(MONEY Magazine) – As many as one out of three U.S. college students will be a crime victim while an undergraduate, according to the Campus Violence Prevention Center at Towson State College near Baltimore. That's disturbing news. Yet until recently, parents generally had to rely on news clips and anecdotes to learn about crime at most colleges, since schools were loath to publish crime data. Now, however, thanks to a provision of the federal Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990 that took effect in September '92, you can at least get statistics, though some may be flawed. The law requires colleges that accept federal financial assistance, as most do, to publish figures on all campus murders, rapes, robberies and assaults during the past three years as well as the number of arrests for alcohol, drug and weapons possession. The schools also must describe their campus security programs. A prospective student can usually get a copy of the college's crime pamphlet at the admissions office. Safety experts urge parents to keep in mind two important facts about stats: -- The colleges' numbers understate reality. That's because the law requires - schools to count only crimes that have occurred on campus or in adjacent areas used by student organizations. To compare the crime rates of the cities that have schools your child is considering, consult the Justice Department's annual book Crime in the U.S., available in most public libraries. -- Some campus security departments are more aggressive than others in gathering crime data. For example, security staffs at schools such as Penn State and the University of Maryland have full police powers to arrest and to investigate crimes. That fact alone means those schools' figures could look worse than others with less professionalized security forces. So, on a campus visit, stop by the school's security office and ask how the department follows up on crime reports. By doing your own detective work, you may be able to keep your child safer.