual assaults on college campuses). But exclusively relying on data reported through these channels is extremely limiting and problematic for two related reasons. 

The first is that many cases of sexual assault are not reported by victims to law enforcement or campus authorities. Estimates suggest that [80% of rape and sexual-assault victimizations](https://rainn.org/facts-statistics-the-scope-of-the-problem/statistics-the-criminal-justice-system/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) of female college students were not reported to police. This means that official crime statistics can necessarily capture only a portion of sexual violence experienced by students. The second reason surrounds the incentives of schools to report on cases of sexual assault even when a victim has come forward. The nation-gripping headlines regarding Cornell University’s response to allegations described in Jane Doe’s lawsuit concerning the Chi Phi fraternity have left many wondering whether universities are appropriately equipped to respond to allegations of sexual assault; one might similarly wonder if they are equipped to report on those cases. Prior work has found that colleges, which may suffer reputational risk from reporting high numbers of sexual assaults, can [misclassify](https://publicintegrity.org/education/campus-sexual-assault-statistics-dont-add-up/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) the severity of sexual offenses or otherwise [undercount](https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/02/sexual-assaults?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) cases. Researchers should be skeptical about the veracity of data that gets reported by parties with strong incentives for the data to look a certain way. Sexual assault numbers are no exception.

As a result, data reported to the government is unlikely to be a good measure of sexual assault prevalence. For example, in a year when surveys suggested that nearly 1 in 4 women experienced sexual assault or sexual misconduct since entering college, [91% of colleges](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/01/14/american-association-of-university-women-challenges-federal-data-on-college-sexual-assault/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) reported no incidents of rape in their federal crime data.

The underreporting of sexual assault underscores the necessity for surveys about sexual assault prevalence, like the data collected by the AAU and NCHA. Measures of prevalence collected at a frequency that allows administrators and policymakers to see changes over time is essential to identify what (and where) exacerbates campus sexual assault and give insights into how to mitigate it.

This [survey data](https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/crime-victims-can-help-point-the-way-forward/) is a necessary complement to reports of sexual assault to law enforcement and Title IX offices not only because the latter data may be limited but also because interventions designed to reduce the prevalence of sexual assault can also *increase* reporting to law enforcement and other formal channels. 

This pattern might seem counterintuitive. Indeed, if all incidents of sexual assault were reported, then an intervention that reduced prevalence would mechanically reduce reporting. But this mechanical relationship breaks down in environments where the vast majority of assaults go unreported.

[Survey evidence](https://www.aau.edu/uploads/images/general/Revised-Aggregate-report-and-appendices-1-7%5F01-16-2020%5FFINAL.pdf?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) suggests that a victim’s decision of whether to report an incidence of sexual assault is likely to be related to the environment on campus. Does the victim fear retaliation? Is the institution likely to take a reported case seriously? Will a perpetrator face punishment? 

Policies adopted by a school to address sexual assault and misconduct (including the innovative approaches highlighted in Jennifer Doleac’s piece in Vital City) might simultaneously succeed in reducing prevalence of sexual assault and increasing a victim’s comfort in coming forward to report an incident to authorities. 

That a decrease in prevalence might be associated with an increase in reporting is particularly problematic if we only see data on reports. Even worse would be to use data on reports alone as our measure of campus safety.

Put differently, interventions that are effective at reducing incidence of sexual assault might look like failures if they also make victims feel safer coming forward with reports; with only half of the necessary data to assess the efficacy of their programs, policymakers and campus administrators may fail to adopt or continue such policies. Similarly, parents and students who only observe an increase in reporting and not the associated decrease in prevalence might be concerned about the intervention’s impact on campus safety. 

We have personally seen this firsthand in the related setting of intimate partner violence, which suffers a similar problem of underreporting. It is challenging for policymakers and politicians to strongly and loudly support policies that increase reporting of intimate partner violence — and thus look like they are backfiring as numbers rise — even when there is reason to believe that the uptick in reporting may be associated with a decrease in prevalence.

Solving this data problem requires collecting more data on sexual assault prevalence and doing so on a much more regular basis. With data on both prevalence and reporting, we would know whether interventions are working and how. An intervention that is shown to decrease prevalence while also increasing reporting could be lauded as a win-win. 

