Arizona State University and the University or Arizona recently released their 2016 campus safety reports.

The Clery Act mandates universities and colleges that receive Federal Financial Aid keep crime statistics for their campuses.

The data shows an increase in sexual assaults at ASU. Lee Gardner, a senior reporter at the Chronicle Of Higher Education, said that may have more to do with an increase in reporting, not the actual number of assaults.

"There's definitely more of a focus on sexual assault and reporting it," Gardner said. "One of the things that's happened in recent years is colleges have stepped up their efforts to deal with sexual assault and in many cases they have been compelled through Title IX cases. And so these numbers might not represent a rise in sexual assault. It may just represent a rise in reporting."

Title IX refers to a 1972 law that forbids discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs that receive federal money.

When parents and students are looking at these numbers, Gardner said they should keep the data in context.

One limitation, he said, is the scope of the Clery reports.

"The trick thing about the Clery Act is that while it has done a lot to revolutionize campus security, it still only offers a fairly limited view of the crimes that actually take place," Gardner said.

Gardner said the reports do not take off-campus incidents that involve students into account.

While the reports are touted as a way for families to find out about safety issues on prospective campuses, Gardner said fewer than one in 10 students utilize the data.

Universities can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on compliance with the Clery Act.

"This is something that is a big effort for police departments," Gardner said. "It would be nice to think that people actually pay attention to it, but it appears that they do not."

The Clery data is offered in a three-year comparative format. Gardner said, like any data, it's important to look at crime data over time to spot trends on a campus.