US Colleges and Universities
higher-ed
Every active, degree-granting US college and university that takes part in federal student aid, as IPEDS reports it.
Median score
58
across 3553 sites
Middle half
51–64
spread around the median
Full range
16–78
lowest to highest
Gated
1283 of 3553
block AI crawlers outright
Middle of 14 cohorts. All cohorts 50 · best cohort 58.
Where this list came from
The source, and how we filtered it
| Source | IPEDS Institutional Characteristics, HD2024 (directory information), National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (2024-fall) |
|---|---|
| License | A work of the United States federal government. Not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. § 105). |
| How we filtered it | Every institution in HD2024 that is active (CYACTIVE 1), degree-granting (DEGGRANT 1) and either takes part in Title IV federal student aid or is a branch of one that does (OPEFLAG 1 or 2): 3,954 institutions in the 50 states, DC and the territories. The address is the institution's own WEBADDR, trimmed and given a scheme. A path on a host only one institution reports is cut back to the site root; a path on a host several report (a chain of campuses on one domain) is kept, because it is what tells the campuses apart. Nothing is dropped for sharing a host: each institution keeps its row and the website is measured once. Rows are ordered by state and name, and carry no rank. See scripts/prepare-higher-ed-roster. |
| Instead of | The US News ranking, a copyrighted compilation we may read but not relicense, which ranks prestige rather than describing the population. |
| Built | 2026-10-11 |
The filtering is ours and is disclosed as ours. The source published a list; the decision about which rows of it belong in a cohort was a judgment call, and it is written down so somebody can disagree with it.
Distribution
Where the 3553 sites land
| Grade | Share of the cohort | Sites | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adequate | 1489 | 41.9% | |
| Weak | 1714 | 48.2% | |
| Not ready | 325 | 9.1% | |
| Strong | 25 | 0.7% |
By dimension
What the cohort earns, dimension by dimension
The mean share of each dimension’s available points that this cohort earned. Low here means the whole sector is weak on it, not that one site dragged an average down. The per-site spread is in the dataset.
| Dimension | Mean share earned | Mean |
|---|---|---|
| #1 · Reach
These parameters determine the fundamental ease of access that AI has to your site information. |
75% | |
| #2 · Read
AI generally turns off JavaScript. Does your site information survive without it? |
52% | |
| #3 · Understand
Does a machine know who and what you are? |
30% | |
| #4 · Act
Sitemaps, redirects, 404s, licensing terms, and not wasting the crawl budget. |
76% |
How much of each site we read
The cap is 32 URLs and it is a ceiling, not a promise. A portal whose every link points at a different host yields one page; a university yields the full sample. The median here is 32, the range 1–32, published so that "we sampled 32 URLs per site" cannot become a claim the data does not support.
214 sites in this cohort served a certificate we could not verify. They were read anyway and scored normally, because reporting no response for a site every browser loads would describe our TLS stack rather than the site, and each one carries the finding in its row.
Where this cohort fails
6 tests almost nobody in this cohort passes
Universal — nobody passes these
| Test | What it asks | Failing | Of | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACT-3 | If you have a public API, is it described in a standard file? | 3 | 2 | |
| EXT-12 | Do you tell search engines the moment a page changes? | 3553 | 0 | |
| EXT-15 | Can an AI agent find out how to sign in to your site? | 3 | 0 | |
| EXT-16 | Do you publish a card or a skills list for the agents you run? | 3553 | 0 | |
| EXT-17 | Do you list your agents in your domain's DNS records? | 3345 | 0 | |
| EXT-7 | If you run real question-and-answer pages, are they marked as such? | 231 | 0 |
Near-universal — 95% and above
| Test | What it asks | Failing | Of | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EXT-11 | Have you marked the part of a page that answers a spoken question? | 3553 | 0 | |
| EXT-2 | Do you list your APIs and agent tools where agents look for them? | 401 | 0 | |
| EXT-14 | Does your site offer its actions to AI browsers as tools? | 3449 | 0 | |
| EXT-18 | Do you tell AI shoppers how they can pay? | 208 | 0 | |
| RED-10 | Do you offer a plain-text (Markdown) copy of your pages? | 3132 | 2 | |
| PST-2 | Have you posted a Content Signals statement about what AI may do with your content? | 3553 | 0 | |
| RED-12 | If a machine asks for Markdown, does your site give it? | 3553 | 2 | |
| RED-5 | Do your PDFs and images have their own rules for search and quoting? | 3019 | 1 | |
| UND-5 | Does the author label in your page code point to that person? | 2984 | 1 |
Common — 90 to 95%
Coral bars mark tests worth 2 points or more, the failures that actually move a score.
