About PlainCampus

Our Mission

PlainCampus exists because students, parents, and the public deserve straightforward access to the safety data that colleges are already legally required to collect and publish. The Clery Act mandates that every Title IV institution report campus crime statistics annually, but that data is scattered across individual school reports and federal databases in formats that most families never see.

We believe this barrier should not exist. Our mission is to aggregate, normalize, and present campus safety data so anyone can compare institutions on one consistent, enrollment-adjusted basis. We do the data processing work so families do not have to dig through individual school safety reports or government data portals to find the information they need.

PlainCampus is independent and does not accept institutional sponsorship. We do not assign our own safety ratings beyond the objective per-capita score derived directly from federal data. The data speaks for itself, our job is to present it clearly.

Data Sources

All data is sourced from official U.S. federal government databases:

• OPE Campus Safety Survey (Clery Act) - The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education collects annual campus crime, disciplinary action, and reported enrollment data from Title IV-participating institutions, plus fire-safety data where residential facilities make it applicable. Required under the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act.
• IPEDS Institutional Data - The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) supplies institutional type, control (public/private), and location data for U.S. colleges and universities.

Methodology

PlainCampus downloads the raw OPE Campus Safety Survey data and IPEDS institutional data from the Department of Education. We process this data through an ETL pipeline that:

• Extracts crime statistics by category (criminal offenses, VAWA, arrests, disciplinary referrals) across all geographic locations (on-campus, residential, public property, noncampus)
• Uses enrollment from the OPE survey cohort to calculate safety scores from on-campus Criminal Offenses and VAWA reports per 1,000 enrolled students
• Computes national and state rankings based on safety scores
• Aggregates fire safety data for on-campus residential facilities, including sprinkler coverage and fire incident counts
• Generates year-over-year trend analysis for institutions with multi-year data

We normalize by enrollment to make the score size-adjusted: a large university naturally has more opportunities for reports than a small liberal arts college. The score is not exposure-adjusted, however, and does not make online, commuter, and residential campuses equivalent. All calculations are derived directly from the source data without editorial adjustment.

What We Track

For each institution, we display:

• Crime statistics by category (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, arson, VAWA offenses) across on-campus, residential, public property, and noncampus locations
• Fire safety data - reported fires, injuries, deaths, and fire safety system details for residential facilities
• Arrests and disciplinary referrals - drug, liquor, and weapons violations
• Safety scores - on-campus Criminal Offenses and VAWA reports per 1,000 enrolled students, a size-adjusted comparison that excludes arrests and disciplinary referrals
• National and state rankings - where each school stands relative to peers

Data Currency

We update PlainCampus annually when the Department of Education releases new OPE Campus Safety Survey data. Our current dataset covers the most recent available reporting year. Crime statistics are reported with a one-to-two year lag from the survey year, this delay is inherent to the federal collection process, not a limitation of PlainCampus.

Reported enrollment arrives with the annual OPE survey cohort. We align incidents with that cohort's enrollment year so safety scores use a consistent per-capita denominator.

What This Data Does Not Capture

Clery Act data only covers crimes reported to campus security or local law enforcement within defined campus geography. Unreported crimes, crimes occurring off-campus beyond Clery-defined "Noncampus" property, and crimes by non-students are not included. Campus safety culture and reporting practices vary, so lower numbers do not always mean a safer campus, they may reflect underreporting. Use this data as one factor among many when evaluating a school.

Editorial Independence

PlainCampus compiles content from raw data published by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE Campus Safety Survey / Clery Act) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS / NCES). Its continuous publishing pipeline transforms those records into readable profiles and validates them against the source before publication. PlainCampus is responsible for editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from colleges, universities, or any postsecondary institution. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which institutions we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Disclaimer

This information is for general reference only and should not be considered safety, legal, or professional advice. Campus safety data is one factor among many when evaluating educational institutions. Always consult official institutional resources, campus security offices, and professional advisors for decisions affecting personal safety.

Open Data Commitment

All underlying data used by PlainCampus is public domain federal data. We add value through aggregation, normalization, and presentation, not through proprietary data. We believe that campus safety information should be freely accessible to every family making college decisions, regardless of their resources or technical ability. A bulk CSV extract of institution-level safety fields is free to download at /api/dataset/institutions?format=csv (same CSV as the homepage Dataset).

Contact

Questions, corrections, or data feedback: hello@plaincampus.com. We welcome reports of data discrepancies and suggestions for improving our presentation of campus safety information.