Students found guilty of sexual assault by their universities can rest assured there's a good chance they wont be kicked out of school. If they want someone to thank, they might send their praise to the Association for Student Conduct Administration for telling universities across the nation not to be "punitive" when handling campus rape.

Intense focus on sexual assault by college activists, members of Congress and the Obama administration was a catalyst this year to prompt multiple pieces of federal legislation and a White House task force to address how universities deal with campus rape.

But who should be punishing students found guilty of sex assault, and how they should be punished, remains a grey area.

Since lawmakers havent stepped up to offer definitive guidance, trade groups and consultants have filled the void. The result: Not even a third of college students found guilty of sexual assault are kicked out of school, according to a new Huffington Post analysis.

Students found responsible for sexual assault were expelled in 30 percent of cases and suspended in 47 percent of cases, according to The Huffington Posts review of data collected from nearly three dozen colleges and universities. At least 17 percent of students received educational sanctions, while 13 percent were placed on probation, sometimes in addition to other punishments.

The Huffington Post also surveyed data on cases at more than 125 other schools from fiscal year 2011 through 2013, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Department of Justice. An analysis of that data, which reported on colleges that receive federal grants to combat rape on campus, reached a similar conclusion: A conservative estimate of the cases shows 13 percent of students found responsible for sexual assault were expelled; at most, 30 percent were expelled. In addition, between 29 to 68 percent were suspended.

(READ: The schools that declined to provide any data on sexual assault .)

Meanwhile, dozens of college administrators, attorneys, experts and consultants agree: Someone who rapes another student shouldn't get to stick around campus. But in four cases that became public this year, at the University of Kansas , Michigan State University and the University of Toledo , students found responsible for sexual assault weren't suspended or expelled, but rather received probation and educational sanctions.

In another incident at James Madison University , students found responsible for an assault captured on video were punished with "expulsion after graduation."

Why? All four schools cited ASCA guidance.

"The worst thing we can do is tell someone they can't go to school at our institution," said ASCA president-elect Laura Bennett, noting that mandating sanctions could deter victims from reporting attacks.

The ASCA doesn't outright declare what punishments should be meted out, but it does distribute literature emphasizing that "campus proceedings are educational" and "the process is not punitive." The organization recommends that "legalistic language," such as "rape," "judicial," "defense" or "guilty" should be yanked from policies and procedures.

"'Rape' is a legal, criminal term," Bennett said. "We're trying to continue to share we're not court, we don't want to be court -- we want to provide an administrative, educative process."

The effects of this guidance can be found throughout the United States. Student sexual assault victims at the University of Southern California , the University of Kansas and Brandeis University were all told their school didn't intend its responses to be punitive. Universities also are using phrasing like "nonconsensual sex" to represent sexual assault, enraging students and alumni alike .

ASCA membership has been growing rapidly ever since the U.S. Department of Education issued a Dear Colleague letter to all colleges in April 2011, telling them they must adjudicate sexual assault cases on campus. The letter served as a wake-up call for schools, and since then, ASCA's membership almost doubled, Bennett said. The group currently has about 3,100 members, she said, and adds an average of three new members a day.