One of the colleges that my daughter is applying to is Long Beach State. I've heard that there is a large slum area in the vicinity of the school. Can anyone advise me as to the safety of the area.

Thanks, Jon V

Jon, two things. One, repost with something a little more particular such as "Are there slum areas or unsafe areas around Long Beach State?". Two, most colleges and universities have slum areas nearby if the colleges are in a city environment. Rural colleges are usually isolated and are not around unsafe areas.

Cal State University Long Beach is smack-dab in the middle of a nice suburb in Long Beach called Los Altos. There are some very expensive gated communities nearby as well. There are no slums in the vicinity of the school. It's a middle-class to upper-class part of Long Beach. CSULB students live all over, but a lot shack up student-style in apartments in pricey, fun Belmont Shore and charming Belmont Heights, both nice areas of LB. It ain't Malibu, but then again, what is?

There ARE some rough neighborhoods in north Long Beach-- mostly bordering on Compton and South-Central LA. Then again, Bixby Knolls, in north Long Beach, boasts of golf courses, rolling lawns and million-dollar homes, so you can't paint any section of LB with a broad brush. Note that the CSULB south campus surrounds a large VA Hospital, which does bring in a bit of down-and-out traffic, unfortunately.

Long Beach is a big city, and there is crime. No doubt about it. But CSULB is in a pretty nice area, and your daughter should be quite safe.

Wow. I completely agree w/GT.
I visited SDSU one time (time flies) and was so impressed that the campus entrances required a person to walk up stairs. At several entrances, the homeless shopping cart people had to leave their carts at street level. This, of course, was prior to everything going ADA-compliant.

Meanwhile, the campus I finally selected was all street-level and there were / are(?) "halfway houses" in the same areas as the Fraternity and Sorority houses. You take the bad with the good.

BTW: safety is a subjective term.

Cal State LB is in a very nice middle class to upper middle class neighborhood. It is abt 10 minutes to the beach. I don't think there's much student life there, more of a commuter school. (I rec'd my MA there.)