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 3,701–3,800 of 3,954 · page 38 of 40
| Site | Score | Gated | Pages read | Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galen Health Institutes-Richmond galencollege.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 498094; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 19 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 | — | No | — | |
| Galen Health Institutes-Roanoke galencollege.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 499282; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 19 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 | — | No | — | |
| George Mason University gmu.eduIPEDS UnitID 232186; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 49 | Gated | 32 | |
| Germanna Community College germanna.eduIPEDS UnitID 232195; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 65 | No | 32 | |
| Hampden-Sydney College hsc.eduIPEDS UnitID 232256; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | No | 32 | |
| Hampton University hamptonu.eduIPEDS UnitID 232265; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 52 | Gated | 32 | |
| Hollins University hollins.eduIPEDS UnitID 232308; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 52 | Gated | 32 | |
| J Sargeant Reynolds Community College reynolds.eduIPEDS UnitID 232414; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 67 | No | 32 | |
| James Madison University jmu.eduIPEDS UnitID 232423; 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 | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Laurel Ridge Community College laurelridge.eduunreachableIPEDS UnitID 232575; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | — | No | — | |
| Liberty University liberty.eduIPEDS UnitID 232557; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 64 | No | 1 | |
| Longwood University longwood.eduIPEDS UnitID 232566; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Lotus Professional College lotus.eduIPEDS UnitID 494621; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 64 | No | 18 | |
| Mary Baldwin University marybaldwin.eduIPEDS UnitID 232672; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | Gated | 32 | |
| Marymount University marymount.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 232706; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| Mountain Empire Community College mecc.eduIPEDS UnitID 232788; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 34 | Gated | 1 | |
| Mountain Gateway Community College mgcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 231873; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 69 | No | 32 | |
| New River Community College nr.eduIPEDS UnitID 232867; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 40 | Gated | 31 | |
| Norfolk State University nsu.eduIPEDS UnitID 232937; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Northern Virginia Community College nvcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 232946; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 47 | Gated | 32 | |
| Old Dominion University odu.eduIPEDS UnitID 232982; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 63 | No | 32 | |
| Patrick & Henry Community College patrickhenry.eduIPEDS UnitID 233019; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 55 | Gated | 32 | |
| Paul D Camp Community College pdc.eduIPEDS UnitID 233037; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 51 | Gated | 32 | |
| Piedmont Virginia Community College pvcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 233116; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | No | 32 | |
| Radford University radford.eduIPEDS UnitID 233277; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 62 | No | 32 | |
| Randolph College randolphcollege.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 233301; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; not measured: HTTP 403 | — | No | — | |
| Randolph-Macon College rmc.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 233295; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; not measured: HTTP 403 | — | No | — | |
| Rappahannock Community College rappahannock.eduIPEDS UnitID 233310; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | No | 32 | |
| Regent University regent.eduIPEDS UnitID 231651; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | No | 32 | |
| Richard Bland College rbc.eduIPEDS UnitID 233338; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 71 | No | 32 | |
| Riverside College of Health Careers riversideonline.comIPEDS UnitID 233408; 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 | 45 | Gated | 32 | |
| Roanoke College roanoke.eduIPEDS UnitID 233426; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 56 | Gated | 32 | |
| Sentara College of Health Sciences sentara.eduIPEDS UnitID 232885; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 69 | No | 1 | |
| Shenandoah University su.eduIPEDS UnitID 233541; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 44 | No | 32 | |
| South University-Richmond southuniversity.eduIPEDS UnitID 459259; 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 | 61 | Gated | 32 | |
| South University-Virginia Beach southuniversity.eduIPEDS UnitID 459268; 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 | 61 | Gated | 32 | |
| Southern Virginia University svu.eduIPEDS UnitID 233611; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Southside College of Health Sciences schs.eduIPEDS UnitID 233082; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 67 | No | 32 | |
| Southside Virginia Community College southside.eduIPEDS UnitID 233639; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 60 | No | 32 | |
| Southwest Virginia Community College sw.eduIPEDS UnitID 233648; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 49 | Gated | 32 | |
| Sovah School of Health Professions sovahhealth.comIPEDS UnitID 232724; 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 | 43 | Gated | 32 | |
| Standard Healthcare Services-College of Nursing standardcollege.eduIPEDS UnitID 483814; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 63 | No | 32 | |
| Strayer University-Virginia strayer.eduIPEDS UnitID 233684; 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 | 67 | No | 32 | |
| Sweet Briar College sbc.eduIPEDS UnitID 233718; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 56 | No | 32 | |
| Tidewater Community College tcc.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 233772; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| Union Presbyterian Seminary upsem.eduIPEDS UnitID 233842; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 50 | Gated | 32 | |
| University of Lynchburg lynchburg.eduIPEDS UnitID 232609; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | Gated | 32 | |
| University of Management and Technology umtweb.eduIPEDS UnitID 437097; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 40 | Gated | 32 | |
