Download the data

Where this comes from, and what you may do with it

The underlying records are public U.S. federal disclosures: the Department of Education's Campus Safety and Security Survey, collected under the Clery Act, together with IPEDS institutional characteristics for enrollment. Federal government works are not subject to copyright, so the source data is free for anyone to use. Attribution to PlainCampus is appreciated but not required.

What PlainCampus adds, and what you may want to cite, is the derived layer: the incidents-per-1,000-students safety score, the national and state ranks computed from it, and the joins that put institution, enrollment and offense records in one row. Those are our computations, and the methodology page documents exactly how each is produced.

Two cautions carried over from the survey itself, because they change how the numbers should be read. Criminal Offenses and VAWA Offenses are separate sections and are not added together here: one incident meeting both definitions is reportable in both, so a combined total would double-count. And a reported count is a count of reports, not of adjudicated findings, so a campus that reports diligently can look worse than one that does not.

Suggested citation: PlainCampus, "Campus safety datasets" (2026-08-26), derived from the U.S. Department of Education OPE Campus Safety and Security Survey. https://plaincampus.com/data

Revenue readiness (not activated)

This section documents what is already productized and what would be required to diversify beyond AdSense. Nothing here launches a paid product, affiliate program, or alternate ad network. Every activation step is marked [operator].

Already productized

• CSV and JSON downloads for the four tables above via /api/dataset/….
• Dataset JSON-LD on this page (Google Dataset Search / citability).
• License posture: underlying federal disclosures are U.S. government works (not subject to copyright); PlainCampus-derived scores and ranks may be reused with attribution appreciated but not required.
• Shareable school/state OG cards and CiteThis blocks on entity pages (passive citability, no outreach).

Affiliate slot rules (IF ever activated)

PlainCampus is informational campus-safety data, not a commercial college-counseling or lending product. An honest affiliate test would only be considered on non-advice comparison surfaces that already rank schools by a disclosed federal metric (for example cost or enrollment rankings), never adjacent to safety advice, YMYL guidance, or methodology prose. Rules if activated: clear FTC disclosure next to every link; ranking order unchanged by payout; Module 36 density ceilings shared with ads; self-serve network only. [operator] - not applied.

Alternative ad network eligibility (paperwork only)

Mediavine-class networks typically require sustained real-human sessions well above current PlainCampus traffic (order-of-magnitude above today's GSC/GA4 levels) plus content-policy review. Eligibility paperwork can be prepared when organic sessions clear a dated traffic gate; until then AdSense remains the sole ad path. [operator] - no alternate network code or application filed from this note.

Activation checklist (all [operator]): pricing/terms for any paid data API · affiliate network application · alternate-network application · any new ad script beyond the existing AdSense path.