About 18% of undergraduate women this fall reported being sexually assaulted since coming to the University of Colorado Boulder; an increase from 15% in 2021, but remaining less than the 28% reported in 2015, according to survey data released by CU Boulder on Monday.

Reports of sexual harassment also increased substantially. About 34% of undergraduate women reported being sexually harassed in 2024 compared to 19% in 2021 and 28% in 2015. The university also expanded the survey’s list of sexual harassment behaviors compared to years prior, and when the new behaviors are taken into account, the 34% reported rate of sexual harassment increases to 44%.

CU Boulder released this data from its 2024 Sexual Assault and Related Harms Survey on Monday, which asks students about their experiences with sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, stalking and intimate partner abuse since they came to CU Boulder. The survey is administered to students every four years and has been done three times since 2015. The 2024 survey was administered in the fall and had a roughly 30% response rate, with about 10,000 students participating.

Sexual harassment was the category with the most notable increases. In addition to the increases for undergraduate women, about 25% of graduate women reported experiencing sexual harassment at CU Boulder in the 2024 survey compared to 6% in 2021 and 20% in 2015. Undergraduate men reported sexual harassment at a rate of 14% compared to 5% in 2021 and 9% in 2015. Graduate men had a 6% rate of reported sexual harassment in the 2024 survey compared to 2% in 2021 and 7% in 2015.

Part of the increases can be attributed to the university expanding its list of sexual harassment behaviors in the survey, according to online university materials related to the survey. For example, new behaviors that were added include yelling a sexual comment during a commute to campus, being leered at or having one’s personal space invaded in a way that was unwelcome and sexual. These added behaviors account for some, not all, of the increase in sexual harassment rates. The university separated the 2024 results with one table showing the sexual harassment rate with the old standard of behaviors for a direct comparison to prior years and another table showing the total rate with the new behaviors.

Julie Volckens, senior director of assessment and prevention, said the new behaviors capture a broader range of experiences.

“It’s possible people are recognizing behaviors now and classifying those as harassment,” Volckens said.

Rates of intimate partner abuse, including dating and domestic violence, increased slightly. About 17% of undergraduate women reported it happened to them compared to 13% in 2021 and 21% in 2015. The majority of the increases in this category were due to an expanded list of behaviors, similar to harassment. For example, when the new behaviors were removed from the data showing 17% of undergraduate women experienced partner abuse in 2024, the rate was the same as 2021.

For intimate partner abuse, examples of new behaviors that were added include an abusive partner refusing to use contraception, sabotaging a partner’s relationships with faculty, or stealing or monopolizing money or other resources.

Volckens said she feels simultaneously encouraged and concerned by the sexual assault survey results, which show an 18% rate of sexual assault for undergraduate women.

“It’s always concerning,” Volckens said. “We’re relieved it’s not as high as it was in 2015, (but) at 18%, there’s still a lot of work to do. That’s a lot of harm happening.”

One factor in the varied rates of sexual assault in 2015, 2021 and 2024 is the COVID-19 pandemic.

Teresa Wroe, assistant vice chancellor of prevention education and deputy Title IX coordinator, said sexual assault rates decreased in 2021 in part due to more social isolation and students not being on campus during the pandemic.

“All of those things really contributed to that big drop-off in 2021,” Wroe said, referencing the decrease in reported sexual assault from 28% in 2015 to 15% in 2021.

The expectation was that rates would increase again in 2024 because the pandemic was over, but it was unclear what the rebound would look like.

“Honestly, we were a little surprised that the uptick was more modest,” Volckens said. “It’s still really concerning, but given how little contact people were having with each other in the 2020-2021 period, it’s interesting, and we’re probably still feeling COVID effects.”

The rate of sexual assault among undergraduate men was at 4%, the rate for women graduate students was 6% and for graduate men the rate was 1%. Similar to the rates for undergraduate women, those rates also increased from 2021 percentages but are lower than rates from 2015.

The survey data showed that most sexual assaults, 72%, happen to undergraduates in their first year at CU Boulder. Most sexual assaults, 60%, occur in their first fall semester. Of the freshmen women undergraduates who started at CU Boulder in the fall and were assaulted,14% were assaulted during move-in or Welcome Week and 76% were assaulted after classes began.

In most cases, students reported that the person who sexually assaulted them was someone they knew. Often the offender was also affiliated with CU, but that happened less often compared to 2021. For example, undergraduate women in 2021 reported that 74% of the time their offender was affiliated to CU, and in 2024, that rate was 56%.

Volckens said that decrease may be because students had more contact with people in their home communities during the pandemic when they moved back temporarily.

“That was a bit of an interesting finding. We’ll parse out a little bit more closely,” she said.

The survey found no differences in sexual assault rates across race or ethnicity groups. However, the survey results showed that sexual assault rates are highest for bisexual and pansexual students. Rates were also substantially higher among students who reported having a chronic mental health disability. Undergraduate women who struggle to pay for basic necessities are also more likely to have been sexually assaulted.

The survey also explored the consequences of sexual assault. More than half of students who were sexually assaulted said it affected their mental health, intimate relationships, how they feel about their body and it eroded their confidence. Smaller percentages of students reporting being absent from classes, less productive academically, had considered not recommending CU and considered leaving CU.

Compared to undergraduate women who were not assaulted, those who were sexually assaulted struggled with a significantly lower sense of belonging, were significantly more likely to have considered leaving CU and were significantly less likely to choose CU again.

The survey results showed that the most substantial buffer against those consequences of sexual assault was not having to see or interact with the offender after the assault. Volckens said the survey also demonstrated that having a close friend also helped substantially.

“We can’t make people make close friends, but we can scaffold opportunities in the classroom, when students are at work on campus, when they’re with their advisers in their residence halls,” Volckens said. “There are all sorts of ways that we can help students find each other to build those close friendships.”

The survey also shows a slight decrease in stalking and no statistically significant changes in sexual exploitation from 2021 to 2024.

CU Boulder compared its post-COVID-19 undergraduate women sexual assault rates to other institutions. CU Boulder’s sexual assault rate of 18% is lower than other universities, including Georgetown University, Yale University, Washington University, Stanford University and Harvard University which have rates between 21% and 31%.

CU Boulder also asked the participants about whether they used university resources for support. Use of CU Boulder’s Office of Victim Assistance for undergraduate women increased from 14% to 15%, reporting to the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance remained the same at 8% and reporting to the CU Boulder Police Department increased from 4% to 5%.

Moving forward, a team will continue to analyze the data and implement various prevention and education efforts, according to university materials. These efforts are expected to include improving belonging and social connection, harm reduction and behavior change and education on topics like consent, according to the materials.

“We don’t have any illusions that we’re going to eliminate this problem,” Wroe said. “It is a broad social problem, and we spent our last 30 years on addressing this problem to little effect sometimes, and that’s challenging. But we really want our community to have the skills, have the understanding, and continue to keep that from rebounding in a way that would make us feel despair about the work we’re doing.”

To view the full survey results, visit colorado.edu/oiec/data/survey-projects/2024-cu-boul der-sexual-assault-related-harms-survey.