William Axinn’s recent study on sexual assault rates, "General population estimates of the association between college experience and the odds of forced intercourse," finds that while forced intercourse is a pervasive problem on college campuses, the risk of experiencing forced intercourse is even higher for women who have little or no college experience.
According to Axinn’s research, women who have little or no college experience are about 2.5 times more likely to experience forced sex. Men experience a similar pattern, although the rate is lower. In the United States, one in four women will experience forced intercourse by age 44.
“When I first saw how high the [sexual assault] rates were on campus, like most Americans, I was deeply disturbed,” Axinn says. “When I thought through the processes and imagined it could be even worse off-campus, I was disturbed that we’re paying so much attention to the on-campus issue and not giving enough attention to young people who are not fortunate enough to be enrolled in college.”
The study’s results were picked up by Newsweek in "Women who didn't go to college are twice as likely to be sexually assaulted than those with a degree" (by Beatrice Dupuy) and by The Detroit Free Press and USA Today in "Study: Women with little or no college face greater sexual assault risk" (by David Jesse).