The World of Higher Education, visualized using IPEDS data

I’ve taken a work project and converted it into something you might find useful: A compendium of IPEDS data, visualized for you to look at and play with.  All views are for undergraduates only.

For those who don’t know, IPEDS is the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System; every college or university receiving Title IV funds must report data each year.  It’s publicly available to anyone who has the time to explore by clicking here . 

It contains admissions statistics, financial aid information, finance and staffing data, and lots of other stuff.

IPEDS Data is not adjudicated, and there are certainly errors in this data, but it’s mostly right on.

If your college data is wrong, tell your IR person, not me.  For clarity’s sake, I did remove some obviously faulty data points…but no more than a dozen.

Anyway, I did seven different visualizations:

• SAT Scores of Enrolling Freshmen
• ACT Scores of Enrolling Freshmen
• Admit Rates, plotted against costs
• Draw Rate, which is Yield/Admit Rate

To which I added three views of Institutional Wealth, as measured by net endowment assets per FTE enrollment.  (Note that public and private universities use different accounting standards, so you shouldn’t compare public to private in these three.  But you can filter out with a click.)  

The views show institutional wealth and Pell Grants, Black or Hispanic Enrollment, and percent of students with institutional aid.  On many of the charts, size of the point and color are significant.


UPDATE: I edited this since its original posting, and I think it's better.  It's here.

Enjoy.  Comments welcomed.