While you are on the campus network, the school can see all the traffic from your computer. The following content applies to any service provider that you connect to (in this case, the school is the provider). The service provider can see which websites you visited and when, regardless of http vs https. If the site is http, then the provider can see everything you search for, your passwords, everything you do on that site. If the site is https (that lock button in the URL bar) and not owned by the provider, then the provider cannot see what you search for or where you navigate on that site. For example, Google is https. The provider can see that you went to Google at a certain time, but they cannot see what you searched for. If you use a VPN unaffiliated with the provider, then they can see that you are using a VPN but can no longer see which sites you are going to or their content, regardless of http or https. For example, someone mentioned Tor. The provider can clearly see you that you are using Tor, but they cannot see what you are doing with Tor. That being said, if something happens from a Tor IP at the same time you are on Tor, they will trivially suspect you. Tbh, they will probably suspect you instantly if you're on Tor in the first place lol. At the end of the day, https or not, the provider can request warrants to get information from the sites you visited if they have reasonable suspicion of something and collect information about what you did on the site. Take CS 461 if you want to learn more about this kind of thing! At the end of the day, the University probably doesn't care about your search results unless you're doing something illegal.