House Expected to OK Measure Requiring Schools to Reveal Campus Crime Figures : Congress: The bill orders colleges and universities to provide the information to applicants. It also mandates disclosure of graduation rates.

WASHINGTON —  The House is expected to approve a bill requiring colleges and universities to provide prospective students and their parents with information on campus crime and graduation rates.

The legislators were considering a House-Senate conference committee agreement that not only would provide students with more information on crime but is intended to force schools to improve campus security.

The provision to require schools to release graduation rates was prompted by concerns that student athletes were being exploited. The rates will be broken down by sex and race, and will include separate figures for students on athletic scholarships.

The bill must also go back to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.

In a written statement released in advance of debate on the bill, Rep. Bill Goodling (R-Pa.), a key sponsor of the legislation, thanked a suburban Philadelphia couple for leading the fight for the provision to alert parents and students to crime statistics.

“We are fulfilling the dreams of Connie and Howard Clery,” he said. The Clerys sparked a nationwide campaign for the bill after their daughter Jeannie was murdered at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania in 1986.

The Clerys formed a lobbying group and persuaded the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1988 to enact a set of statewide campus crime disclosure laws. Since then, 11 states have enacted similar laws, including one signed by California Gov. George Deukmejian last month.

“We will soon have a national law,” Connie Clery said Monday in a telephone interview from her home. “We’re just very grateful that this is passing because it will save thousands of lives.”

She said that college and university administrators had fought her “every step of the way, especially the private colleges.”

But Karen Baker, a spokeswoman for Goodling, said that there was very little organized opposition to the bill and that she expected it to pass easily. Paul Sweet, director of federal governmental relations for the University of California, said that some colleges had early concerns that the bill would force them to track crimes that occurred off-campus. But, he said, the conference committee agreement does not contain such a clause.

If the bill becomes law, on Sept. 1, 1991, colleges and universities receiving federal student aid would be required to establish a campus security policy and make available statistics regarding on-campus crimes. Students, parents and school employees would be able to obtain annual reports on campus security procedures.

More specifically, schools would have to compile and report figures showing the numbers of murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries and auto thefts that occurred during the three previous years. The schools also would have to report the numbers of arrests for liquor law violations, drug abuse charges and weapons possession.

Another provision would amend existing federal laws prohibiting disclosure of campus disciplinary proceedings. Thus victims of violent crimes could obtain the result of school inquiries and resulting actions.

As of July 1, 1992, schools also would have to report graduation rates for all students. Special breakouts would be required to show the annual graduation rates of students with football and basketball scholarships. A four-year average of graduation rates would be required for students receiving scholarships in other sports.