| University of Mary Washington umw.eduIPEDS UnitID 232681; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 57 | No | 32 | |
| University of Richmond richmond.eduIPEDS UnitID 233374; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 66 | No | 32 | |
| University of the Potomac-VA Campus potomac.eduIPEDS UnitID 442639; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 1 other institution, measured once | 46 | Gated | 32 | |
| University of Virginia's College at Wise uvawise.eduIPEDS UnitID 233897; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 49 | Gated | 32 | |
| University of Virginia-Main Campus virginia.eduIPEDS UnitID 234076; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 46 | Gated | 32 | |
| Virginia Beach Theological Seminary vbts.eduIPEDS UnitID 449834; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Virginia Commonwealth University vcu.eduIPEDS UnitID 234030; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 60 | No | 32 | |
| Virginia Highlands Community College vhcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 233903; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 61 | Gated | 32 | |
| Virginia Military Institute vmi.eduIPEDS UnitID 234085; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 59 | Gated | 32 | |
| Virginia Peninsula Community College vpcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 233754; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 59 | No | 32 | |
| Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University vt.eduIPEDS UnitID 233921; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 55 | Gated | 32 | |
| Virginia State University vsu.eduIPEDS UnitID 234155; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Virginia Union University vuu.eduIPEDS UnitID 234164; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 49 | No | 29 | |
| Virginia University of Integrative Medicine vuim.eduIPEDS UnitID 490106; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 39 | Gated | 32 | |
| Virginia University of Lynchburg vul.eduIPEDS UnitID 234137; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 62 | No | 30 | |
| Virginia Wesleyan University vwu.eduIPEDS UnitID 234173; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 78 | No | 1 | |
| Virginia Western Community College virginiawestern.eduIPEDS UnitID 233949; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 48 | Gated | 32 | |
| Washington and Lee University wlu.eduIPEDS UnitID 234207; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | Gated | 32 | |
| Washington University of Science and Technology wust.eduIPEDS UnitID 483780; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 50 | No | 32 | |
| William & Mary wm.eduIPEDS UnitID 231624; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 69 | No | 32 | |
| Wytheville Community College wcc.vccs.eduIPEDS UnitID 234377; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 65 | No | 32 | |
| Antioch University-Seattle antiochseattle.eduIPEDS UnitID 245883; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 62 | No | 1 | |
| Bastyr University bastyr.eduIPEDS UnitID 235547; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 66 | No | 32 | |
| Bates Technical College batestech.eduIPEDS UnitID 235671; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Bellevue College bellevuecollege.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 234669; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| Bellingham Technical College btc.eduIPEDS UnitID 234696; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 57 | No | 32 | |
| Big Bend Community College bigbend.eduIPEDS UnitID 234711; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 65 | No | 31 | |
| Carrington College-Spokane carrington.eduIPEDS UnitID 439118; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; shares one website with 13 other institutions, measured once | 57 | Gated | 32 | |
| Cascadia College cascadia.eduIPEDS UnitID 439190; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 66 | No | 32 | |
| Central Washington University cwu.eduIPEDS UnitID 234827; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 58 | No | 32 | |
| Centralia College centralia.eduIPEDS UnitID 234845; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 64 | No | 32 | |
| City University of Seattle cityu.eduIPEDS UnitID 234915; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 56 | Gated | 32 | |
| Clark College clark.eduIPEDS UnitID 234933; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 56 | Gated | 32 | |
| Clover Park Technical College cptc.eduIPEDS UnitID 234951; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 57 | Gated | 32 | |
| Columbia Basin College columbiabasin.eduIPEDS UnitID 234979; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 50 | No | 32 | |
| Cornish College of the Arts cornish.eduIPEDS UnitID 235024; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 68 | No | 31 | |
| DigiPen Institute of Technology digipen.eduIPEDS UnitID 443410; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 57 | Gated | 32 | |
| Eastern Washington University ewu.eduIPEDS UnitID 235097; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 45 | Gated | 32 | |
| Edmonds College edmonds.eduIPEDS UnitID 235103; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 66 | No | 32 | |
| Everett Community College everettcc.eduIPEDS UnitID 235149; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 50 | No | 1 | |
| Faith International University faithiu.eduIPEDS UnitID 443049; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 40 | Gated | 32 | |
| Gonzaga University gonzaga.edublockedIPEDS UnitID 235316; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| Grays Harbor College ghc.eduIPEDS UnitID 235334; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 55 | Gated | 32 | |
| Great Northern University greatnorthernu.orgIPEDS UnitID 497213; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Green River College greenriver.eduIPEDS UnitID 235343; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 67 | No | 32 | |
| Heritage University heritage.eduIPEDS UnitID 235422; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 64 | No | 32 | |
| Highline College highline.eduIPEDS UnitID 235431; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 52 | Gated | 32 | |
| Lake Washington Institute of Technology lwtech.eduIPEDS UnitID 235699; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 54 | Gated | 32 | |
| Lower Columbia College lowercolumbia.eduIPEDS UnitID 235750; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 44 | Gated | 32 | |
| North Seattle College northseattle.eduIPEDS UnitID 236072; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 67 | No | 32 | |
| Northwest College of Art & Design ncad.eduIPEDS UnitID 377546; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 45 | Gated | 32 | |
| Northwest Indian College nwic.eduIPEDS UnitID 380377; web address as the institution reported it to IPEDS (HD2024), not checked by loading it | 59 | No | 32 |
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