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The rate of nonconsensual sexual contact reported by college students has decreased over the past five years, according to a new survey by the research company Westat.
The 387-page “Report on the 2024 Higher Education Sexual Misconduct and Awareness Survey” found that nearly 19 percent of undergraduate women reported nonconsensual sexual contact using physical force or inability to consent during their time in college, down 6.8 percentage points from 2019; 21 percent of nonbinary, transgender or questioning undergraduates reported the same, a decline of 4.7 percentage points since 2019.
Researchers received survey responses from 42,133 undergraduate, graduate and professional students at 10 institutions: the California Institute of Technology, the Universities of Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, and Georgetown, Harvard, Iowa State, Stanford, Washington (in St. Louis) and Yale Universities.
The questions mirrored those asked in the 2019 Association of American Universities’ Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct, in which all 10 institutions also took part along with 23 other colleges.
Over all, undergraduates experienced rates of nonconsensual sexual contact two to three times higher than graduate and professional students.
The survey showed that the prevalence of sexual harassment, stalking and intimate partner violence also declined among some groups during that five-year period, falling from 31.5 percent to 29.8 percent for undergraduate women and from 21.9 percent to 18.9 percent for graduate and professional students who are women.
At the same time, fewer students in 2024 than in 2019 reported knowing the definitions of sexual assault and misconduct, where to get help and report such incidents on their campus, and what happens when a report is made.
Among undergraduate men, 34 percent said they were “very” or “extremely” knowledgeable about how their institution defined sexual assault and misconduct, down from 41 percent in 2019. The share of graduate or professional student men who answered the same way fell from 31.4 percent in 2019 to 27.5 percent in 2024.
Students from all groups showed diminished confidence that their institution would take a reported sexual assault seriously and conduct a fair investigation. Among undergraduate nonbinary, transgender or questioning students, for instance, the share who said it was “very” or “extremely” likely that officials would take a report seriously fell from half in 2019 to 34 percent in 2024.
