At Humboldt State University (affectionately known to the students as Hills and Stairs Uni.), bike theft is a cottage industry. Any reasonably nice bike
will be stolen largely because of the elementary school style racks the university provides.
Originally Posted by
scarlson
This. It all depends on the university she's going to.
Campuses in rural or affluent suburban areas in my experience don't have as much of a theft problem, and locking the bike next to a big important academic building with a security desk helps. I've locked up bikes outside the research buildings at Harvard (Cambridge, not the medical school), University of Vermont, and Middlebury with no fear and never hear of thefts at these institutions. I imagine that would translate to most rural or affluent suburban areas. But I wouldn't risk regularly locking a bike outside McGill, NYU, Columbia, or U of Chicago. Urban settings are just riskier. I know grad students at Harvard med (downtownish Boston) who've had wheels pilfered in broad daylight, and a UM Ann Arbor professor who got her (well-locked-up) bike stolen from outside the building where she works. Ann Arbor isn't a big city, but the university is so big I imagine it supports a whole theft industry.
Anyway, that's the extent of my experience in terms of place vs theft risk.