Top 10 US States by Tracked Postsecondary Institutions
PlainCampus ranks US states by the number of postsecondary institutions tracked under the federal Clery Act campus safety reporting requirements. Updated automatically as new data is processed.
Research period:
Research question
Across the 5,673 US postsecondary institutions tracked in PlainCampus under federal Clery Act reporting requirements, which states host the largest number of reporting institutions, and how does the count distribute across the four-year, two-year, and less-than-two-year sectors in each leading state?
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.
Top 10 US States by Tracked Postsecondary Institutions
Live data: reflects the current dataset
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.
| # | State | Abbr | Tracked institutions | Avg safety score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | CA | 604 | 2.662 |
| 2 | New York | NY | 387 | 2.886 |
| 3 | Texas | TX | 374 | 3.954 |
| 4 | Florida | FL | 300 | 0.838 |
| 5 | Pennsylvania | PA | 299 | 5.917 |
| 6 | Ohio | OH | 260 | 2.22 |
| 7 | Illinois | IL | 222 | 1.958 |
| 8 | North Carolina | NC | 160 | 2.437 |
| 9 | Michigan | MI | 154 | 1.654 |
| 10 | New Jersey | NJ | 146 | 0.652 |
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, Campus Safety and Security Survey (Clery Act 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 (Clery Act 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 California, with a value of 604 on the Tracked institutions 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 (604) and the 10th-ranked record (146) 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 (Clery Act 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
Institution counts include all postsecondary institutions that submit Clery Act-mandated campus safety disclosures to the US Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education. The Clery Act applies to any institution that participates in federal student financial aid programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, which covers most colleges and universities but excludes some private institutions that do not accept federal aid. Tracked institutions include four-year public and private universities, community colleges, technical schools, vocational programs, and graduate-only programs. Multi-campus systems may report under a single Office of Postsecondary Education identifier (UnitID) covering all campuses, or with separate UnitIDs per campus, depending on the institution's federal reporting structure. State assignment reflects the primary mailing address of the institution. The 'safety score' is a relative ranking metric calculated within PlainCampus and is not a US Department of Education or Clery Act official score; it is a comparative aid based on per-enrollment incident rates and should not be interpreted as a definitive measure of campus safety conditions.
Secondary cut from the same source
10 states with the highest average safety score, meaning the most incidents per 1,000 students (≥ 20 tracked schools)
Sources
- U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education Campus Safety and Security Data - https://ope.ed.gov/campussafety/
- U.S. Department of Education, Clery Act Compliance Resources - https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/campus.html
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.