Every site
Every 3,954, named, with a report for each
Whether or not it has been scanned. Rows with no website on record, sites that were unreachable and sites that turned us away stay in the table with the reason on them, and none of them enters an average: dropping them would shrink the population to the part that was easy to measure. A few points between two neighbors is noise. The box filters every row in the cohort, not only the page you are on; click a header to sort the rows on this page by name or by score.
Showing 1,101–1,200 of 3,954 · page 12 of 40
| Site | Score | Gated | Pages read | Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heartland Community College heartland.eduIPEDS UnitID 384342; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 63 | No | 32 | |
| Hebrew Theological College htc.eduIPEDS UnitID 145497; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 62 | No | 32 | |
| Highland Community College, Illinois highland.eduIPEDS UnitID 145521; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 60 | No | 32 | |
| Illinois Central College icc.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 145682; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| Illinois College ic.eduIPEDS UnitID 145691; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 67 | No | 32 | |
| Illinois College of Optometry ico.eduIPEDS UnitID 145628; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 50 | Gated | 32 | |
| Illinois Eastern Community Colleges iecc.eduIPEDS UnitID 145707; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 65 | No | 32 | |
| Illinois Institute of Technology iit.eduIPEDS UnitID 145725; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 48 | No | 1 | |
| Illinois State University illinoisstate.eduIPEDS UnitID 145813; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 44 | Gated | 32 | |
| Illinois Valley Community College ivcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 145831; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 55 | No | 32 | |
| Illinois Wesleyan University iwu.eduIPEDS UnitID 145646; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 63 | No | 32 | |
| Institute for Clinical Social Work icsw.eduIPEDS UnitID 145886; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 54 | No | 32 | |
| John A Logan College jalc.eduIPEDS UnitID 146205; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| John Wood Community College jwcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 146278; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 74 | No | 32 | |
| Joliet Junior College jjc.eduIPEDS UnitID 146296; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Judson University judsonu.eduIPEDS UnitID 146339; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 50 | Gated | 32 | |
| Kankakee Community College kcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 146348; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 57 | No | 1 | |
| Kaskaskia College kaskaskia.eduIPEDS UnitID 146366; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 60 | No | 32 | |
| Kishwaukee College kish.eduIPEDS UnitID 146418; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 65 | No | 32 | |
| Knox College knox.eduIPEDS UnitID 146427; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Lake Forest College lakeforest.eduIPEDS UnitID 146481; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | No | 32 | |
| Lake Forest Graduate School of Management lfgsm.eduIPEDS UnitID 146490; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 51 | Gated | 31 | |
| Lake Land College lakelandcollege.eduIPEDS UnitID 146506; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 67 | No | 32 | |
| Lakeview College of Nursing lcn.eduunreachableIPEDS UnitID 146533; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | — | No | — | |
| Lewis and Clark Community College lc.eduIPEDS UnitID 146603; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 66 | No | 32 | |
| Lewis University lewisu.eduIPEDS UnitID 146612; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Lincoln College of Technology-Melrose Park lincolntech.eduIPEDS UnitID 146700; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 9 other institutions, measured once; the address on record points at a page within a site that several institutions share, which is what tells this campus from its siblings; the site is measured once | 68 | No | 32 | |
| Lincoln Land Community College llcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 146685; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 54 | Gated | 32 | |
| Loyola University Chicago luc.eduIPEDS UnitID 146719; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 53 | No | 32 | |
| Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago lstc.eduunreachableIPEDS UnitID 146728; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | — | No | — | |
| McCormick Theological Seminary mccormick.eduIPEDS UnitID 146977; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 39 | Gated | 30 | |
| McHenry County College mchenry.eduIPEDS UnitID 147004; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 66 | No | 32 | |
