Top 10 Largest US Postsecondary Institutions by Enrollment

PlainCampus ranks the largest US postsecondary institutions by total enrollment as reported under federal Clery Act campus safety disclosures. Updated automatically as new data is processed.

Research period: 2026-05-17

Compiled byPlaincampus Editorial, Campus Safety Editorial Team · June 10, 2026

Research question

Among the 5,673 US postsecondary institutions tracked in PlainCampus, which institutions report the largest enrollment in their Clery Act campus safety filings, and how do public state-system flagship universities compare to large for-profit and online-program institutions in total reported enrollment?

Methodology

This ranking reflects the data currently in our database, sourced from the agency referenced in the citation below and updated automatically as new filings are processed.

Coverage and exclusions: the source agency occasionally suppresses values for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality control, and suppressed rows are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero. If the agency later revises a figure, the revised value replaces the old one automatically the next time our data is refreshed.

Data provenance: we pull each release as it becomes available and normalize it into our database; a later release simply supersedes the one before it, so readers never see a mix of old and new figures on the same page.

Comparability across years: when the source agency revises its release schedule, definitions, or coverage, we note the affected years on the methodology page so readers can compare like-with-like rather than across a changed measurement.

Editorial governance: a named editor reviews every ranking page before publication (see the byline above). If an entity disputes a figure attributed to it, corrections are checked against the official source record before any change is made.

Every number on this page can be traced back to its source by following the entity links and the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the original public source.

See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.

The ranked top 10

Every row below reflects the current 10-record dataset. Reload the page after new data is processed to see the latest values.

#	Institution	State	Sector	Enrollment	Total reported incidents
1	Western Governors University	CA	Private nonprofit, 4-year or above	185,015	0
2	Southern New Hampshire University	NH	Private nonprofit, 4-year or above	184,099	17
3	Grand Canyon University	AZ	Private for-profit, 4-year or above	107,563	621
4	Liberty University	VA	Private nonprofit, 4-year or above	103,068	115
5	University of Phoenix-Arizona	AZ	Private for-profit, 4-year or above	101,150	0
6	Ivy Tech Community College	IN	Public, 2-year	100,077	29
7	Arizona State University Campus Immersion	AZ	Public, 4-year or above	79,593	338
8	Texas A & M University-College Station	TX	Public, 4-year or above	76,633	897
9	Lone Star College System	TX	Public, 4-year or above	70,991	8
10	University of Central Florida	FL	Public, 4-year or above	69,233	139

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, Campus Safety and Security Survey, Institution-Level Disclosures. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, Campus Safety and Security Survey, Institution-Level Disclosures. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed.

Findings

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is Western Governors University, with a value of 185,015 on the Enrollment column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record (185,015) and the 10th-ranked record (69,233) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, specifically the Campus Safety and Security Survey, Institution-Level Disclosures. PlainCampus ingests the source vintage published by the agency and keeps this page current, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published dataset is reflected here within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the steps applied to prepare the data.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.

What this analysis cannot tell us

Enrollment figures are self-reported by institutions in the Clery Act Campus Safety and Security Survey administered by the US Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education. Reported enrollment may represent total student headcount, full-time-equivalent (FTE), or other institution-specific counting conventions depending on each institution's reporting practice. Large online-only and predominantly distance-education institutions can show high enrollment numbers without proportionate on-campus presence, which affects how their incident counts should be interpreted relative to brick-and-mortar campuses. Multi-campus systems that report under a single Office of Postsecondary Education identifier consolidate enrollment across all sites; systems reporting per-campus produce separate institution records. The 'sector' field uses US Department of Education sector codes distinguishing public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit institutions at the four-year, two-year, and less-than-two-year levels. Total reported incidents are aggregate Clery Act-reportable counts across the most recent multi-year reporting window and should be interpreted alongside enrollment to derive per-capita context.

Sources

U.S. Department of Education, Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool - https://ope.ed.gov/campussafety/
U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS Enrollment Data - https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/

Every figure on PlainCampus is rendered directly from federal Clery Act source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on federal Clery Act source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.

PlainCampus is for informational purposes only and does not constitute safety, security, legal, or enrollment advice; the data describes reported on-campus activity, it is not a complete picture of safety at any campus and cannot predict any individual student's experience. See our appropriate use guidance.