Unfortunately, this type of longitudinal data on prevalence is rarely available. Many of the 27 schools that agreed to participate in the first AAU survey in 2015 reported that they were planning on running surveys only [every few years](https://www.aau.edu/resource-library/aau-campus-activities-report-combating-sexual-assault-and-misconduct?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) or on an [as needed basis](https://www.aau.edu/resource-library/aau-campus-activites-report-developing-campus-ecosystem?ref=vitalcitynyc.org). The next AAU survey was run in [2019](https://www.aau.edu/resource-library/aau-campus-climate-survey-2019?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) at 33 schools, and there has not been one since. Schools that participate in the NCHA typically do not do so every semester. Some do so on an annual basis, but most do so even less frequently. 

Data on prevalence is valuable and should be collected by all schools every semester. Why isn’t it? 

A frequent refrain for why surveys are not run more regularly is a fear of survey fatigue and an associated drop in response rates. But schools survey students regularly about matters on campus, including by collecting teaching evaluations. Other concerns involve survey reliability, particularly around sensitive topics like sexual assault, about which respondents might be uncomfortable; but innovations in survey [incentives](https://academic.oup.com/restud/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/restud/rdag003/8494738?redirectedFrom=fulltext&ref=vitalcitynyc.org) and survey [design](https://kennedyjohnston.github.io/files/Johnston%5FUnderReporting.pdf?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) can potentially improve the accuracy of prevalence measures.

We suspect that a major barrier relates to the incentives of schools noted above, namely the institutional risk that comes with collecting data on sexual assault prevalence. With a high fraction of victims choosing not to report to law enforcement, surveys of incidence generate numbers substantially higher than rates observed from reporting alone. Indeed, the AAU’s first survey, run in 2015, was met with [media coverage](https://abcnews.com/Health/sexual-assault-survey-wake-call-elite-universities/story?id=33949084&ref=vitalcitynyc.org) that caused a stir at the institutions that participated. Additional risks might come from being a school that aggressively measures the prevalence of sexual assault on campus. While some might see such a move as an investment in student safety, others might view it as a signal that a school is in worse shape than its peer institutions on this issue. 

This dynamic generates a type of collective action problem. If all schools were reporting on sexual assault prevalence every semester, each school would face less institutional risk by doing so. Schools could be compared to their peer institutions, which would put each school’s prevalence rates in perspective; longitudinal data could help schools show that their interventions were working and prevalence rates were falling. In addition, the perennial attention on sexual assault could compel lagging institutions to more aggressively combat the issue, just like media attention [has been shown](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/aqod360xa86c01ub2cxqf/STRICOT-Maelle-JMP.pdf?rlkey=zp311coxhafg13inao762pshd&st=gk0d2zfv&e=1&dl=0&ref=vitalcitynyc.org) to get prosecutors to more aggressively pursue cases of violence against women. 

Solving collective action problems like this one often require government intervention. In this case, the solution might look like federal or state mandates for continuous survey evaluations — conducted by an unbiased, external third-party — to measure prevalence of sexual assault on every campus *each semester*. 

[At least nine](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/safety/2026/10/02/why-federal-data-campus-sexual-assault-still-missing?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) states already require campus climate surveys like what we are proposing, but typically only every [two](https://www.ilga.gov/Legislation/PublicActs/View/104-0127?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) to [four](https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2020/Chapter337?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) years, which might not be frequent enough to measure the efficacy of interventions. In 2022, Congress passed legislation mandating that the Department of Education develop a standardized campus climate survey that schools receiving federal educational assistance would administer every two years. But while the first national report was due in 2024,national data is [still not being collected](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/safety/2026/10/02/why-federal-data-campus-sexual-assault-still-missing?ref=vitalcitynyc.org). This delay might not be that surprising given the limited funding Congress has provided for the effort (e.g., only $1 million in FY2023 for developing and testing the survey). Federal and state authorities should provide real resources to collect prevalence data each semester so we can see whether campuses are moving in the right direction. 

This new survey data on prevalence, combined with data on cases reported to law enforcement and Title IX offices, would allow for a more complete picture of sexual assault on campus, encouraging reporting despite the current cultural and structural disincentives, and empower schools to tackle this terrible problem head on.