| McKendree University mckendree.eduIPEDS UnitID 147013; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 64 | No | 32 | |
| Meadville Theological School of Lombard College meadville.eduIPEDS UnitID 147031; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 51 | No | 32 | |
| Methodist College methodistcol.eduIPEDS UnitID 147129; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 49 | No | 32 | |
| Midwest College of Oriental Medicine-Skokie acupuncture.eduIPEDS UnitID 439020; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 1 other institution, measured once | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Midwestern Career College mccollege.eduIPEDS UnitID 457536; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 59 | Gated | 32 | |
| Midwestern University-Downers Grove midwestern.eduIPEDS UnitID 143853; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 1 other institution, measured once | 64 | No | 32 | |
| Millikin University millikin.eduIPEDS UnitID 147244; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 71 | No | 32 | |
| Monmouth College monmouthcollege.eduIPEDS UnitID 147341; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 64 | No | 32 | |
| Moody Bible Institute moody.eduIPEDS UnitID 147369; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 49 | No | 32 | |
| Moraine Valley Community College morainevalley.eduIPEDS UnitID 147378; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 50 | No | 32 | |
| Morrison Institute of Technology morrisontech.eduIPEDS UnitID 147396; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 56 | Gated | 32 | |
| Morton College morton.eduIPEDS UnitID 147411; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 48 | Gated | 30 | |
| National Louis University nl.eduIPEDS UnitID 147536; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 45 | No | 32 | |
| National University of Health Sciences nuhs.eduIPEDS UnitID 147590; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 72 | No | 32 | |
| North Central College northcentralcollege.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 147660; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| North Park University northpark.eduIPEDS UnitID 147679; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Northeastern Illinois University neiu.eduIPEDS UnitID 147776; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 71 | No | 32 | |
| Northern Baptist Theological Seminary seminary.eduIPEDS UnitID 147697; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 63 | No | 32 | |
| Northern Illinois University niu.eduIPEDS UnitID 147703; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 50 | Gated | 32 | |
| Northwestern University northwestern.eduIPEDS UnitID 147767; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Oakton College oakton.eduIPEDS UnitID 147800; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 49 | Gated | 32 | |
| Olivet Nazarene University olivet.eduIPEDS UnitID 147828; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 72 | No | 32 | |
| Pacific College of Health and Science, Illinois pacificcollege.eduIPEDS UnitID 442842; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 2 other institutions, measured once | 67 | No | 32 | |
| Parkland College parkland.eduIPEDS UnitID 147916; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 63 | No | 32 | |
| Prairie State College prairiestate.eduIPEDS UnitID 148007; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | No | 32 | |
| Quincy University quincy.eduIPEDS UnitID 148131; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 64 | No | 32 | |
| Rasmussen University-Illinois rasmussen.eduIPEDS UnitID 448673; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 5 other institutions, measured once | 53 | No | 32 | |
| Rend Lake College rlc.eduIPEDS UnitID 148256; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | No | 31 | |
| Richland Community College richland.eduIPEDS UnitID 148292; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 60 | No | 32 | |
| Rock Valley College rockvalleycollege.eduIPEDS UnitID 148380; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 67 | No | 32 | |
| Rockford University rockford.eduIPEDS UnitID 148405; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 66 | No | 32 | |
| Roosevelt University roosevelt.eduIPEDS UnitID 148487; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | No | 32 | |
| Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science rosalindfranklin.eduIPEDS UnitID 145558; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | No | 32 | |
| Rush University rushu.rush.eduIPEDS UnitID 148511; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 68 | No | 32 | |
| Saint Anthony College of Nursing sacn.eduIPEDS UnitID 149028; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 40 | Gated | 1 | |
| Saint Francis Medical Center College of Nursing sfmccon.eduIPEDS UnitID 148575; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 55 | No | 1 | |
| Saint Xavier University sxu.eduIPEDS UnitID 148627; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 53 | No | 32 | |
| Sauk Valley Community College svcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 148672; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| School of the Art Institute of Chicago saic.eduIPEDS UnitID 143048; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 63 | No | 32 | |
| Shawnee Community College shawneecc.eduIPEDS UnitID 148821; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | Gated | 32 | |
| South Suburban College ssc.eduIPEDS UnitID 149365; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 52 | Gated | 31 | |
| Southeastern Illinois College sic.eduunreachableIPEDS UnitID 148937; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | — | No | — | |
| Southern Illinois University Edwardsville siue.eduIPEDS UnitID 149231; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Southern Illinois University-Carbondale siu.eduIPEDS UnitID 149222; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 45 | Gated | 31 | |
| Southern Illinois University-System Office siusystem.eduIPEDS UnitID 149240; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; IPEDS reports this as a branch of another institution or an administrative office, such as a system office | 62 | No | 30 | |
| Southwestern Illinois College swic.eduIPEDS UnitID 143215; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Spertus College spertus.eduIPEDS UnitID 148982; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 36 | Gated | 32 | |
| Spoon River College src.eduIPEDS UnitID 148991; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 57 | Gated | 32 | |
| St. Augustine College staugustine.eduIPEDS UnitID 148876; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 56 | No | 31 | |
| St. John's College-Department of Nursing hshs.orgIPEDS UnitID 148593; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; the address IPEDS carries pointed at a page, not the site root; the root is scanned | 59 | No | 31 | |
| Stautzenberger College-Rockford Career College rockfordcareercollege.eduIPEDS UnitID 494852; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 50 | No | 32 | |
| Taylor Business Institute tbiil.eduIPEDS UnitID 149310; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 56 | No | 32 | |
| Telshe Yeshiva-Chicago telsheyeshivachicago.comIPEDS UnitID 149329; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 37 | Gated | 5 | |
| The Chicago School at Chicago thechicagoschool.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 143978; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 7 other institutions, measured once; the address on record points at a page within a site that several institutions share, which is what tells this campus from its siblings; the site is measured once; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| Trinity Christian College trnty.eduIPEDS UnitID 149505; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 74 | No | 6 | |
| Trinity College of Nursing & Health Sciences trinitycollegeqc.eduIPEDS UnitID 146755; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 49 | No | 32 | |
| Trinity International University-Illinois tiu.eduIPEDS UnitID 149514; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 1 other institution, measured once | 71 | No | 32 | |
| Triton College triton.eduIPEDS UnitID 149532; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 65 | No | 32 | |
| University of Chicago uchicago.eduIPEDS UnitID 144050; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| University of Illinois Chicago uic.eduIPEDS UnitID 145600; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 41 | Gated | 32 | |
| University of Illinois Springfield uis.eduIPEDS UnitID 148654; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| University of Illinois System Offices uillinois.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 149587; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; IPEDS reports this as a branch of another institution or an administrative office, such as a system office; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign illinois.eduIPEDS UnitID 145637; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 48 | Gated | 32 | |
| University of Saint Mary of the Lake usml.eduIPEDS UnitID 148885; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 60 | No | 32 | |
| University of St Francis stfrancis.eduIPEDS UnitID 148584; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 62 | No | 32 | |
| VanderCook College of Music vandercook.eduIPEDS UnitID 149639; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 64 | Gated | 31 | |
| Waubonsee Community College waubonsee.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 149727; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; not measured: HTTP 403 (Imperva) | — | No | — | |
| Western Illinois University wiu.eduIPEDS UnitID 149772; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 63 | No | 1 |
Scores are for the population, not for ranking two named sites against each other. A few points between neighbors is noise. See what these numbers can and cannot support. Data: sites.csv · checks.csv · summary.json