A recent DePaul University graduate was stabbed just steps from the Lincoln Park campus early Thursday while fighting off an attacker, authorities said.

The woman, 22, with cuts to her face and neck, was found about 3:45 a.m. in the 2300 block of North Halsted Street, Chicago police said.

She was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition, police said.

Investigators are treating the attack as sexually motivated. Police said the woman fended off her attacker and was not sexually assaulted.

“That may have been the intention,” said Tom Ahern, a Chicago police spokesman, adding that the attack appears to have been random.

Detectives have few details from the woman because the attack has left her unable to speak, police said.

Ahern said detectives are reviewing footage from surveillance cameras, some of which shows a car traveling the wrong way down Belden Avenue, turning onto Halsted, passing the victim and then making a u-turn.

The woman graduated with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, said Carol Hughes, a DePaul spokeswoman.

Julia Violini, who lives nearby, awoke Thursday and stepped onto her balcony to find police cruisers in her alley and blood staining the ground.

“It looked like someone was shot — by the amount of blood,” said Violini, 28, a nanny. “I literally walk through that alley every day and night.”

She said her landlord has multiple surveillance cameras, including ones that point toward the alley where the stabbing happened.

Violini, who has lived in the neighborhood for about nine years, was not particularly taken aback by Thursday’s gruesome occurrence.

“It’s Chicago. It’s not exactly a surprise,” she said. “Bad things happen in the summer.”

Elizabeth Fonger, 24, has lived in the area since October. Originally from Atlanta, Fonger, a real estate agent, said she chose the neighborhood because she thought it would be safe.

“It’s shocking,” she said.

Contributing: Sun-Times Wire