Laramie Slips in 'Safest College Town' Rankings

Home security company Safewise once again crunched the numbers to come up with their list of safest college towns in the United States. Last year (2019) Laramie, the home of the University of Wyoming, came in at number 23 on the list, up five places from 2018. The city's low crime rate was a big plus.

But, in their rankings for 2020, Laramie fell pretty far down the list to number 41. It looks like a rise in the property crime rate led to the drop. The rankings are calculated using FBI crime data.

Our rankings are based purely on which college towns reported the fewest violent and property crimes per 1,000 residents...To rank each city, 50% of the score was determined by the number of violent crimes per 1,000 and 50% of the score was determined by the number of property crimes per 1,000. - Safewise

When looking at those two crime stats to make their rankings, Safewise found that the national average for property crime rate is 22.0 per 1000 people. Laramie's was well below the average at 12.2. But that was still several times more than the safest town on the list Milton, Massachusetts, home of Currey College, at 2.2.

Safewise reports that the national average for violent crime is a national average of 3.7 per 1000 people. Laramie's was 1.0. So as far as violent crimes go, Laramie is doing good.

The five safest college towns: