If College Is A Rape Culture, Why Are Women Lining Up To Attend?

Elite universities are portrayed as dangerous places for women. Their enrollment figures tell a more complicated story.  

Brian C. Joondeph | October 27, 2026

In the 2011 film Moneyball, Brad Pitt portrays Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, who listens as his scouts enthusiastically praise an up-and-coming baseball player.

Beane, unimpressed, asks a simple question.

“If he’s a good hitter, why doesn’t he hit good?”

This question should be asked about America’s elite universities, particularly in light of the ongoing Cornell Seven controversy.

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If these institutions are, as some describe them, bastions of rape culture, misogyny, and the institutional protection of sexual predators, why do so many young women desperately want to attend them? And why are their parents willing to spend or borrow as much as $100,000 annually to send their daughters into these allegedly dangerous environments?

The Cornell Seven controversy has sparked extensive publicity, protests, political brinksmanship, and accusations that Cornell and other elite universities perpetuate a culture of sexual violence.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking in Ithaca in September, declared that “the culture of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions including Cornell University, and it has got to stop.”

That’s quite a sweeping indictment of America’s top schools.

In American Thinker, I recently reviewed the Cornell Seven allegations, the conflicting evidence, and the importance of due process. Those questions remain unresolved and continue to percolate, so I won’t revisit them here.

Instead, let’s consider something wider.

What do young women actually think about these supposedly dangerous institutions? Not what politicians or activists tell them to think, but what their choices reveal.

Follow the applicants’ walk, not the media’s talk.

Cornell is one of America’s most prestigious and selective universities.

In the 2025–26 admissions cycle, Cornell received more than 72,000 undergraduate applications and admitted 8.4 percent. Nearly 36,000 of those applicants were women.

Women also make up approximately 54 percent of Cornell’s undergraduate student body.

Think about the irony of that in light of AOC’s comments.

At a major university publicly condemned for perpetuating a culture of rape and sexual assault, women aren’t fleeing.........

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