New survey at 27 US colleges comes at a time of heightened public awareness and increased scrutiny of what schools are doing to combat sexual assault

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A new survey finds that a quarter of women at more than two dozen US colleges say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at some point during their college career.

The survey by the Association of American Universities comes at a time of heightened public awareness and increased scrutiny of what schools are doing to combat sexual assault on campus. More than 150,000 students at the organization’s member schools participated.

The results were generally in line with past surveys on sexual assault and misconduct on college campuses – and confirmed that alcohol and drugs are important risk factors.

The AAU president, Hunter Rawlings, says university leaders hope the results will help policymakers as they develop legislative and administrative responses to combat sexual assault on college campuses.