Blog Ranks Danger of Missouri College Campuses

Intro:	One blog says they found Washington University in St. Louis to be one of the most dangerous college campuses in the nation. Allison Blood has more from Jefferson City.
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Wrap: The Daily Beast Blog sited information from the Department of Education to rank Washington University as the thirteenth most dangerous college campus in the nation.

Co-author of the article, Clark Merrefield, says he used statistics on murder, assault, theft and other factors to determine the level of danger.

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Description: "Looking at the data, like for Missouri as you say, like some of the schools in St. Louis rank a lot higher than some of the others that are not in big urban...places."

Washington University responded by saying the ranking system falsely inflated the crime rates becuase the majority of the crimes on their campus involve theft and are non-violent.

Other sites such as Reader's Digest with similar rankings found Washington University to be moderately safe.

From Jefferson City, I'm Allison Blood.

Intro:	This week a blog released a list of the most dangerous college campuses in the nation; naming some Missouri campuses much safer than others. Allison Blood has more from Jefferson City.
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Wrap: The Daily Beast blog compiled a list of the largest 450 schools in the nation, ranking them based on US Department of Education crime statistics.

The University of Missouri-Columbia ranked at number 226, while Washington University in St. Louis ranked at number 13.

Executive editor of Campus Safety Magazine, Robin Hattersly-Gray, says the rankings are very subjective and could be misleading.

The rankings from the Daily Beast took into consideration murder, assault, robbery and other crimes.

No Missouri schools made the list of 50 safest campuses.

From Jefferson City, I'm Alliso Blood.

Intro:	A reputable blog named the University of Central Missouri as the 221st most dangerous college campus in the nation, considerably safer than some other Missouri campuses. Allison Blood has more from Jefferson City.
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Wrap: The Daily Beast blog named Washington University in St. Louis as the thirteenth most dangerous college campus in the nation based on Deptartment of Education statistics.

Co-author of the article, Clark Merrefield, says they left rape statistics out of the mix because it is such an under-reported crime and would possibly skew the rankings.

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Description: "In some cases the, um, the schools that seem to have a very high rape total are in fact safer because they are doing a better job of coming forward and talking about it."

Washington University responded with a release stating that the methodology of the study left considerable room for error and gave a falsely high ranking to the University.

From Jefferson City, I'm Allison Blood.