Guides to reading the data
Federal college data is unusually good, and unusually easy to misread. These short guides explain what each figure actually measures, which year it covers, and where a reasonable reader is most likely to draw the wrong conclusion.
Cost
CostNet price vs. sticker price: the two numbers that matterTuition is the number colleges advertise. Net price is the number students actually paid. The gap between them is often tens of thousands of dollars a year — and it is the gap that decides whether a college is affordable.5 min read →CostThe five income bands, explainedAlmost every college is cheaper for a low-income family than for a high-income one. That is why a single average net price is close to useless, and why the Department publishes five of them instead.5 min read →
Outcomes
OutcomesWhy the earnings figure describes students who enrolled years agoThe earnings number on a college page is not what graduates earn today. It describes people who started college roughly a decade ago. Here is why that lag is unavoidable, and what the number is still good for.4 min read →OutcomesWhich students actually count in a graduation rateThe official graduation rate counts a narrow group: first-time, full-time students, tracked for 150% of normal time. Colleges that serve many part-time or returning students look worse on it than they are — and colleges that serve few look better.5 min read →OutcomesWhen a college’s graduates earn less than high school graduatesThe federal data includes a benchmark most people never notice: what a typical worker with only a high school education earns in that state. Comparing a college’s median earnings against it is one of the most useful checks available.5 min read →
Method
MethodHow to compare two colleges fairlyMost college comparisons go wrong in the first thirty seconds, by putting two institutions side by side that should never be compared directly. Here is how to make the comparison mean something.6 min read →MethodA five-minute check of any college pageA short routine for reading a college’s data page without being misled: which figures to look at first, which years to check, and what a blank is telling you.4 min read →
Data
DataWhat "Not reported" means — and why it is not zeroA blank on a college page is not a bad result. It usually means the federal government did not have enough data to publish a reliable number. Treating a blank as zero is the single most common way to misread this data.4 min read →DataWhat the federal data cannot tell youThis site reports federal data about colleges. That data is unusually good — and it has clear limits. Knowing where those limits are is what separates using the numbers from being led by them.5 min read →
Where these guides come from
They are written by us, to explain published federal data — they are not summaries of anyone else's material, and they do not quote or reproduce third-party articles. Every figure referenced here comes from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard or the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, both of which are released as U.S. federal government works.
Each guide carries its own last-updated date. If a figure changes, we would rather update the explanation than leave a stale claim standing.