Methodology & Data Sources

Data Sources

PlainCampus aggregates data from two 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, fire safety, and disciplinary action data from all Title IV-participating institutions, as required by the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act. Source: ope.ed.gov/campussafety
  • IPEDS Institutional Data - The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System provides enrollment figures, institutional type, control (public/private/for-profit), and location for every accredited U.S. college and university. Source: nces.ed.gov/ipeds
  • Clery Act Compliance Reporting - Each institution publishes an Annual Security Report (ASR) following Department of Education guidelines under ED.gov campus safety guidance. Underlying offense classifications align with the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program.

Two supplementary datasets appear elsewhere on the site, each cited inline where shown:

  • DOE Clery Act Enforcement Actions (/enforcement) - A curated, non-exhaustive list of major, publicly documented Department of Education enforcement determinations and fines, compiled from DOE press releases and Final Program Review Determinations. This is not a live-fetched federal dataset; it is manually curated and may not include every enforcement action.
  • State Campus Safety Legislation (/legislation) - A state-by-state summary of campus-safety legislation compiled from the NCSL Campus Safety legislation tracker and state legislature records. This is editorial research, not a federal database export.

Academic and financial profile figures shown on school pages (admissions, cost, and outcomes) are IPEDS-derived College Scorecard data, cross-referenced from our sibling portal PlainCollege's dataset (itself sourced from the Department of Education's College Scorecard, which draws on IPEDS, NSLDS, and Treasury/IRS earnings records).

How We Process the Data

  1. Download annual OPE Campus Safety Survey data and IPEDS institutional profiles
  2. Match institutions across both datasets using OPEID (the shared institutional identifier)
  3. Parse crime statistics by category, location type (on-campus, residential, public property, non-campus), and year
  4. Parse fire safety data for residential facilities
  5. Join enrollment data from IPEDS to calculate per-1,000-student normalized metrics
  6. Compute safety scores and rankings
  7. Load into our search-optimized database

Safety Score Calculation

Our safety score is the total number of on-campus Clery Act reportable incidents divided by enrollment, expressed per 1,000 enrolled students. We include all major crime categories (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, arson), VAWA offenses (dating violence, domestic violence, stalking), and significant arrests and disciplinary referrals.

Normalizing by enrollment makes comparisons fair, a large university naturally has more total incidents than a small college. A lower safety score means fewer incidents relative to campus population. This normalization approach is widely used in campus safety research and allows prospective students to compare schools of vastly different sizes on an equal footing. We include all major Clery categories in the composite score without subjective weighting.

Data Currency

The Department of Education releases new OPE Campus Safety Survey data annually, typically in the fall. Crime statistics are reported with a 1–2 year lag from the survey year. We update our database when new annual data is published.

Critical Limitations

  • Clery data only covers crimes reported to campus security or local law enforcement, unreported crimes are not included
  • Campus reporting practices vary significantly, lower numbers may reflect underreporting, not a safer campus
  • Only covers Clery-defined geographic areas; crimes occurring off-campus beyond defined boundaries are excluded
  • Use this data as one factor among many when evaluating a school

How the Source Agencies Collect Data

The Clery Act requires all Title IV-participating institutions to collect and report campus crime statistics annually to the Department of Education. Campus police or security departments maintain a daily crime log and report incidents occurring on campus, in campus-affiliated residential facilities, on public property immediately adjacent to campus, and at non-campus buildings owned or controlled by the institution. Institutions must also request crime statistics from local law enforcement agencies for the same geographic areas.

IPEDS data is collected through annual mandatory surveys administered by NCES to every postsecondary institution that participates in federal financial aid programs. Institutions report enrollment counts, institutional characteristics, financial data, and staffing levels through the IPEDS Data Collection System.

Data Accuracy Commitment

PlainCampus presents federal data without modification. Crime counts, enrollment figures, and safety scores are computed directly from the published OPE and IPEDS datasets. We do not estimate unreported crimes, adjust for underreporting, or editorialize about institutional safety. If you find any data that appears incorrect, please contact us and we will verify against the source data.

Contact

Questions about our methodology or found a data error? Reach us at hello@plaincampus.com or through our contact page.