WGU Separates From the Pack, and Other IPEDS Observations
Top 30 institutions, separating out regional public Us, state maps, and more
Phil Hill
January 08, 2026
Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Sign up, and get your own copy of the news that matters sent to your inbox every week. Sign up for the On EdTech newsletter. Interested in additional analysis? Upgrade to the On EdTech+ newsletter.
After Tuesday’s release of updated IPEDS Fall 2024 enrollment data, I wanted to share further charts for our premium subscribers.
But first, a quick note on data availability. Despite widespread concern that NCES has been “gutted,” that DOGE-related cuts have crippled federal data capacity, or that ED is failing to meet its statutory obligations, the evidence in the data itself tells a more nuanced story. NCES has continued to produce Fall Enrollment files, 12-month Enrollment data, and the PPD26 files used in negotiated rulemaking, and in several respects the current PPD26 releases are more complete and usable than those produced during the Biden administration. I don’t discount the organizational churn or real operational risk, but as someone who has been actively evaluating ED outputs to see whether the cuts are materially degrading data releases, what I see so far is continued production rather than collapse.
Top 30 Institutions
First, let’s look at the largest institutions by DE type (exclusive DE, some DE, no DE).
This chart reinforces how fully online scale fits within much larger institutional enrollment profiles, rather than standing alone. While the institutions are ranked by exclusive distance education (fully online) enrollment, the stacked bars show total enrollment across all modalities, revealing important differences in how central online education is to each institution’s overall footprint. Western Governors University now emerges as the clear leader not only in fully online enrollments, pulling decisively ahead of Southern New Hampshire University after years of near parity, but also as an institution whose enrollment is overwhelmingly concentrated in exclusive distance education. That dominance makes WGU structurally different from most other large institutions in the chart.
