LSUA has been ranked the No. 3 Safest College Campus in America and No. 1 in Louisiana in Niche’s 2027 Best Colleges rankings, placing LSUA among the nation’s leaders in providing a safe and secure environment for students, faculty, and staff.
The ranking is backed by both LSUA’s low rate of reported campus crime and the voices of students who say they feel safe learning, living, and spending time on campus. Niche gave LSUA an A+ for safety in its annual evaluation of colleges and universities nationwide.
Niche’s Safest College Campuses ranking combines federal crime statistics with student perceptions of safety and conditions in the surrounding community. Campus crime rates and student safety surveys each account for 25% of the ranking, while local crime accounts for another 20%. The remaining factors measure alcohol- and drug-related arrests and reported incidents of dating violence and rape in residence halls. Most of the statistical data used in the ranking comes from the U.S. Department of Education.
For a university that functions each day much like a small community, those numbers carry particular significance. Nearly 3,500 students, faculty, and staff are on LSUA’s campus on a typical weekday, roughly the population of Louisiana communities such as Bunkie, Lake Providence, or Rayville. LSUA’s University Police Department includes seven full-time and two part-time POST-certified police officers dedicated to serving that campus community.
“LSUA has remained such a special and safe place because of strong leadership and an exceptional campus community,” said Interim Police Chief Marty Brown. “Chief Donald Collins emphasized attention to detail, professionalism, and proactivity among our officers, and that same commitment extends across campus. Our faculty, staff, and students look out for one another and report concerns before they become larger problems. We are fortunate to serve a community that operates much like a small town, where people know one another and share responsibility for the well-being of the campus.”
LSUA’s recent crime statistics help illustrate the environment behind the national ranking. Across the three most recently completed reporting years, LSUA reported no murders, rapes, robberies, or aggravated assaults, the four offenses used by the FBI to calculate violent crime rates. Based on an on-campus population of approximately 3,500, that represents a reported violent-crime rate of 0.0 incidents per 1,000 people during the period.
For additional context, SafeWise’s 2026 analysis of FBI crime data placed the national violent-crime rate at 4.43 incidents per 1,000 people. Even among the organization’s 100 safest communities in America, the average was 0.2 violent crimes per 1,000. SafeWise uses the same four violent-crime categories and calculates rates per 1,000 residents to permit comparisons among communities of different sizes.
The university’s safety record also extends beyond traditional policing. Niche’s methodology recognizes that campus safety includes how secure students feel in their daily environment, making student survey responses one of the two most heavily weighted components of the national ranking.
“Students should be able to come to LSUA expecting to feel safe and supported in the place they have chosen to learn and grow,” said LSUA Chancellor Elizabeth Beard, Ph.D. “This recognition speaks to the hard work of our University Police officers and to the shared responsibility our entire campus community takes in caring for one another. That sense of security is an important part of what makes the LSUA experience special.”
The No. 3 national ranking comes as LSUA continues to grow rapidly. With thousands of students learning on campus each year, maintaining a safe environment requires coordination among University Police, Student Engagement, Residential Life, Facilities, faculty, staff, and students themselves. The university’s approach emphasizes visible police presence, community relationships, prevention, education, and shared responsibility for maintaining a campus where students can focus on learning and belonging.
For LSUA, the national recognition speaks to something fundamental to the student experience: students should be able to come to campus expecting an excellent and affordable education and an environment in which they feel secure pursuing it. As the university continues to grow, preserving that sense of security will remain central to the LSUA experience.
Written by Adam Lord
Image [L-R]: Interim LSUA Police Chief Marty Brown, Sgt. Mechelle Williams, Officer Brandon Bryan
Photo by Mira Alvarado